Indy ranks low for street safety as Vision Zero enters year one
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
As Indianapolis officials work to eliminate all traffic fatalities, a new national study reveals how the safety of our streets compares with that of other metro areas.
Why it matters: Vehicle crashes claimed the lives of more than 450 people between 2019 and 2023 in Indianapolis, with pedestrians and bicyclists overrepresented among the deaths.
Driving the news: Indianapolis ranked 72nd among the 100 largest U.S. metros in StreetLight Data's latest "U.S. Safe Streets Index."
How it works: The rankings are based on five factors: vehicle miles traveled, differences in vehicle speeds, speed-based pedestrian risk, speeding in residential zones, and truck activity.
- The Indianapolis metro area ranked 86th overall in vehicle miles traveled, the highest weighted factor in the rankings.
- The metro ranked 81st for truck activity and 53rd for speed differential risk, which measures speed variation among vehicles on the same roads.
- It ranked highest (21st) for residential speeding.
The latest: Officials on Tuesday provided an update on Indianapolis Vision Zero, an initiative that aims to achieve zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2035 by rethinking how Indy streets are used, shared and designed.
Yes, but: The effort has faced criticism from pedestrian safety advocates who say it lacks transparency and urgency.
- In particular, the Vision Zero Task Force's 102-page action plan was adopted five months later than initially promised, missing the window for it to potentially receive dedicated funding as part of the 2026 city budget.
Between the lines: Vision Zero administrator LeAndre Level said you won't see a dedicated line item in the spending plan because Vision Zero is a policy framework for decision making, not a program housed within a single department.
- Instead, implementing changes will be a shared responsibility amongst all city agencies and task force members.
Threat level: Level said pedestrians and cyclists represented nearly 40% of fatal crash victims over the past five years, despite accounting for less than 5% of road users.
The other side: Eric Holt, founder of Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis, told Axios that frustration among the advocacy community stems from not everyone getting a seat at the table.
- For more than four years, Holt has maintained a public dashboard tracking local safety incidents, and he believes the city could have saved time and lives by working with him as they prepare to launch their own.
- "If you are one of those advocates that only speaks kindly to the city, you are involved. But if you're telling the true story about what we're seeing out there and being real, you're excluded," he said.
Jake Budler, co-founder of Tomorrow Bookstore and the organizer of a November Safe Streets Protest, said he's spent two years pushing for permanent changes at the intersection of Massachusetts and North College avenues after U.S. Air Force veteran Brandon Breedlove was killed in a hit-and-run.
- "And what do we still have out there? Shitty orange barricades that aren't good enough," Budler said. "It very much appears that community engagement is a box to be checked."
- "The flip side is there are people out here doing the work, putting in the energy, finding the money, and who would love to do that with the backing and support of the city."
What's next: The Vision Zero Task Force will release its inaugural annual report in May.