Motion introduced opposing the levying of tolls on existing infrastructure in order to pay for new motoring infrastructure. The motion has over 16 co-sponsors in a 26-seat body, so it is sure to pass. See the C-J article. Louisville will join New Albany, which passed a similar measure, opposing tolling and the construction of a new I-65 bridge if tolls would be required.

For fun, I decided to do a rush-hour traffic count of the only intersection between me and my primary grocery. That's the corner of Baxter Ave and Goddard Ave, for my internet stalker fan-base. In that hour, I recorded 1167 crossings. 

• 95.7% were in cars (including 2 commercial trucks and one paratransit van)
• 0.8% were on motorcycles or scooters
• 1.3% were on bicycles
• 2.2% were people on foot*

The people on foot had a very hard time crossing Baxter - 77% were the victims of failure to yeild by motorists.

Running on Empty from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

Indystar.com:

Officials today launched Indy Connect: Central Indiana’s Transportation Initiative, a more than $10 billion proposed mass transit plan that includes rail systems, an expansion of the region’s highway system, expanded bus service and tolled express lanes.

Commuter Rail, Light Rail, massively beefed up bus service, and roads, oh my! Be sure to check out their interactive graphic that lets you see the systems overlayed.

If you give people nothing, they will go into the street.

Here's a sketch solution that gives the citizens of Louisville the same protection we give our road workers. This doesn't have to be the solution, but it seems workable based on my four visits to the site:

The good folks at the Ad Council recently help create the Speak Up Or Else campign to address reckless driving amongst teens.  The site asks teens to use peer pressure to confront their friends' bad driving:

Why speak up? Because reckless driving is the #1 killer of 15-20 year olds. Speaking up could save your life.  Look, we get it. You don’t want to make it a big deal when your friends are driving recklessly. But, you don’t have to seem like a downer, lecture them or sound like their mom. Speak up in your own way. Just remember, it doesn’t matter what you say, if your friends are driving recklessly, say something.

The site has several suprisingly fun PSA's, and teen-friendly features like videos that can be IM'ed (Instant Messaged) as pranks.

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.

The New York Times has the story. This comes hot on the heels of a study of truckers that shows they have 23x the chance of a crash while texting.

transit the only cost-effective choice to solve nation's transportation problems

Today's C-J story on this 2009 Urban Mobility Report deals with one problem out of many in our our transportation system: congestion delays. Congestion is costly, and the study can tell you all about that. But is congestion cost actually significant in the grand scheme of our household transportation budgets? You'll be surprised. How would you rank these three car driving expenses: gasoline, crash costs, and congestion costs? Read on...

via Overhead Wire