UPDATE: Postponed by Senator Jim Bunning!

Mark your calendars for this important public participation opportunity! KIPDA conducts periodic performance reviews of their transportation planning department, and in the past these federal reports have been helpful in nudging the agency in the right direction.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is seeking public input during the federal review of the metropolitan transportation planning process for the Louisville Metropolitan Planning Area that takes place once every four years. A public meeting will be held on March 9, 2010 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the South Louisville Community Center, 2911 Taylor Blvd., in Louisville.

Here is a map. The TARC #29 goes right by, and the ultra-frequent #4 comes within a seven minute walk.

Sooooooooo......whaddya doing next Tuesday night?

You say you have a date with your television? With your couch? Need to paint your nails? You say the icky cold, dark, winter weather makes you unwilling to leave the house and the warmth of your bunny slippers and snuggly thing?

Wellllllll.......I have a something that will warm you through and through. Come on out to Car-Free Happy Hour! It's so hot, IT'S PRACTICALLY ON FIRE! The tasty food and bevs at Car-Free Happy Hour will WARM your mouth, large intestine, small intenstine, stomach, etc. The fascinating conversation and excellent presentations will HEAT UP the neural pathways in your noggin. The fab new frienships you will forge will SET YOUR HEART ON FIRE. The residual toastiness from Car-Free Happy Hour will keep you thoroughly thawed until Spring arrives.

Bring a friend or two. They like to be warm, too!

Tuesday January 12
5:30-8PM
@The Monkey Wrench
1025 Barret Avenue

Seeya there!

Photo Dan Burden / PBIC

Live your ideals!

• Want to bike to work, but you don't want to do it alone? Ticket to Ride can find you a fellow commuter sharing a similar route.
• Are you an experienced bike commuter looking to share your know-how with others? Ticket to Ride needs to know about you.

Simply fill out this online form describing your commute at the Ticket to Ride site, then you'll get an email as soon as they match a fellow bike commuter with you. Simple!

Hat tip: KIPDA Horizons Newsletter

UPDATE: Coverage on WFPL

Wednesday the following groups joined together to protest the disLocation of KIPDA from the public it serves.

• Louisville Climate Action Network
• Metropolitan Housing Coalition
• Freewheel Bicycle Collective
• Coalition for the Homeless
• CART
• Safe Streets Louisville
• Kentucky Alliance against Racism and Political Oppression

CART joins many other organizations to call attention to KIPDA's bone-headed choice of location for their new headquarters. 2pm. On the sidewalk in front of Shelbyville Road Plaza. More info on the issue.

KIPDA's nine county service area - image from kipda.org

What is KIPDA?

KIPDA is a government organisation that marshals counties around these parts. Of particular interest is the Transportation Division, which does regional transportation planning for Louisville and four surrounding counties. KIPDA headquarters host regular meetings where citizens come to learn about their transportation system, and work with the government to build a regional plan. The transportation planning division of KIPDA is what's called an "MPO" - Metropolitan Planning Organisation.

Opportunity Knocks

KIPDA could achieve great things for the region - they're really the only meta-government between the county level and the state level, and this is the sweet spot for transportation planning. We all benefit from an active, engaged MPO. The value of the feedback KIPDA can garner is proportional to the diversity of the people collaborating, and so KIPDA needs to engage the population as broadly as possible. These public meetings are good, in other words. We need more. A lot more. They're listening, but it is hard.

So we were really excited to hear that KIPDA is moving their headquarters. Their current location is remote, to put it mildly. Riding transit out there is just about impossible. Recently cars have started to overflow their parking lot, and had to create their own mini-transit service from a mall parking lot. So they're searching for a new location.

It follows that by moving to a location that's more accessible to more people, you'll have a stronger agency. Furthermore, you want a diversity of people to be able to attend. But where should they go?

Ladies and Gentlemen - The Contendas:

Downtown Louisville

Bardstown @ 264

Plantside Drive near 64

The KIPDA transportation department has a new blog - kipdatrans.blogspot.com . I hope that public comments, visible by all, will start a discussion that will bootstrap some of the knowledge at KIPDA out to the general public. Ah, RSS syndication makes life so good.

I am often amazed by how quickly my brain can absorb a new acronym so that I can barely remember a time when I didn't know what it meant. This has been the case with ARRA (pronounced air-rah), the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Many people just simply call it The Stimulus.

I use the word ARRA about 10 times a day, usually while harassing someone at KIDPA or Public Works, asking for lists of ped/bike projects. I was happy when I discovered the following sources of information: a list of ARRA projects from KIPDA including this list of sidewalk improvements. The new Louisville at Work website is also a helpful source of information about local ARRA projects. I am sharing these resources with you, dear readers, to spare you the pain I experienced while trying to find them.

From a City Press Release:

A second round of federal stimulus projects will create 1,300 jobs by building new walking paths, sidewalks and bike lanes across Louisville, Mayor Jerry Abramson announced today.

The $14.7 million in projects including extending the walking and biking path through Seneca Park; bike lanes along a portion of Taylorsville Road and $7.4 million worth of new sidewalks in various neighborhoods.

“These projects put people back to work – and they help us create a healthier hometown by encouraging walking and biking,” Abramson said.

Amen to that.