INDIANAPOLIS — New and staggering numbers show a growing problem in Marion County.
In August, 103 pedestrians were hit by a driver in Indianapolis — seven of those people died.
It's the worst month the city has seen since Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis started tracking incidents more than two years ago. The previous record was back in April 2024 with 77 reported incidents.
“It continues to shock me,” said Eric Holt, founder of Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis. “When I started this two years ago, if you would've told me we would have 103 reports in a month, I would've told you you were crazy. I would've never imagined this.”
So, what's causing the increase? No one has a perfect answer.
Holt questions if weather is a factor, but says he isn’t sure.
“We've seen ebbs and flows over the two years of tracking this data — some we can explain and some we really can't,” Holt said.
Dangerous intersections
On Tuesday, 13News set up a camera at the intersection of College and Massachusetts avenues in downtown Indianapolis. It’s considered a dangerous hot spot for pedestrians, according to a map from Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis.
Within an hour, 13News caught several distracted drivers and pedestrians.
Some were on their phones, others ran red lights and a few drivers were caught speeding.
The experiment proved it’s not just one thing driving this crisis, which means finding a solution to it, isn’t so simple.
In the last year, the city and community have tried new ways to reduce crashes including tactical urbanism projects. Plus, this summer, the City-County Council approved a Vision Zero task force whose goal is to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2035.
However, Holt wants to see more immediate action, like traffic-calming measures being implemented by cities like Cincinnati and Milwaukee.
“We need to be looking at those short-term initiatives that we know are successful,” Holt said.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett issued the following statement:
“To ensure the safety of our streets, we also need to pay special attention to the streets themselves. We have and will continue to make historic investments in the hundreds of millions of dollars in our vehicular and pedestrian safety infrastructure. And though these investments have made dramatic changes in the lives of many of our residents, we know we need to do more. Which is why the proposed 2025 City-County Budget includes new investments such as a dedicated Vision Zero Administrator in Indy DPW and new technology to support IMPD in enforcing traffic safety laws. We need to keep up this work until no one — regardless of whether they are driving, biking, or walking in our streets—loses a family member or neighbor to preventable traffic crashes.”