Background
How we got here
This began with a railroad that stopped running, a sale that may not have been the seller's to make, and a mistake nobody in city government today had anything to do with. It continues because of choices being made right now.
Timeline
Forty years, in order
- Mid-1980s
CSX Transportation moves to abandon the Monon rail line north of downtown Indianapolis. When a railroad abandons a corridor it holds by easement, that land generally reverts to the owners on either side.
- 1989
The City of Indianapolis pays CSX for the corridor, believing it is acquiring the railroad's right to use the land.
- 1993
Litigation begins against CSX over who actually owns the former right-of-way. It becomes a class action covering thousands of landowners along abandoned Indiana rail corridors.
- 1990s
The City paves the corridor and the Monon Trail opens. It becomes one of the most-used trails in the state, and the neighborhoods along it are better for it.
- 2002–2003
The class action settles. A declaratory judgment determines, parcel by parcel, whether superior title rests with the adjoining landowner or with CSX. Along our stretch, roughly eight in ten parcels are determined to be landowner-superior.
- 2012
The Indiana Supreme Court holds that a public recreational trail is not within the scope of an easement acquired to operate a railway. Railroad easements do not automatically become trail easements.
- Dec 2014
The Indianapolis MPO awards the City $2,352,000 in federal funds to widen and resurface the Monon from 10th Street to 96th Street, with construction planned for 2020.
- Feb 2020
The City's DPW director tells WTHR the project has hit a roadblock: city attorneys reviewed the 2012 ruling, and the City cannot assume it owns what it thought it owned.
- Apr 2020
Two months later, at the City’s request, the MPO removes $3,330,000 in programmed funding from the Transportation Improvement Program. The stated reason, in the City's own words in the amendment record: "Due to ROW issue we are pulling this from the federal funding program." No federal money was ever obligated. The project moves onto local bonds.
- 2022
The segment south of 56th Street is completed for $1.65 million. As of October 2021 the City had acquired 51 of the 81 parcels it said it needed, for roughly $119,000 in total — about $2,300 each.
- 2024–2025
Letters begin arriving along the northern phase. Homeowners are asked to sell or donate roughly 33 feet of backyard, at a fraction of appraised value, on the stated basis that their land is already encumbered by the City's easement. Neighbors organize and ask the City to hold a public meeting.
- 2025
Neighbors offer to donate a 20-foot corridor — the widened trail plus a buffer on both sides, owned outright by the City, at no cost. The City does not accept.
- Jun 2026
The City files its first eminent domain case against homeowners in this phase — a couple near 80th Street — after offering roughly $2,000 for a 33-foot strip. Their attorneys file objections to the complaint, contesting the taking itself rather than only the price. A change of venue is granted in August, moving the case out of Marion County. It remains pending.
Why it matters
This is bigger than our backyards
Start with what isn't in dispute. The Monon should be widened and repaved, every household in this group wants that, and we offered to donate the land to make it happen. Nothing below is an argument against the trail.
A city determined that it could not establish ownership of land it had been treating as its own. In April 2020 it asked that $3,330,000 in programmed federal funding be removed from the Transportation Improvement Program, citing a right-of-way issue, and the project moved onto local bonds. Federally funded acquisitions carry appraisal and good-faith negotiation standards. Locally funded ones do not. The City is now using eminent domain to acquire the same land, at a fraction of appraised value, from homeowners who offered to give it what the project needs.
Every step may be legal. That is rather the point. The question isn't whether the City can do this. It's whether it should, and whether anyone is going to ask.
Meanwhile the trail still needs repaving, and it isn't getting repaved. The project is now scheduled to finish in 2028 — eight years after the 2020 construction date the federal funding had been awarded for — and each contested parcel adds appraisers, outside counsel, and time.
We want the Monon widened and repaved. Every one of us does. The question is why a fourteen-foot trail requires taking sixty-six feet.
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