Because we’re all typically headed to any number of destinations, traffic naturally wants to disperse but current and proposed ORBP designs will not allow it.

If I want go to 3rd St. and Branden wants to go to 6th St. and someone else wants to go to Shippingport, we all end up at the 9th St . exit and the streets immediately surrounding it, waiting in line and idling our motors, even though that’s not where we want to go.

With greatly lessened cut through traffic and more grid connectivity, those downtown pinch spots should be reduced by the 8664 plan, allowing the grid to function as it was originally designed.

You cite the fact that Louisville’s grid “is an efficient distributor of traffic” and “On the street grid, you can easily choose another route through the grid at significantly more frequent intervals.”

While these are true statements, there’s a term that is transferred to highway traffic occasionally that originated with the grid: GRIDLOCK. Chicago is about as “griddy” as it comes… and if you’ve ever driven there on a Saturday night, you realize how, when the grid is full, noone moves. There’s no getting from point A to point B and it doesn’t matter how many cross streets there are if it takes you 15 minutes to move a block.

I’m not saying I’m against this proposal… it seems much more logical to bipass the city than to simply expand the thru-way for much of the traffic. But you do have to account for the traffic once it gets to the grid.

I spent my childhood and teen years in Louisville, where dad was employed and where many ancestors did business years ago. I recall standing with pride on the Belvedere the year it was built, marveling at the view and experience it afforded… How starved was the city even then, to connect, to overcome the massive barrier that resided just a few feet below me making such an elevated construction necessary? And as a teen, how naive was I to think the passage I-64 West made through Floyd Knobs just a few miles to the northwest of downtown was a marvel to be celebrated…instead of the grotesque gash in the landscape I see it as today.
Call it what you like… new urbanism, old urbanism, or urbanism…there is nothing new about doing the right thing.
I fully support the 8664 initiative…and I can think of dozens of similar transportation travesties in the nation I have

How long will we permit speed, volume, and point a to point b thinking to sculpt an image and impact the personalty of our community? That is the question.
Moving more cars and cargo faster is one of many attributes to be considered in the rebuilding of I-64…but may not be the most important in the end. It quite simply comes down to priorities….and leadership. What should drive the end game transportation issue for Louisville, anal or creative thinking? Anal thinking produced the current situation, nationwide….we live daily with the flaws in this approach.
It is time for the left brains to take a back seat and navigate while the right brains sit behind the wheel….

Steve… thanks for the invite. I’ll join up. My only concern, as I find myself always thinking about so many things, is that we love to preach to the converted.

In more recent years I’ve observed the attempts to green up and otherwise revitalize the riverfront. In light of that, the proposal to significantly expand I-64 downtown seems like a schizophrenic effort. Louisville has spent the past 10+ years improving the waterfront only to now bury it under $4billion worth of concrete?

In terms of its effect on the urban fabric, I-64 at downtown Louisville is one of the worst examples in the nation of the thoughtlessness of 60s and 70s-era interstate highway construction. It’s a shameful mistake it was ever built in the first place, and it should be demolished and relocated.

To expand I-64 to the proposed degree is to permanently doom riverfront development as an urban revitalization strategy for Louisville. Someone once quipped that freeways are like sewers for cars and expanding I-64 would make an aboveground sewer the most prominent feature of downtown.

Lastly, my own anecdotal observation of Louisville traffic congestion is that it does not warrant a massive expansion of highway infrastructure. I now live in a metro area with a population of close to 3,000,000, compared with Louisville’s ~1,300,000. Louisville’s highway infrastructure is much, much more developed. It has more highways with more lanes than a city with a population more than twice as large. It also has more and bigger main arterials (e.g.: Hurstbourne Lane, Shelbyville Road) which make cross-town travel much faster.

I likewise have been continuously alarmed at the apparent lack of a comprehensive, coherent political strategy not only with respect to 8664 but also with regards to dealing with the aspects of the ORBP that would be disadvantageous to the Louisville community.

Where is the outrage? Well, I think I know the answer: It’s a combination of ignorance, apathy and fear. Ignorance, because most Louisvillians I think remain oblivious to many of the facts. Apathy, because Louisvillians generally don’t participate in the civic space as they should. And fear, as I believe Louisvillians generally are afraid of going against the prevailing “wisdom” of the local commercial establishment.

As for a serious issues forum, I can’t say that Louisville History & Issues is a rip-roaring success at this point, but my goal is indeed to provided an environment where citizens in the area can come to discuss community issues without having to deal with so much riff-raff and nonsense. I hope you can join us.

I tried, by the way, to start a discussion about these issues on Louisville Hotbytes, but have been sabotaged by buffoons, and largely ignored.

As readers may know, I have also been writing articles and making statements regarding the Ohio River Bridges Project and 8664 for several years, more on the political side of the matter, I suppose.

Also responding to the Courier-Journal’s editorial of last Friday, I have written a new extended article. It is entitled “The Stench of the Lingering Question — The Courier-Journal Editorial Board and Their Extreme Bias on the Bridges Matter”. Here’s the link: http://www.historyandissues.org/louisville/viewtopic.php?t=1461

The fact that Louisville’s elected and de facto leaders fail to see the logic – much less the beauty – of the 8664 plan almost fills me with rage.

For someone considering moving back home to the ‘Ville – if the ORBP goes forward in it’s present form – I’m going to stick with Chicago