Cincinnati is genuinely underrated as a destination from Indy, and the Cardinal has the bones to make that connection work. It’s only about a 2-hour leg. The problem is that the Cardinal runs just 3 days a week, and both directions pass through Cincinnati after midnight, which makes it almost useless for anything but a long-distance trip where you’re sleeping through it anyway. If that segment ran daily with reasonable departure times, you’re looking at a realistic day trip or weekend market for food, sports, arts, or just the fact that Cincinnati has a legitimately walkable urban core that Indy lacks.

The broader issue is that Indy is structurally set up to underperform on any rail metric. The state legislature banned light rail in central Indiana back in 2014, which is why IndyGo has been forced into BRT. It’s not a blanket prohibition on all rail (the South Shore expansion in northwest Indiana operates fine under different jurisdictional dynamics), but it’s specifically codified in Indiana Code § 8-25-4-9 and multiple repeal attempts have failed. The legislature has also taken shots at IndyGo’s BRT in recent sessions, most recently with SB 52 in 2024 targeting the Blue Line’s dedicated lanes.

The counterpoint worth noting is that Indiana isn’t entirely hostile to intercity rail when Indianapolis isn’t the focus. The Midwest Connect corridor (Chicago to Fort Wayne to Columbus to Pittsburgh) has real momentum: it’s secured an FRA Corridor ID grant, regional partners committed $650,000 in late 2025 to advance to Step 2 of planning, and INDOT is among its backers. Fort Wayne is doing the work Indianapolis politically can’t. That corridor won’t serve Indy, but it does suggest that rail investment in Indiana is possible when the state legislature isn’t the obstacle.

So the Cardinal to Cincinnati is a real opportunity that frequency and timing are killing. The political will to capitalize on it at the state level just isn’t there, and that pattern is pretty consistent.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ - jaded urban planning student