Danger growing on Indianapolis streets as city works to protect pedestrians and bicyclists

Peggy Scotten clutched a necklace made from a dime between her fingers as she shared an increasingly common story of loss spreading across Indianapolis.

Dimes hold a special meaning to the Indianapolis woman, a sentiment spurred by her late brother, Ted, who would often give the shiny coins to her as a child. The necklace she held was made from a dime found on her son, Roy Hodges Jr. , after he was struck and killed May 28 by a SUV. It was the only money he was carrying.

"Look," Scotten told her husband when she found the dime, "Ted took Roy to heaven."

The necklace is a bittersweet reminder of the accident that killed her son as he walked along a section of West Washington Street that doesn't have a sidewalk. Hodges, 47, is among the growing number of pedestrians and bicyclists killed or seriously injured on Indianapolis streets and highways.

Last year, 238 people were killed or taken to the hospital in Marion County after being struck by vehicles, according to data from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization. That's the largest number since at least 2015.

Of those people, 45 died as a result of their injuies. In all, 315 pedestrians and bicyclists were killed in crashes in Marion County from 2015 through 2023.

The trend so far this year is not promising, according to Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis , a website that uses 911 calls to track incidents involving pedestrians and cyclists who are struck.

There already have been 729 crashes involving a pedestrian or bicyclist, surpassing last year's total of 684. That means Marion County drivers are striking people on foot or bike more than twice a day on average.

The data reinforced concerns about pedestrian safety shared by City-County Councilor John Barth , pedestrian safety advocate Eric Holt, the founder of Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis, and others across Indianapolis.

"For the longest time," Holt said, "nobody wanted to talk about this."

The city is addressing concerns about the trend with a Vision Zero task force , which was approved by the City-County Council in late August. The goal is to eliminate all traffic deaths, including those of pedestrians. A $1.1 billion infrastructure plan enacted in 2023 also takes pedestrian safety into account in work on city roads.

Holt said the city took too long to take action on the growing problem.

Mix of factors behind growing number of incidents The trend can be traced to a complex mix of factors, including the city's car-centric culture , inattentive and reckless drivers, limited public transportation options, deep pockets of poverty with heavy pedestrian traffic, a lack of bike lanes, and the absence of street lights and sidewalks in many high-traffic areas.

Despite the growing number of pedestrian struck in recent years, the near-daily carnage largely failed to generate the public outrage or the political will to force local officials to focus on safety improvements at a time the city was awash in other infrastructure and funding demands.

Barth described the issue as a "low hum, but consistent problem," but it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that he and some other city leaders noticed things getting worse. Constituents told Barth they saw reckless driving with people blowing past red lights, speeding, and other behaviors that put pedestrians at risk.

But it wasn't until 2021, after 7-year-old Hannah Crutchfield was struck and killed in Irvington, that the long-simmering problem was forced into the public consciousness.

During what police described as a road rage incident , a driver being chased by another motorist on East Washington Street ran a red light at Ritter Avenue and slammed into a SUV. The collision propelled the SUV onto the sidewalk, where it hit Hannah and her mother as they walked home from George W. Julian School 57.

The tragedy put a face on the problem, prompting citizens to take independent steps to improve pedestrian safety in some neighborhoods while waiting for public officials to take a more holistic response. It also pushed citizen-advocates to begin tracking — and publicizing — the steady stream of accidents in an effort to ramp up pressure on city leaders.

'It was disturbing to say the least' Holt, a software engineer by trade, was among residents with growing concerns about pedestrian safety. As he got more into cycling and walking during the COVID-19 pandemic, Holt said he noticed worsening driver behavior around the city — an issue he came to believe wasn't being taken seriously by the local officials.

To see if data backed up his personal experiences, he began trying to manually track pedestrian accidents in 2020. It didn't take long to find his answer.

"I don't remember the exact number of incident reports that we saw, but it was quite a few," Holt said. "It was disturbing to say the least."

Holt also found that manually tracking the data was inefficient and took a break from the work until another local advocate wanted to pick up the project again in early 2022. Since then, Holt's been grabbing information from 911 calls, and on occasion, reports from the Citizen app. His data, which he allowed IndyStar to use for this story, is available on the Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis website .

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization tracks crash data, too, but it lags months behind. While the MPO data is helpful, Holt believes it is essential to understand what's happening in real time (during an interview for this story, Holt was interrupted by a notification on his crash dashboard about a cyclist struck on E. New York Street near College Avenue ).

"It was a real slow build to get people to realize, one, that there was an issue, and to start looking at it in that way," he said.

Victims are more than just statistics A map on Holt's website marks hundreds of accident sites, but the tiny dots are more than statistical points. Each one represents a real person — someone's child, parent, sibling, friend, neighbor or loved one — who was struck by a vehicle.

Humberto Rodriguez-Garcia, 71, was among at least 32 pedestrians killed during the first 10 months of 2024. He was hit by a car at about 10:15 p.m. June 17 at the intersection of Michigan Road and DePauw Boulevard.

Born and raised in Fidel Castro-era Cuba, he and his brother escaped to America on a homemade raft. They were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard off the coast of Florida, where they were granted asylum. Rodriguez-Garcia eventually moved to New Jersey, getting a job at an embroidery factory and marrying a co-worker. The couple raised two daughters and were loving grandparents, said his daughter Aracely Hillebrecht.

