"Google Maps makes public transportation easy"

I tried it and it worked for me.

Read all about it at this TARC page.

Firsty, the Brownsboro Sidewalk & Road Diet is up for final approval by Metro Council. Clifton [Heights] Community Councils are calling for public turn-out at the meetings, to hold signs and wear stickers. Be there or send the council a message of support.

Road Diet Vote

Secondy, there will then be an immediate victory-party at Car Free Happy Hour:

Car Free Happy Hour

Thursday night. Click "Read More" for details...

Photo credit

Ralph Tharp, executive director of Kentucky Capital Development Corporation in Frankfort, is championing a new passenger rail service linking Louisville, Lexington, and nine other stops. Trains would run at commute hours, and combine the speed of driving with the superior comfort, safety and economy of rail.

More information: Riding the Train - State-Journal.com

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011303290077

Yay!

Some are calling TARC's new service 'Bus Rapid Transit Lite' - a bus every fifteen minutes on routes #18 and #23 on weekdays, all day. That means the average wait for an unplanned ride is a mere 7.5 minutes. That's so frequent that I won't bother consulting a schedule.

The 18 has a new ripple - it serves the north end of U of L's Belknap campus, with direct service to the downtown medical center.

The 23 gets the high frequency by doing a timed interbraiding of a number of tributary routes at Douglass Loop.

This is a great service, paid for through federal CMAQ dollars, but before you invest millions of your own dollars in new development along the corridor, know that the funding stream will likely dry up in a few years, and so might the service. If we had a more robust form of funding for our transportation, this would spur some real development.

Photo: Mary Beth Brown

I recently enjoyed a night on the town, going to a roller-rink outside of I-264. We TARCed there. Most of our friends took the same bus. It was great fun seeing friend after friend board the bus at each successive stop, and by the time we reached our destination we had a low-grade party going on.

Photo courtesy Andy Dyson @ Bicycling for Louisville

TARC's "Bikes on Board" program has been so successfull, people are complaining that there's no space. One possible stopgap is to replace the current generation of 2-bike racks with 3-bike racks. TARC has outfitted a pair of buses with triple racks and is going to begin testing them soon. Reps from CART and Bicycling for Louisville were invited to give feedback at a meeting today.  The racks were not perfect, but neither were the existing racks. Yours truly brought his biggest, most cantankerous bicycle, which is actually incompatible with the current crop of racks, and it looks like both models of new rack are better for it.

If you use one of these on the street, be sure to write TARC and/or comment here with any thoughts you might have on them.