Media
For reporters
We'll answer questions on the record, put you in touch with affected homeowners who are willing to talk, and hand over any document we have. We'd rather you check our work than take it from us.
Contact
Email: hello@mononneighbors.org
We usually respond same day. If you're on deadline, say so in the subject line.
What we can provide
Source documents, including the 2020 MPO resolution withdrawing federal funding, the 2003 declaratory judgment and its parcel schedule, the City's 2018 design materials, and the court dockets. Homeowners along the corridor willing to be interviewed and photographed. Site access, if you want to see what 33 feet actually looks like from a backyard.
What we won't do
We won't characterize the intentions of individual City employees, and we won't discuss the land acquisition contractors by name. They're doing a job. We also won't speak for the property owners in the pending litigation or their attorneys — for that case, contact counsel of record directly.
And one framing worth checking before you file: this is not neighbors against the Monon. Every household in this group wants the trail widened, and offered to donate the land for it. A story built on residents opposing the project has the central fact backwards.
Background
The story in five sentences
In 1989 Indianapolis paid CSX for an abandoned rail corridor and later paved the Monon Trail on it. A 2003 court judgment determined, parcel by parcel, whether superior title rested with the railroad or the adjoining landowner; along this stretch roughly eight in ten parcels were determined to be landowner-superior. The City is now widening the trail and seeking the full 66-foot former corridor — roughly 33 feet on either side of the centerline — for a trail its own published plans show at 10 to 14 feet. The project was awarded $2,352,000 in federal funds in December 2014; in April 2020, at the City’s request, $3,330,000 in programmed funding was removed from the Transportation Improvement Program, citing a right-of-way issue, and no federal funds were ever obligated. Neighbors offered to donate a 20-foot corridor at no cost; the City declined, and in June 2026 filed its first eminent domain case against homeowners in this phase.
Things worth checking
Whether any engineering study specific to these parcels supports the 20-feet-per-side stormwater justification. Whether any environmental documentation was prepared during the years the project was programmed for federal funding — no federal money was ever obligated, so federal review never attached, but preliminary work is often done in that window, and it would state what corridor width the City told the federal government it needed. What the City intends to do with a 66-foot corridor for a 14-foot trail. What the total cost of contested acquisition is running, including outside counsel and court-appointed appraisers.
Prior coverage
The Indianapolis Star has reported on this repeatedly, most recently on August 26, 2026. WTHR covered the project's 2020 stall. The Indiana Lawyer and the Indianapolis Business Journal have both written on the acquisition process. Links are on the documents page.
Corrections
If we've gotten something wrong
Tell us and we'll fix it. We keep a dated revision on every page, and we'd rather correct something quickly than defend it. That applies to City officials too — if something here misstates the City's position or its records, we want to know.