After Rodriguez-Garcia's wife died in 2021, he traveled across the country to care for horses and attend horse races. He was returning home with a friend from a race at the Horseshoe Casino in Shelbyville the night he was struck as they tried to cross Michigan Road.

The impact launched his body to the opposite side of the road, where it landed in a patch of weeds. The driver called 911 and remained at the scene, cooperating with the police, and was not charged.

"He really did get to live his American Dream by coming here," his daughter said. "He ... was able to form a family and give us opportunities that he never had — and never will have."

Three weeks earlier, around midnight on May 28, Roy Hodges was killed in a hit-and-run incident as he walked along a section of West Washington Street that doesn't have a sidewalk. Heavy rain the day before flooded the grassy roadside area where pedestrians would typically walk to get to a nearby bus stop. The mud forced Hodges to walk along the side of the busy road.

A surveillance camera at a nearby business captured video of a SUV hitting Hodges and throwing him into the air.

Unlike the man who struck Rodriguez-Garcia, police said the SUV's driver didn't report the accident and sped away. He eventually turned around and returned to the site, according to police, but left a second time — again without calling for help.

The lack of concern still infuriates the victim's brother, Justin Hodges: "To drive back around and shine your light on a guy that's mortally injured and drive away. What's the difference between that and someone pulling a firearm?"

The video showed two other cars also hit Hodges' body without stopping before an off-duty IMPD officer noticed him and called for help.

"They ran him over," said Justin Hodges, the victim's brother, "like he was a piece of trash."

The driver was identified by a license plate reader and charged in July with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death or catastrophic injury. He has entered a plea of not guilty and his trial is set for Dec. 16.

Concerned citizens step in to fill void Barth acknowledged the city's slow response prompted constituents to "put their own sweat equity into this."

After Hannah Crutchfield was killed in Irvington in 2021, community members launched grassroots efforts to improve pedestrian safety, like creating a tactical urbanization project, which is a low-cost method of altering public spaces to make them safer. The city also installed no turn on red signs and a new pedestrian signal.

Irvington also pushed the city for a traffic signal allowing pedestrians extra time to cross before a green light at the intersection of Washington and Audubon.

But pedestrian safety remains an issue.

Michelle Pleasant, an Irvington resident and co-organizer of Safe Routes to School Irvington , became an advocate after Crutchfield's death, working with the victim's mother.

Pleasant said she's especially concerned about reckless driving in school zones. She uses social media to share concerns, such as a post in July on how she had to clean up car crash debris from in front of her children's school.

"My daughter lost a friend," Pleasant said. "And my children have seen how dangerous Washington Street is."

Pleasant emphasized her concern isn't limited to an Irvington-only issue — it's a city-wide problem. She wants to advocate for safety improvements to help everyone across Indianapolis.

"We're trying to make a change," she said, "that goes beyond just Washington Street or beyond just Irvington."

City starting to take more decisive steps The city has started to address constituents' concerns, including improvements made or underway as part of a $1.1 billion infrastructure plan that includes road, bridge and sidewalk repair and construction projects.

The city also has changed traffic patterns on portions of two busy east-west streets — East New York and East Michigan — to slow traffic. Formerly one-way streets, they are now two-way, with protected bike lanes.

More important, the council adopted a longer-term Vision Zero plan, with the goal of eliminating all traffic deaths, including motorists and pedestrians, by 2035. City-County Councilman Andy Nielsen, who represents the Irvington area, says it's an important and a "somewhat lofty" goal that will be done in steps over an extended period of time.

"I recognize that it's frustrating to some people that this takes the time," councilor

Barth said. "But the truth is, this city has been built for cars for decades and decades and decades."

Other cities have taken similar steps to reduce pedestrian accidents.

Hoboken, N.J., which has a Vision Zero project, hasn't had a traffic death in approximately seven years, according to the Associated Press . Jersey City had zero traffic deaths in 2022 as a result of its Vision Zero initiatives.

Hillebrecht, the daughter of victim Humberto Rodriguez-Garcia, lives in Hoboken. She said the city is aggressive about enacting safety measures.

Other Midwestern cities have Vision Zero programs with varying degrees of success. Madison, Wisconsin, is ranked number two in the country for pedestrian safety according to Dangerous by Design's 2024 report . The city started its Vision Zero project in 2020 and has seen an approximately 37% decrease in incidents since 2019.

Expert: city needs to encourage biking, walking Indianapolis-based urban designer Sherri Collison said a key aspect of creating pedestrian-safe cities are areas where walking and biking are encouraged. This includes wide sidewalks, a robust public transportation system, street trees and benches.

For roads like Washington Street, she suggested staggering the timing of stop lights, so traffic isn't continuously barreling down the road.

Collison also emphasized that areas with deteriorating or no sidewalks, commonly in low-income neighborhoods, shouldn't be left out of redevelopment.

Making road safer for everyone Holt, from Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis, said he's looking forward to the city's Vision Zero plan. But he and many other advocates want to see more quick, short-term solutions implemented.

"We're very behind the eight ball here in the city," he said, "because we waited too long to act."

Holt also reiterated that he and other advocates care about everyone on the road — not just cyclists and pedestrians.

"We're just looking for our roads to become safer for all users," he said. "And by making the roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, we are, in fact, making the roads safer for everyone."