IndyGo Transit-Oriented Development

Connecting people to place

Indianapolis and Marion County are underway implementing a new Bus Rapid Transit system. The system will improve transit connectivity throughout the City/County and provide improved access to a greater portion of the community population. The system intentionally connects people to destinations, jobs, healthcare, education and services, improving the quality of life for residents and patrons. To maximize the potential of the system, a renewed focus on providing opportunities within the adjacent neighborhoods was prioritized. Multistudio assisted the the City of Indianapolis, IndyGO, and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to create transit-oriented development updates to the consolidated zoning/subdivision ordinance.

Leveraging public investment

To ensure the transit investment is leveraged to the benefit of the community and currently underserved populations, the City, IndyGo, and the Indianapolis MPO supported an update to the development regulations. The update is focused on enabling and encouraging transit-oriented development in proximity to the current and future BRT lines. The updates are designed to create compact, connected and diverse development patterns to support the transit service, build the development and business markets, improve access locally and regionally, create place and improve community value.

We design neighborhoods by defining the public space to slow the traffic, using the urban form to create permeable facades, providing a mix of uses to give people more reasons to be there, and providing housing diversity through different unit mix types.

Enabling transit‑oriented development

Implementation of the transit-oriented development policies are being realized through form-based changes to the current zoning ordinance that focus on the design of specific community elements, including:

Creating pedestrian oriented public space through improved street design standards
Supporting compact development patterns through revisions to the building, lot and open space standards
Improving station area and neighborhood place design standards
Creating parking standards appropriate to support transit.

As a result of Multistudio’s collaboration with the project partners, the City adopted the new development standards and transit-oriented development overlay in November of 2021.