Public Works committee advances DPW’s 2026 budget amid calls for more traffic-safety funding

The Indianapolis City Council Public Works Committee on Sept. 25 recommended proposal 2‑59‑2025, the Department of Public Works portion of the 2026 city-county budget, to the full council with a due-pass recommendation after a department presentation and public comment on traffic safety.

"Tonight we have a short presentation to break down some of the different road work options that DPW has and outputs we should expect next year," Director Wilson told the committee. He presented a range of treatments the department uses — pothole filling, strip patching, in-house D4 district crews, residential resurfacing and thoroughfare resurfacing — and explained how the department prioritizes work using Mayor's Action Center data, pavement-condition indices and traffic data.

Wilson told the committee that contractor strip patching in 2026 is estimated to cover about 200 lane miles and that DPW crews and contractors together handle the range of short- and long-term treatments residents see. "Pothole filling ... this year alone, we filled about 40,000 potholes around the county," Wilson said, describing pothole work as year-round and weather-dependent. He said residential resurfacing projects vary from a simple mill-and-overlay to full reconstruction and that the department expects a committed minimum of $16,000,000 per year for residential resurfacing through a state match program.

Councilors raised operational and equity questions. Councilor Derek Cahill criticized overreliance on Mayor's Action Center service-request data, saying language and access differences "can disproportionately underrepresent" some neighborhoods and lead to skewed prioritization. Councilor Dan Boots requested an update on the $1,000,000-per-district "councilor select" resurfacing projects; Director Wilson and Chief Engineer Mark St. John said the city awarded work to three contractors — Reece Bridal, Milestone and E&B — and that the teams are evaluating costs now. St. John explained the city used an alternative delivery process under a recently amended state build-operate-transfer procurement law to select contractor teams and said the approach is intended to speed deliveries.

Public commenters urged more funding and faster action on traffic violence and Vision Zero recommendations. Connie Szabo Schmucker, advocacy director of Bicycle Garage Indy, told the committee that zero dollars in the DPW budget for traffic-violence work signals a lack of priority and asked for $35,000,000, or about 2% of the total city budget, to address traffic violence. "Not budgeting funds to address traffic violence because there's no Vision 0 Action Plan is a cop out," she said. Christina Hartley read the names of vulnerable road users who died this year and warned the committee that failing to fund safety measures would result in more deaths.

Committee members also debated overall funding levels. One councilor compared the current capital plan totals to an older HNTB estimate of the annual cost needed to maintain road conditions and said that even with the proposed funding "we're guaranteeing roads are going to be worse next year than they are this year." Director Wilson responded that the department expects year-over-year improvements on many segments and emphasized the asset-management plan the department is developing to inform five-year capital planning.

Councilor motioned to send proposal 2‑59‑2025 to the full council with a due-pass recommendation. The clerk called a roll; the transcript excerpt records votes from several members: Councilor Ron Gibson (yes), Chair Kristen Jones (aye), Councilor Mallory (no), Councilor Andy Nielsen (yes) and Councilor Nick Roberts (yes). The transcript does not show the remaining roll-call votes in the excerpt. The committee recorded the motion as a due-pass recommendation to the full council. Final adoption will occur at the full-council budget vote scheduled Oct. 6.

The department said some councilor-select work should appear this fall, with the majority of selected projects delivered in 2026, and that the asset-management plan for roads and bridges will be brought to the council in 2026 for fuller briefing and ongoing updates.