On a unanimous vote, Bloomington’s city council has adopted a “Safe Streets for All” (SS4A) action plan.
The plan is supposed to guide the city’s work towards a goal of reducing the number of deaths and serious injuries on the city’s roadways to zero by 2039. The SS4A plan is now on course to become a part of Bloomington’s transportation plan, which is a part of the city’s comprehensive plan.
It was in April of this year when the council passed a resolution adopting a goal of zero roadway deaths inside of 15 years, and to develop and adopt an SS4A action plan.
The SS4A plan will also make Bloomington eligible to apply for federal funding under the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which in 2021 established the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) discretionary program. The SS4A program has $5 billion in appropriated funds over five years, from 2022 through 2026.
In the first three years of the SS4A program, about $40 million has already been awarded to other Indiana localities, for projects costing a total of $50 million. That ratio of grant awards to project cost reflects the typical expectation of an 80-20 local match for federal transportation funding.
The next round of funding is supposed to open in March 2025.
The approaching date for that chance at funding was one consideration that spurred action by the council on Wednesday.
The federal funding application window factored into the 15 minutes of discussion that unfolded on the topic of a postponement, after councilmember Andy Ruff made a gambit to delay consideration of the SS4A until mid-January 2025.
Ruff’s effort to delay consideration, which was supported by Dave Rollo, was fraught with procedural issues, starting from the fact that Ruff was allowed to make his motion to postpone, even though the item had not been introduced. As Robert’s Rules would put it, there was no pending main motion to which Ruff’s motion to postpone could be applied.
But the council treated the effort to put off consideration of the plan until mid-January as a main motion—until the council’s administrator/attorney Lisa Lehner pointed out that under Robert’s Rules, a motion to postpone to a time certain could not extend past the council’s next regular meeting.
Also a part of the discussion on timing was the status of the SS4A plan as part of the transportation plan, which is in turn a part of the city’s comprehensive plan. Because the city council was considering a version of the plan that was different from the one that was previously approved by the plan commission, the revised SS4A plan will in any case have to return to the plan commission for another approval.
For the council to delay until mid-January would put off a vote by the plan commission until February, which would run right up against the announced March application window.
The council also heard from planning services manager Ryan Robling that previously the notices of funding opportunities through SS4A had been moved up by months each time.
Ruff detected little appetite among his colleagues for the procedural requirements of achieving a delay until January, and wound up withdrawing his motion.
On the vote to introduce the resolution adopting the SS4A plan, Rollo signaled his support for Ruff’s effort to delay, by voting against the introduction.
Ruff was on the fence about voting for the plan, because he had wanted more time to consider it. Ruff recalled that one of the first items he had to vote on as a councilmember involved speed humps on Covenanter Drive. That was in 2000, Ruff’s first year of council service.
Ruff’s point was that alterations to the roadway had customarily come in front of the city council for approval, and wanted such projects to be subject to city council approval. It’s a point that Rollo also made on Wednesday.
The issue whether the city council should have the final say over changes in the roadway was raised also raised by Rollo in the third week of November. That’s when the council approved the issuance of $4.3 million in general obligation (GO) bonds, which will in part fund projects in the SS4A plan.
During the deliberations on the GO bonds, Rollo noted that he had tried unsuccessfully in May 2023 to change the policy on neighborhood greenways and traffic calming so that the council would have direct oversight over it. But that proposal failed on a 4–5 vote.
On Wednesday, Rollo said “I think I will likely support this [SS4A] plan and then work to change code, to bring…major changes in roadways to the council for final say.”
Councilmember Hopi Stosberg she is sympathetic to the idea certain types of changes would be subject to city council review. But she thinks the best way to do that would not be to hold up the SS4A plan, but rather to amend the city code to require certain types of changes to be subject to city council approval.
The topic of the council’s role in changes to roadways is likely to come up at the council’s next meeting, on Dec. 11, when the council considers the establishment of a proposed advisory transportation commission (ATC).
The proposed ATC would replace what are currently three separate city commissions: traffic commission; parking commission; and bicycle and pedestrian safety commission. The proposed ATC would inherit the bicycle and pedestrian safety commission’s role in connection with neighborhood greenway projects. Rollo and Ruff would like to see that role assigned to the city council.
