Broad Ripple Residents Whine About Lack Of Street Lights

Broad Ripple residents are whining about the need for street lights in their residential neighborhoods to help fight crime. The City of Indianapolis hasn't installed neighborhood street lights since 1981. Neighborhoods like mine that wanted them chipped in and paid for their initial installation ourselves and pay the ongoing costs to maintain them. Now that Broad Ripple has decided after all of these years it needs street lights, the residents want the rest of us to chip in and pay for their street lights according to this WTHR report by Mary Milz.

Fanning says she'd be willing to pitch in, but adds, "it's unfortunate because it's a citywide problem. It's effecting all of Indianapolis, not just our little neighborhood [but] every neighborhood should get help with crime. That's why we pay taxes. I'd like to see the city lift the moratorium and pony up."

DPW spokesperson Stephanie Wilson said increasing street lighting is part of the mayor's strategic plan for public safety. She said DPW has been in talks with IMPD, IPL and neighborhood groups about ways to make that happen.

Marshall said the BRVA has also been exploring ways to increase lighting - possibly getting an electrical firm to charge a fixed price for installing "standard light poles that help with public safety but define the neighborhood as well." She said they were also looking into grants to offset some of the costs to residents.

So why does the City now seem to think street lights for some neighborhoods like Broad Ripple is something the rest should be required to fund when everyone else has been forced to fend for themselves? I don't know what makes Broad Ripple residents so special, but it seems their woes receive an inordinate amount of attention in local press reports. A lot of their problems are of the making of the BRVA business owners, who seem unwilling to place any limits on new development subsidized by the rest of us or the number of bars and nightclubs they can cram into one small area. After a recent shooting incident, IMPD established a fortress in the Village to provide extra security, closing off Broad Ripple Avenue to late-night traffic on weekends. A GoFundMe site was even set up to help the BRVA pay for more added security costs that local media heavily promoted.

The WTHR report also brings up the continued problem with parking even after city taxpayers were forced to chip in and contributed $6.5 million to one of the mayor's biggest campaign contributors, Ersal Ozdemir, to build a new parking garage that too few people reportedly use. Other neighborhoods near commercial areas have implemented residential parking permit programs to eliminate overflow parking problems in surrounding neighborhoods, but the BRVA tells WTHR that proved "too complicated." So do they expect city taxpayers to build yet another parking garage?