The third of a series of many Broad Ripple Village Envisioning sessions was held at the American Legion Kennington Post #34 at 6440 Westfield Boulevard on Thursday, June 26, 2008. A packed room of over 30 concerned citizens gathered to weigh in on ways in which they believe the village can be "re-vamped" for future citizens and businesses.

While prior meetings focused on improving aspects of the village that already exist (such as the canal walk areas and Broad Ripple Park), the main focus of this meeting was on something that has yet to come to into existence-a mass transit system that works to improve Transit Oriented Development, better known as TOD.

The night began with the introduction of Kathy Shorter, the woman who has decided to take on the task of bringing Broad Ripple Village citizens together for the envisioning sessions.

"We have discussed before that public transit is 'key' to Broad Ripple Village's future quality of life and economics," Shorter said. "It also supports the collective commitment to sustainable lifestyle."

Numerous residents present seemed to agree with Shorter's statements, many of them making comments regarding the current economic situation and the continual rising of gas prices as a reason for developing mass transit not only in Broad Ripple, but the city as a whole.

"We need to start attracting people who want to and wish to live in a sustainable way," Shorter said. The night's activities began with the audience watching a quick 20 minute lecture video featuring Marilee Utter, the woman behind the redevelopment of mass transit in Denver, CO.

Utter's presentation was to the point, truthful and inspiring. She spoke of mass transit from a retroactive point of view-that all early cities were TOD villages, and that they worked as areas where communities and commerce thrived.

"These villages have the highest area of retail return and community because they are built for TOD," Utter said. "Retailers and developers who take the risk to invest in TOD must build as if (the form of mass transit) was coming tomorrow."

Utter noted that while all forms of mass transit are different (she pointed out 27 cities with light rail systems and around 100 with street cars), the main thing they have in common is that with time, the cities around the transit flourish.

"Land use must be developed as the transit is developed, because if it's done in this fashion, the train becomes part of the experience," she said.

She used Denver as her main example-how the city that was once a sprawled out urban jungle had developed a center that was held together by the train system they have developed over the past ten years.

She described that the honest truth was that developers and business owners will lose money in the beginning if they invest in an area that is slowly growing to become a TOD zone. She also said bringing mass transit to an area MUST be a progressive community, grass-roots lead movement, because odds are, taxes will be raised to pay for it and it won't be done over night.

"The great thing is that developers are finally beginning to catch on to this, but Indiana and Indianapolis are way behind," she said. "Indianapolis is the perfect city for mass transit because it has pocket areas, which make connections, which are the key to making a mass transit system work."

After the video presentation, attendees were asked to split into groups and discuss what it would be like living in the village if mass transit already did exist down College Avenue. The possibilities and changes in lifestyle seemed to be endless-people discussed everything from less parking problems to less air and noise pollution.

The group seems to be very dedicated to making their village visions a reality, and by putting together these envisioning sessions, they have been working with the city to first find out what the possibilities for the village can be. However, the next step will be figuring out a way to fund these visions.

While there in no comprehensive plan at this point for funding, Broad Ripple citizens should still pay attention to the future of the village-know that there are numerous concerned citizens working on behalf of the place you call home.