Broken Sidewalk Archives
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Here’s a well put together video from GOOD Magazine about pushing innovation in our cities. Plenty of good ideas from around the world covering Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), to biking, to the environmental benefits of removing urban freeways (8664 anyone?). Well worth a watch. Hat tip to @urbanophile.
Rendering of East End Bridge (via ORBP)
The Courier-Journal just broke the news that River Fields, a group opposing the East End Bridge in favor of a Downtown-only option, has co-filed a lawsuit with the National Trust for Historic Preservation claiming that Federal approval of the Ohio River Bridges Project in the Record of Decision is not valid. Here’s a quote from the C-J:
“The groups claim the federal government didn’t justify its selection of a two-bridge project; relied on misleading information on the need for an eastern Jefferson County bridge; failed to adequately consider possible impacts, such as construction delays and the effects on nearby historic properties; and failed to prepare an updated environmental report.
…
“And it alleges that the government’s approval of the project and the eastern bridge route was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion” and in violation of the federal Department of Transportation Act.”
Can’t say this move was completely unexpected, but it certainly came down to the wire with only two days remaining to file suit. We’ll have more on the unfolding story later and what it means for the 8664.org proposal and the Ohio River Bridges Project overall.
One day it will be obvious (via hock / behance network)
One day Louisville will collectively look up on an unencumbered Great Lawn and think, “Well, that was obvious.” I’m, of course, talking about the 8664.org plan to re-route Interstate 64 out of Downtown and over a new East End Bridge, eliminating the need for that city-death-tangle we hopefully will never know as the expanded Spaghetti Junction and a second Downtown I-65 bridge. Instead, we’ll have more park space, a revitalizing West End, and a beautiful, pedestrian friendly urban boulevard. (Read the rest of the 8664.org coverage from Broken Sidewalk.)
Richard Vanderbilt of How We Drive points us to a Harvard University researcher, Lant Pritchett of the Kennedy School of Government, who has theorized the progression of once controversial ideas. Pritchett suggests that any “big idea” passes through four stages of social acceptance: silly, controversial, progressive, then obvious. While not a linear progression, many social conditions followed this pattern from slavery to a woman’s right to vote.
Where are we on this scale in Louisville regarding the 8664.org plan? It looks like the city overall is hovering somewhere between “controversial” and “progressive”, despite many supporters who are already firmly planted in the “obvious” range. The reasons I believe the 8664.org plan is obvious have already been detailed at length in previous coverage, but many in the city including some elected officials, can’t see the facts presented from a multitude of fronts. That’s why we still must press our leaders to take a stand on the most important issue facing Louisville today. Call them and e.mail them and talk to your friends and neighbors so one day we all will see it was obvious all along.
Per Tom Vanderbilt about New York (but also about Louisville):
“‘Kill the street,’ the Modernist architect Le Corbusier once declared in a manifesto for a utopian city built around the car. Generations of traffic engineers did their best to oblige. But the street is coming back in New York–the street built for many users–and someday, if not quite today, it won’t seem silly, controversial or even progressive. It will just seem obvious.”
[ Photo Credit: hock / behance network. Used under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND-3.0 license. ]
The Ohio River Bridges Project could threaten smaller transportation projects around the Louisville region. The C-J reported today that because there’s no financing plan for the $4.1 Billion fiasco, the Federal government could freeze important short-term transportation projects. A December deadline has been imposed to settle on a financing plan.
“Four years ago, officials expected that the states’ federal gasoline tax revenue would be enough to cover the cost, which was estimated at $1.4 billion.
“But now that the project has climbed to $4.1 billion, Kentucky and Indiana are looking for more money — possibly including tolls — and the federal government wants details.
…
“The government requires all federally financed transportation projects to have clear sources of funding to keep unrealistic projects from tying up money.”
We’ve known that the demands of financing this mega-project are far greater than the expected return. For merely half the price, the 8664.org plan solves the same transportation problem without requiring tolls or the destruction of Downtown Louisville. It’s definitely not too late to fix our transportation issues in a responsible way. Perhaps the Feds will finally realize that the Spaghetti Junction-two-bridge solution is as “unrealistic” as many have know for so long.
