Lawrence residents will have more public transportation options by 2021. The IndyGo Purple Line will extend from downtown Indianapolis at 16th Street and Meridian to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Lawrence.
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2020.
The Purple Line is a 14.8-mile, $140 million project connecting Indianapolis to Lawrence. City of Lawrence Public Works Dept. Director Bill Anthony is working, along with IndyGo, on what the Lawrence section of the route will look like.
“In my opinion, it will be an asset to the city mainly because it provides a further transportation option for our constituents and our residents to get from Point A to Point B,” Anthony said. “On the flip side, not only will it provide a transportation option for residents, but it offers folks a way to come out here from downtown. It does provide that opportunity for people to get to the fort and opens up what we have in the fort area for those people.”
The Purple Line is in the design and public input phase. Much of the line will replace the existing Route 39 local service, which is IndyGo’s most productive route.
“The general route of the Purple Line is it starts downtown (Indianapolis) and shares the Red Line route, and then from there it comes up Meridian Street and then heads east on 38th Street, and then it comes straight up Post Road and then it crosses 56th Street (in Lawrence),” Anthony said.
From 56th Street, the route will head east on Otis Avenue and then north on Wheeler Road, where it will end at the Ivy Tech College at 9301 E. 56th St., Lawrence. There, the bus will turn around and return downtown.
The Purple Line will be funded through IndyGo’s annual operations budget.
For more, visit indygopurple.com.
