From the Indianapolis Star:
The plan to expand mass transit in central Indiana will have to wait another year.
Lawmakers in the Indiana House on Friday signed off on the Senate’s decision to gut transit legislation and turn it into a summer study committee.
...
House Bill 1011 would have allowed residents to decide through a referendum whether to raise their income taxes by 0.3 percent to pay for most of the local portion of a 10-year, $1.3 billion transit expansion. Marion and Hamilton counties are ready to offer the referendum in 2014. Other Central Indiana counties can opt in over time.
That tax would amount to roughly $10 to $15 per month for the average worker and would pay for most of the roughly $700 million local share. About $600 million would be federally funded.
The bill does not list specific transit projects — that's left to local leaders. Transit advocates in Marion and Hamilton counties have proposed doubling the size of the IndyGo bus service and adding a rail line or Bus Rapid Transit line along a 22-mile government-owned rail line from Noblesville to Downtown. They want Bus Rapid Transit routes — bus routes with limited stops — generally along Washington Street to the airport, along Meridian Street or nearby corridors to Greenwood and Carmel, and along Keystone Avenue and 38th Street.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013304260079