| Lead Applicant | Federal Funding | Project Cost |
| City of Indianapolis | $20,251,650 | $25,329,000 |
| City of Fort Wayne | $5,646,400 | $7,058,000 |
| City of Shelbyville | $3,628,800 | $4,536,000 |
| City of Rushville | $787,600 | $984,500 |
| Kankakee Iroquois Regional Planning Commission | $640,000 | $800,000 |
| Michiana Area Council of Governments | $500,000 | $625,000 |
| Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization | $480,000 | $600,000 |
| Madison County Council of Governments | $402,248 | $502,811 |
| Vigo County | $400,000 | $500,000 |
| Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission | $400,000 | $500,000 |
| East Central Indiana Regional Planning District | $400,000 | $500,000 |
| Town of Merrillville | $280,000 | $350,000 |
| City of West Lafayette, Indiana | $280,000 | $350,000 |
| City of Portage | $280,000 | $350,000 |
| City of Crown Point | $280,000 | $350,000 |
| City of Carmel | $280,000 | $350,000 |
| Town of Highland | $240,000 | $300,000 |
| Jasper County | $240,000 | $300,000 |
| City of Tipton | $240,000 | $300,000 |
| City of East Chicago | $240,000 | $300,000 |
| City of Columbus | $240,000 | $300,000 |
| Indianapolis Public Transportation Corporation (IndyGo) | $238,464 | $298,080 |
| Valparaiso | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| Huntington County | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| Clay County | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| City of Whiting | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| City of Terre Haute | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| City of Noblesville | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| City of Kokomo | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| City of Frankfort | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| City of Fishers | $200,000 | $250,000 |
| City of Logansport | $192,000 | $240,000 |
| Town of Newburgh | $153,960 | $192,450 |
| Town of Holland | $146,960 | $183,700 |
| City of New Haven | $140,000 | $175,000 |
| City of Gary | $140,000 | $175,000 |
| Town of Versailles | $120,000 | $150,000 |
| Town of Burns Harbor | $120,000 | $150,000 |
| City of Seymour | $120,000 | $150,000 |
| City of South Bend | $109,680 | $137,100 |
| Town of Vernon | $100,000 | $125,000 |
| Town of Ferdinand | $100,000 | $125,000 |
| Dubois County | $84,000 | $105,000 |
| City of Hammond | $80,480 | $100,600 |
| Town of Whitestown | $80,000 | $100,000 |
| City of Michigan City | $80,000 | $100,000 |
| City of Huntingburg | $72,376 | $90,470 |
| Whitley County Government | $60,000 | $75,000 |
| Totals | $40,074,618 | $50,107,711 |
cms Ruff and Rollo are playing a damaging game. cm Rollo, especially, has routinely voted for traffic calming. the 2009 Peak Oil Task Force, which he chaired (and voted for its report), recommended:
* completing the greenways implementation plan within 5 years (we are still nowhere near this goal today, 15 years later)
* adding more bike routes to that plan
* reducing the number of car lanes, converting them to bike lanes
* further calming streets that are already relatively calm
* narrowing lanes to 9 feet
* up-zone to allow greater density and mixed use within existing central neighborhoods that already have good transportation facilities
cm Rollo also chaired the 2011 platinum bicycle task force, which repeated most of those recommendations. and he voted for the 2019 transportation plan, and the 2020 traffic calming and greenways program, which were supposed to implement most of these.
the city council probably should not have design approval at the end of a project but they absolutely must have oversight over the direction that we’re going. and cm Rollo has again and again not only voted for these projects but actually been a leader in this planning process.
but now that staff is *FINALLY* implementing these projects, he’s against literally every single one of these things. he wants to delay everything — spending 15 years to barely get started on a plan that was supposed to be done in 5 years isn’t slow enough for cm Rollo! he wants to preserve every car lane. he opposes road narrowing. he opposes calming streets that are already calm. and most of all, he opposes up-zoning to allow people to live where the transportation facilities already exist.
the reason this is so downright fiendish is that he blames city staff. he champions the plan that says “do X”, and then when staff members actually do X, he attacks them personally. he says they’re committing misconduct. he says the city council needs more oversight because city staff isn’t doing what they’re told to. he’s directly impugning the character and competence of the staff that is carrying out these plans.
if the staff members had invented these plans, that might seem fair. but their hands are tied. cm Rollo invented these plans! staff is legally obligated to follow these plans. he told them to do so and successfully led the council to unanimously support every one of them.
anyways as an aside, cm Ruff is dead wrong about alterations to the roadway coming before the council. that almost has almost never happened. title 12 and title 15 changes do come to the council, as the legislative body. but the only design changes that have ever come before the council is changes for safety. changes to increase danger have always been done by staff behind closed doors without so much as a committee hearing, as a matter of routine for decades. if these clowns cared about these plans they keep voting for, they should be upset about that status quo.
here’s the bottom line: in a couple months or maybe a couple years, cm Rollo is going to be saying that staff is bad people because they are trying to reduce car capacity in order to improve safety. he’ll pretend they snuck this by him and that he never supported it. it’ was a load of hooey two years ago and it’s a load of hooey today. last night, he voted to reduce car capacity in order to improve safety. that’s what was presented to him and he voted for it.
if he didn’t want it to happen, he should have voted against it. if you’re opposed to reducing car capacity to improve safety, cm Rollo is not your hero, he’s your villain. and if you’re opposed to a status quo that kills and maims so many of our citizens, then cm Rollo is your villain there too. i just don’t see the upside to voting for things and then trying to sabotage their implementation. do you?
When CM Rollo and I voted for the transportation plan, it was conceived of as an overlay, to be referred to as road work happened naturally in each area of the plan. The traffic calming process, from the beginning, was neighborhood driven and the changes were council approved. Now the transportation plan is seen as a mandate. It was a guidebook , not a Bible. Now we have the implementation of projects over neighborhood objections and without council oversight on individual projects so citizens are thus doubly ignored. This is a recipe for over-reach and faulty decisions. Listening sessions are merely token when the input is ignored. When public input is treated as an obstacle by commissions it is a sign of local government behaving badly. The goal of zero accidents is wildly unrealistic and will be used to justify pet projects at great community expense, and as things stand, over the objections of local residents whenever necessary.
Classic Chris Sturbaum. Didn’t read the transportation plan, didn’t read this plan. There’s no goal of ‘zero accidents’ it’s zero fatalities and serious injuries. No surprise your constituents soundly rejected you for someone who can actually read.
Zero accidents or zero fatalities, both are absolutely unrealistic. The goal of this plan is simple, get more federal tax money coming in. Will this benefit the taxpayers in Bloomington, or those that are sucking up all the resources? That’s what residents should be concerned about.
Hoboken, New Jersey, has done it. No traffic deaths in eight years. It’s only unrealistic if we try to make it compatible with the goal of having high speed car traffic everywhere all the time.