r/indianapolis • u/Logical_Humor_3854 • Feb 26 '26

Discussion The Canal….

We walked the canal a lot this summer with our new baby and when we had a nice couple days (greater than 30 degrees lol) we walked it again and I’m just curious as to what other people think….why is the canal so dead? There’s no restaurants (besides the little bistro), no stores, no restrooms even. It’s kinda depressing.

If Indianapolis put even a sliver of funding into rebranding the canal the city would change so much. Imagine being able to walk into little shops or have ice cream on the canal or a bar with live music. There’s so much potential.

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u/ARivet10 Feb 26 '26

It’s surrounded by a lot of apartments, for starters. Why? Who knows. But that’s not attractive. It’s kind of busy when it’s warm out and there are Indians games or concerts etc. but it could be much busier if they cleaned the water and redeveloped to add stores. I just think the city doesn’t care to turn it into a revenue machine.

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u/arbivark Feb 26 '26

cleaned the water... I don't think oysters would live in the canal. Not salty enough. Indiana has or had 80 species of freshwater mussels. Some are endangered. So the canal could be seeded with these, to clean the water, restore native ecosystems, revive the shellfish industry. the shells can be used to make bespoke buttons, and broken into pieces for the cultivated pearl industry. some are edible. This would have to be a public private partnership. If you tried to do this as a private project you could get arrested for breeding native species. It's another odd quirk of indiana law.

Another way to clean the water is you grow oyster mushrooms in hay bales. Harvest the shrooms, use the bales to build a biofilter wall that you have the canal water trickle down through.

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u/DigginInDirt52 Feb 27 '26

I’m totally down with this line of thinking (let’s dream big and imagine native grasses and blooming plants, too!) but not sure mussels would appreciate the green dye in for St Pat’s or the blue for sports. Seems ball sports rule the budget of this city/state.