Empty land in Shippingport
Directly west of Downtown Louisville, acres of land in the Shippingport neighborhood sit barren and unused, trapped between a floodwall and an expressway. You can access the land from the levee trail that runs along the riverfront and Portland Canal, but most never venture into the sea of weeds and rubble. You can still make out the old street pattern of cobblestone and yellow bricks. In some places, there are still sidewalks and steel rails, a reminder that long ago, the area roughly stretching from 9th Street to the 14th Street elevated rail line was industrial and housed many rail yards.
That’s fitting to the history of Shippingport as a center of industrial and commercial trade and movement along the canal and Falls of the Ohio. Many years ago, the area was abandoned and sits empty still to this day. When you look around the swath of open space, easily walkable from Downtown Louisville, it’s easy to be amazed at how the waterfront land directly adjacent to the heart of the city is utterly forgotten.
As many have pointed out, movement along the river has defined Louisville’s early growth, especially in this area. Before the Portland Canal was built, boats were unloaded in Shippingport and freighted to Portland below the falls. After the opening of the canal, the area remained strong with industry and warehousing. This movement of goods helped Louisville and especially the area around the Falls grow.
Some have claimed recently that the elevated Interstate fulfills this historical function of movement along the Ohio River in a modern way. It’s simply not true. How are the neighborhoods here benefiting from the highway when they look like this? At most, you can look up and see the trade and commerce passing you by. Now, the highway’s exit structure provides only two links to the area at 22nd and 9th Streets. Replacing the elevated road with an urban boulevard would change this predicament as locals travelling on a local street will be directly linked with the neighborhood. A boulevard would provide connections at more frequent intervals. Good for congestion and for the neighborhood.
But imagine if we could reuse this space for parks and development. This is one of those areas where the elevated Interstate 64 really demonstrates its ability to be a barrier, but with 8664.org’s plan to create an urban boulevard at street level, you can imagine how the land suddenly is opened up to the water and the additional access to Louisville’s street grid could spur development. The river trail would certainly benefit as well with the addition of “Waterfront Park West.”
It’s a long way off, but not out of reach. There’s enormous potential in Shippingport that could help to expand our Downtown’s western boundaries and create a vibrant canal-front neighborhood. There are issues to be dealt, of course, with such as the flood plain, but there is no shortage of creative solutions that could make it work. We must first resolve to fix our urban transportation problems in a responsible way and the possibilities will unfold in time. Just imagine what Shippingport could be for the city.
Hudson River Park
Once home to a notorious elevated highway, Manhattan’s west side is now dominated by a linear park filled with bikers, joggers, and strollers. The West Side Highway has been recreated as an “urban boulevard” and the entire waterfront remade into a park.
The elevated highway was one of the first of its kind in the country when it was built in the 1920s, serving as a model for urban highways across the country including Boston’s now buried central artery. After years of disrepair, an ironic accident shut the highway down for good. In December 1973, a concrete truck headed to make repairs to the road caused a 60 foot span to collapse. After the highway was closed, more than half the traffic disappeared completely:
“When the West Side Highway was closed in 1973, 53 percent of the traffic that had used this highway disappeared, dramatic proof that building freeways generates traffic and that removing freeways reduces traffic. Yet there was tremendous pressure to replace this highway with a bigger and better freeway named Westway.
“The plan was defeated after a David versus Goliath struggle that lasted for more than a decade, with a group of west-side residents, community boards, and environmentalists fighting the entire New York political establishment, including New York city’s mayor and New York state’s governor and two senators.
“Now, there is a park, pedestrian promenade, and bicycle path along the Hudson River on Manhattan’s west side – public places that are real amenities for Manhattan on land that used to be blighted by an elevated freeway.”
It took decades to transform the highway into the urban boulevard it is today, but the results are stunning. The boulevard alternates between 3 to 4 lanes in each direction (that sounds like a lot, but this is New York City after all) and features a landscaped median and pedestrian crossings as stop lights like any normal street. After another strip of landscaping, a two lane protected bike path with its own special stop lights is also heavily used.
The main jewel is the large pedestrian promenade on the water. There’s ample room for runners and walkers on the main path and a boardwalk was designed just for the slow walking set. There’s abundant lawn for frisbee and lounging and hundreds of benches for watching the sunset. Mixed into the park are tennis courts, basketball courts, children’s play areas, and a dog park. It’s all heavily used all the time.
