After three years of bouncing around in the Statehouse, a proposal that would expand Central Indiana’s mass transit system was signed into a bill by Gov. Mike Pence in late March. The bill, which affects Hamilton, Marion, Hancock, Johnson, Delaware and Madison counties, would raise income taxes to help fund the project and could hit the ballot as early as 2015. Michael Hollibaugh, Director of Community Services for Carmel, said there are multiple reasons why implementing the system would serve the best interests of citizens.

“There are a lot of trends that support more dense, more urbanized lifestyle, and transit really is a part of that,” Hollibaugh said. “The younger generation wants a more diverse, urbanized feature, and they are rejecting the suburban lifestyle.”

Marisa Plummer, who is planning to attend IUPUI next year, said the idea of a new transit service would benefit lots of people. Since IUPUI would be an important stop along the line, she also mentioned it would help her personally as well.

“It would make transit a lot easier especially (for me) if you were going to visit home or if you were commuting from Carmel because driving down Meridian or even taking 465 is sometimes really difficult,” Plummer said.

Hollibaugh said educating people prior to the referendum needs to be a focus for nearly everyone involved.

“I think that we have to do a good job of informing them. The city of Carmel has to help. The leaders of the region who have been involved in this have to all speak up to help the voters understand, the residents understand why paying additional taxes is in their best interest.”

Plummer ultimately said she anticipates that the public will like the idea of expanded mass transit because it caters to major urban areas.

“It would ease people’s commutes, and it would save a lot of people’s cars from being on the road. Plus it would make downtown Indianapolis a lot more accessible. I think it definitely has more benefits than downsides because it would make Central Indiana a lot more commuter-friendly,” Plummer said.

According to Hollibaugh, the time is now for the public to decide whether paying taxes to enlarge mass transit is a good idea. Nearly all of the steps in the process have worked up to this point, he said.

“It’s (ready now) because the work that has taken years has gotten to the point where it’s ready for a vote. The fruit has been ripening as the work, as the study, as the communication, the neighborhood meetings, the public process have all occurred. All the planning has come to the point now where we know exactly what we want, we know how much we think it’s going to cost, we have the support of the legislature because they voted for the bill and the governor signed the bill,” Hollibaugh said. “All those things have come together to get to this point.”