Editorial

The Big 4 Bridge will be completed in a year or two, if we can find $12m for the Indiana ramp. But why should we build this bridge? Read more...

Poll: "Leaders in Louisville have been debating how to construct and pay for
new bridges over the Ohio River for decades. Which project do you prefer?"
 

A cn|2 politics poll finds only 14.2% of Louisville voters favor the two-bridge configuration championed by the Ohio River Bridges Project. Furthermore, a whopping 50.3% favor building only an east-end bridge. Credit where it's due - it's a very, very good day over at 8664.

"Neither New Bridge" exceeds expectations as well!

Additional cn|2 coverage of the poll can be found here.

Update: LEO weighs in.

"Unlikely Allies" [leoweekly.com]

Updated 7/1/2010 -DM

CART has filed a motion to intervene in the National Trust for Historic Preservation & River Field's suit against Ohio River Bridges Project. Here, in Q&A format, are some frequently asked questions about the suit.

Why did CART file suit?

1. NEPA requires all reasonable alternatives to be fully and fairly evaluated in an EIS. FHWA did a preliminary analysis of light rail and found that it would not reasonably meet ORBP's objectives so it was never evaluated as an alternative in the EIS.  FHWA "cooked the books" in the preliminary analysis by treating light rail unfairly.

2. When you invest in a massive captial project backed by federal funding, environmental laws force a review of the project if conditions change. ORBP was designed in the early 90s, when ...

   • oil was around $20 a barrel
   • driving was forecast to increase forever
   • bus public transit was forecast to expand service to keep pace with the new roads
   None of these assumptions turned out to be right, but the FHWA has not appropriately responded to these concerns.

What does it mean that you're "intervening" in a suit?

The media blacked out last Sunday NPP Citizen Bridges meeting, but LEO refused to play along. You can read Meador's summary of the meeting here, with his signature editorializing as well.

Thursday is the big ORBP meeting, your last, best hope to be heard as a citizen on this topic. Come get in your 2c:

Louisville Metro Council has moved swiftly to enact congestion pricing (tolls) on Ohio River Bridges. You've got to love our great city, which has stumbled on a good solution to the bridge congestion problem (tolls), but rather than just implement it and be done, we now also have to build some useless additional bridges, whose capacity will quite possibly never be used. Now that the bridge congestion problem is solved, its a shame we couldn't use the revenue to do something smart, like build a sustainable transit system for our city. 8664 has more on last Thursday's transportation subcommittee meeting.

I believe the next hurdle is the Thursday night metro council meeting, 6pm.

UPDATE #2: Added some pictures from the meeting, click Read More to see them.

UPDATE: A bicycle convoy will leave from Louisville to get safely across the 2nd Street Bridge. Be ready to leave at 10:45am from in front of Bearno's by the Bridge (NE corner of Main and 2nd).

You are invited to the Big 4 Bridge public workshop on Saturday. According to the flyer "this will allow residents to share ideas with the City and design team as well as critique ideas and concepts that are developed through this project. Everyone is encouraged to attend and bring their neighbors and families to participate."

Saturday, June 6, 2009
130 W. Riverside Drive, Jeffersonville - Brad Sprigler Design Studio
11am - 1pm;
formal presentation will begin @ 11:30am
come and go as you like

Its obvious what a big deal the Big 4 bridge will be. But in case you live on the moon or something: Jeffersonville is a lovely town, no farther from my home than, say, St Matthews. However, to get to St Matthews is a simple bike ride. To get to Jefforsonville is a harrowing journey over the Clark Memorial "2nd street" Bridge. As a result, St Matthews gets hudreds of dollars a year in shopping revenue from me, and Jefforsnville gets none.

But if Jeffersonville could be connected by a bridge that weren't such an ordeal, say one leaving from the middle of a park, then it would suddenly become a viable destination for a lot of people.

I'd rate this article Must Read: "Louisville: A Tale of Two Cities".

Urbanophile, a highly respected regional blogger, takes on the Ohio River Bridges project. He makes some great points. I refer you to his article and 8664's review of it.

Edit: fixed typeo in title: "Urbanophile siezes up Ohio River Bridges, 8664", heh heh.

Highways to Nowhere: The 7 Most Ridiculous New Roads Being Built In America

At the Infrastructurist, Yonah Freemark blasts the Ohio River Bridges Project, and offers this warning:

At a White House gathering last week, both Barack Obama and Joe Biden warned America’s governors not to squander stimulus funds on ill-conceived infrastructure projects. “Six months from now,” Biden said, “if the verdict on this effort is that we’ve wasted the money, we built things that were unnecessary, or we’ve done things that are legal but make no sense, then, folks, don’t look for any help from the federal government for a long while.”

Nowhere is this warning more pertinent than in building new roads. Misguided road building can encourage sprawl, make communities less livable, and devastate the local environment. We looked at shovel-ready new highway projects across the country that are either getting stimulus money or could potentially get some and found seven that, in Biden’s words, “make no sense.”

Read what he has to say, and also find out which other regional megaprojects make the cut for the worst of the worst.

Below is CART's unpublished response to last Monday's bridge project cheerleading.

To the Editor of the Courier-Journal,

I would like to respond to Ed Glasscock of the “Build the Bridges Coalition” who complained in Monday’s CJ Readers Forum that the legislature didn’t pass legislation to fund the Bridges Project.  Mr. Glasscock’s main point is that we need these bridges for the jobs they create and the economic benefits that will occur from this investment. Unfortunately, Mr. Glasscock’s statistics are obsolete.  They are based upon the 1998 Bridges study and those figures were based upon data from the 1990’s.  They are no longer valid and certainly don’t reflect our needs in this century.