And the new boulevard doesn’t act as a barrier to the water at all, since, after all, its only a street. Like any normal street, there are wide crosswalks at most blocks that provide safe and easy crossing into the park. Once you cross, though, you hardly realize the roadway at all as the Hudson River now takes center stage. This is great example of reconnecting to the river.
Click through for a photo gallery of the boulevard and Hudson River Park.
9th St. Interchange & Wasted Land Beyond (BS File Photo)
Despite a reckless and unfair hearing at the Metro Council Transportation Committee last week, there’s still hope that the resolution sponsored by Tina Ward-Pugh and Tom Owen calling for public input in the soon to be named tolling authority will get a hearing, if at least only symbolic.
Last week, the Ward-Pugh / Owen resolution was defeated in committee after virtually no discussion. The opposing Kremer / Tandy resolution placing the Ohio River Bridges Project tolling authority on the fast track with no public scrutiny or input was passed after about 45 minutes of discussion.
After the rushed meeting, Tina Ward-Pugh was scratching her head wondering how a decision so fateful for the city can garner such little serious attention. She was shocked but not surprised, and plans to continue to fight for community input in the project that will define Louisville for generations.
The full Metro Council must now vote on the resolutions. Tina Ward-Pugh says there are Metro Council members willing to voice their opinion for public comment on the tolling authority. She expects 7 or 8 votes in favor of the Ward-Pugh / Owen resolution this week, a number that falls short of the fourteen votes needed to pass. The resolution’s wording, though, makes it clear what’s at stake (read more after the click):
[I"]f the Metro Council chooses to create the Bi-state Infrastructure Authority without establishing and executing its own fair and public process that ensures all citizens of this newly merged government understand the ORBP and its everlasting consequence to our community, it will be abdicating its responsibility to its constituents to an unelected, appointed body which will decide to impose what could be the largest tax increase in our city’s history.”
Ward-Pugh will sill hold public meetings, no matter what the outcome, to inform the public of what’s happening with the project. She remains optimistic that the best solution will emerge victorious in the end and hopes the public continues to pay attention as plans progress.
When the Kremer-Tandy resolution likely passes Metro Council this week, the Mayor will appoint four members to the bi-state tolling authority. The Ville-Voice speculates on the composition of the appointments:
“We’re guessing David Tandy’s in line for that one. He sponsored the Council’s ordinance and pretty much goes along with the Mayor’s whims. And the Mayor can do him a big favor, perhaps, in his quest to become the city’s next Mayor. The other sponsor of the ordinance, Republican Kevin Kramer, isn’t likely to be Jerry’s pick.
“You can guess that Abramson and Beshear will pack the authority with people who share their views, rather than a mix of people holding different opinions on the Bridges. This is why you can eliminate people like Tina Ward-Pugh of the Metro Council or 8664’s Tyler Allen, who would be most knowledgeable, from consideration.”
Passage of the Kremer / Tandy tolling authority resolution is by no means the end of the road. Tina Ward-Pugh notes that the upcoming leadership change as we elect a new mayor is one major step and encourages all Louisville residents concerned with the future of the city to find a candidate willing to stand up for progressive transportation policy among other ideas.
Click through to read some national perspective and take a look at the resolution.
9th Street Interchange at Main Street
Metro Council’s Transportation Panel took the opportunity to rubber stamp the creation of a tolling authority without public comment Thursday, and took less than an hour to do it. From 8664.org:
“Despite articulate pleas by Councilwoman Ward-Pugh and Councilman Owen for public involvement, the four other present transportation committee members abdicated their responsibility to govern and passed the resolution.”
Council Members Kremer and Tandy, who sponsored the resolution, say there is no more need for public comment despite outcry from Louisville residents. The hasty move left many in attendance including Metro Council members stunned. The full Metro Council will take up the issue on July 30 with a vote on the Kremer-Tandy resolution.
8664.org also released internal polling numbers it sought in 2008. The LEO’s Fat Lip blog has the best coverage by far, so check out the findings over here. Download a press release and the polling data at 8664.org. Suffice it to say, most people in Louisville by a large margin think the East End Bridge is the most important transportation piority. You can read more from Page One over here, but don’t expect any mention in the C-J. Per Fat Lip:
“Our prediction? In less than 48 hours The Courier-Journal will run an editorial saying how this study was funded by communists and that anybody who believes the study is a communist, too, and should be deported to communist-land.”
Interstate 64 terminates the view on 9th Street
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