A crowd with cargo-bikes gathers for a bike move. (Courtesy Bicycling for Louisville)

In what could be one of the most visible signs or car-independence, on Saturday, February 4, one Louisville family is moving into a new house entirely by bike. Bicycling for Louisville is helping a family that recently moved from Manhattan relocate into a permanent home just off Frankfort Avenue. While it might seem daunting to transport the contents of an entire house by bike, with a lively group of cyclists and a few cargo trailers in tow, cyclists can move the largest of home furnishings. Bicycling for Louisville has done it before. In fact, this year’s move will be the group’s third annual Move-by-Bike event.

This is a great way to get out and build community among local cyclists while visibly promoting a more sustainable and healthy form of transportation. You can RSVP for the event on Facebook (already 23 people have signed up as of this writing). The Move-by-Bike event will be held on February 4 from 10:00 a.m. through 4:00 p.m. and will be traveling between 2008 Baringer Avenue to 128 Haldeman Avenue. Who’s going?

Planned changes for the Brownsboro Road Diet. (Courtesy CART)

The traffic improvements planned as part of the Brownboro Road Diet again need your help! CART, the Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation, has learned that some businesses along Brownsboro Road in Clifton Heights are organizing to fight the street-design improvements that calm traffic, increase pedestrian and bike safety, and generally improve the quality of streets in walkable neighborhoods. (Check out expert Dan Burden explain the importance of road diets.)

Come out this evening to a community forum running from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Kentucky School for the Blind Auditorium at 1867 Frankfort Avenue to voice your support for the road diet. A group of transportation advocates will be handing out stickers and voicing support for the plan.

You can check out the full plans for the Brownsboro Road Diet here, but in a nutshell, it will add a sidewalk and a center turn lane after removing a redundant travel lane for about 3,000 feet of roadway between Ewing Avenue and Drescher Bridge Road. Additional info is available from Metro Louisville.

Other topics to be discussed at the public forum are updates on Breslin Park and a discussion of new crime and safety figures for District 9.

Pedestrian bridge over Sixth Street. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)

After years of waiting it looks like a pedestrian bridge connecting the Belvedere with the Muhammad Ali Center plaza could soon be moving forward. The design for the pedestrian connector over Sixth Street designed by Joseph & Joseph Architects was unveiled by Mayor Fischer and Ali Center and Kentucky Center officials on January 13. The new bridge will provide seamless connection of Louisville’s riverfront elevated plazas stretching from Fourth to past Sixth streets.

Continue reading after the jump.

The planned East End Bridge. (Courtesy Bridges Authority)

[Editor's Note: Aaron Renn is the Urbanophile, an opinion-leading urban affairs analyst, entrepreneur, speaker, and writer on a mission to help America’s cities thrive in the 21st century. Renn is a native of a small town in Southern Indiana near Louisville.This is the fourth in a series of articles planned to address the current situation of the Ohio River Bridges Project. This article was originally published on January 12, 2012 and is reprinted with permission.]

In the first three parts of this series, I discussed how Indiana so badly botched its negotiation with Kentucky on the Louisville bridges project that its share of the project went up by $200 million at the same time the total project declined in cost by $1.5 billion, how this will result in $432 million being drained out of regular highway funds to cover a resulting tolling gap, how tolling likely results in Indiana paying even more, and the significant risks Indiana has taken on by agreeing to build a tunnel in Kentucky. Amazing as it sounds, Indiana’s biggest road project is now a $795 million, 1.4 mile highway in the state of Kentucky.

But just because I believe this deal is bad doesn’t mean I think the project itself is all bad. Indeed, I’m a strong supporter of the East End bridge, which is a generational investment for that part of the state. I also think the $1.5 billion in savings identified so far are great and a good start at getting costs under control on this project. But there’s still more we can do. So with that in mind, I’ll outline the changes I’d make to move the project forward.

Continue reading after the jump.

Preservation Kentucky license plate. (Courtesy PK)

It’s pretty ironic that the device most responsible for the destruction of our built environment—the automobile —could now help raise funds to save it. Preservation Kentucky is hoping to collect 900 applicants by the end of 2013 to establish a new Kentucky license plate that establishes a grant fund supporting preservation projects. The group hopes these additional funds “could fill this void and create preservation jobs in an extremely limited fiscal climate.” Plates can be reserved online for $27 (or $25 by check) and Preservation Kentucky will receive $10 for every plate sold. More info on how the proceeds will be used:

PK will use donation proceeds to establish a grant fund for historic preservation projects in the state of Kentucky. Grants will be offered to certified nonprofits and city/county governments in the Commonwealth for the purpose of preserving historic buildings… The grants will leverage public and private funds, as a 50 percent local match will be required. Grants will be reviewed by a panel of preservation experts from the PK Board, PK membership, and the Kentucky Heritage Council twice a year.

Butchertown building before it collapsed in fall 2010. (Branden Klayko)

A small mixed-use commercial building that collapsed in September 2010 at 1401 Story Avenue at Webster Street will be rebuilt. Owner James Hennesy plans to build a new $140,000 building on the site that will match the previous structure and include a new storefront, potentially with salvaged pieces of the old building. Voelker, Blackburn, Niehoff Architects have been brought on board to design the new 2.5 story building which occupies the 900-square-foot site (measuring 20 feet by 45 feet).

Continue reading after the jump.

Eastern section of former tobacco warehouse to be demolished. (Courtesy Tipster)

This story is starting to get old, but another project under guise of community improving is tearing apart the future potential of West Louisville. The YMCA of Greater Louisville is set to build a new facility on Broadway between 17th and 18th streets in partnership with the University of Louisville, made possible by Philip Morris’ donation of its former 11.5-acre tobacco processing facility. One major detail of the story that was never clearly reported is that the group plans to demolish a large historic brick warehouse dating to the 1890s when half the site—what looks to be about 5 acres—sits as surface-level parking lots.

Continue reading after the jump.

Future home of MozzaPi at 1015 Bardstown Road. (Branden Klayko)

A two-story building at 1015 Bardstown Road just south of Highland Avenue is getting a facelift that will yield the permanent home to MozzaPi, a wood-fired, Neopolitan-style pizzeria (which initially opened as a food truck last year), with new apartments above.

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