Tuesday, August 01, 2006

UPDATED: 8664: On bridges (real & imaginary) and vision.

(See Ed's photo of the Mishawaka pedestrian/bicycle bridge here. In a comment, he suggested it as a model for the Greenway's Silver Creek crossing)

Last week’s encounter with Tyler “8664” Allen got me to thinking about Louisville and the city’s weirdly dysfunctional relationship with bridges: 8664: It’s never too late to start all over again.

One existing bridge (the Kennedy, on I-65) currently defies all efforts to paint it.

Another existing bridge, the K & I, used to carry vehicular traffic and could be used again to serve pedestrians and cyclists … but the railroad is against it.

The Louisville metro area has desperately needed an East End bridge for decades, but in order to even consider building it, there apparently must be Prospect-ordained penance in the form of another downtown bridge alongside the Kennedy, and the subsequent expansion of the waterfront interstate, with incredibly deleterious effects for everything the city has tried to achieve in recent years with respect to reconnecting with its river.

It makes precious little sense.

In Indiana, yet another bridge is proposed to be built in a place where it should not be, and for mostly wrong reasons. Most of us now grasp that the previously unappreciated value of the Loop Island Wetlands is such that the thought of building a bridge for passenger traffic through it, as stipulated by the master plan for the Ohio River Greenway, is sheer insanity.

And yet, it remains part of the plan, with the saving grace that no money is available to make it reality. It’s heartening that more and more residents of Southern Indiana see what the Greenway might be, and how the plan must be changed to make it better.

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Our Greenway Commission representative, Valla Ann Bolovschak, has expended much effort with the Norfolk Southern in advocacy of the K & I pedway idea, and she’s also in the right place at the right time when it comes to adjustments to a Greenway plan that has become wildly outdated since its mid-1990’s inception.

Think: Less motorized transport and more ambulatory human beings.

Ms. Bolovschak originally penned the following as a submission to a local newspaper, and has given permission for it to be published here. It is a strong summation of the ideal of 8664, and for what needs to be happening in terms of future thinking in the metro Louisville area, which has arrived at a juncture where traditional modes of brick-and-mortar planning might well be permitted to decimate the progress so painstakingly achieved in the recent past.

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I made a trip to Chicago in June with Ray Irvin, INDOT’s executive director of Greenways. We bicycled the Greenways along the waterfront and all throughout downtown Chicago, snapping pictures of one of the most vibrant downtown waterfronts in the country, alive with bikers, roller bladders, moms with strollers, walkers and joggers. In some areas Chicago has three separate Greenways right next to each other along their water front. Only a few years ago, they eliminated the downtown airport on Lake Michigan, putting in its place more park and Greenway space. Within the third largest city in America, dozens of gorgeous condominium buildings are being built as the views of the water and the parks are spectacular, revitalizing areas inside the city that no one would have ever dreamed would be anything but a playground for criminal mischief.

Early July, I took a trip to Milwaukee and witnessed the same. Greenways and parks line Lake Michigan, separating the city from the lake with acres of lush space. Bikers and joggers are everywhere. Milwaukee is in the middle of an enormous highway reconstruction project and none of it is having any impact on their green space. In communities all around Milwaukee, they have magnificent Greenways tying communities and parks together and the impact this has had along the Greenway corridors is obvious. What used to be little sleepy downtowns, like ours, are now thriving with redevelopment in high gear.

The argument of a longer commute made possible by the elimination of I-64 has no merit to my family, who would offer up additional commute time, in exchange for the damage that would be caused by increasing the size of concrete over the city and its Greenways. It was wrong 45 years ago and it’s worse now because Louisville has invested so much to successfully energize downtown.

I am one who believes 8664 can happen, should happen and will happen. People in Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Milwaukee and Chicago, realizing the magnificent asset their waterfronts are, are doing the right things to protect them, eliminating highways by burying them and rerouting them. We need to emulate these larger communities who face much larger hurdles than Louisville even has to. They are succeeding in creating unprecedented downtown revitalization and we should be following in their foot steps by vigorously protecting and enhancing our water front asset too.

I’m proud to know Tyler Allen and I will support him and this cause in anyway that I can. Smart people get together and figure things out. They don’t hide and ignore matters with consequences of the magnitude this project could result in. And that is what we all need to do, figure this out and not spend a billion dollars destroying downtown Louisville, throwing paint on the very face of our Mona Lisa.

Respectfully,

Valla Ann Bolovschak

7 comments:

edward parish said...

Ms. Bolovschak please look at the photo I placed on the http://nabc.blogspot.com/ of what people with vision in Mishawaka, Indiana helped get built for all people to enjoy.

This is not rocket science, just a simple bridge spanning a water way and used for people enjoying life outside their automobiles.

When you here of folk wishing such spanning Silver Creek by Loop Island, this is what they are wanting.

Thanks.....Edward Parish

G Coyle said...

Where is the money coming from to do the Greenway? Are we now working on it or is it still in the conceptual/design phase? This concept was another reason I felt like investing in NA recently...hope it's happening!!

Jeff Gillenwater said...

Much like communication companies, railroads were offered rights-of-way under the auspices of contributing to the public good. Perhaps it's time to reevaluate that "public good" and take it up with the proper authorities.

Municipalities are left to scrap for pittance while major corporations bilk us for billions, using our land to do it.

For the record, Norfolk Southern's operating revenue for the first half of 2006 was $4.7 billion with net income of $680 million. Given the location of their tracks, I think it's safe to assume that they affect millions of dollars of local real estate.

Can any of us catch a train in New Albany to help alleviate automobile traffic? Do they even stop anywhere in New Albany west of the K&I bridge?

If Governor Daniels wants to use his influence and Major Moves money wisely, I think a nice, quiet electric passenger train to and from Louisville would be a good idea. The ride itself along the river would be a tourist attraction and a park and ride lot in downtown New Albany would surely increase the customer base for local businesses.

It would lessen the need (no matter how real or imagined) for a major interstate through the west end of Louisville for local trafffic. We could even use the money we save from not building a second downtown bridge to get started. A majority of the infrastructure is obviously already there.

To reference Ms. Bolovschak's letter, Portland, Oregon, built light rail directly to the spaces they wanted growth and redevelopment, thereby controlling sprawl with proper planning.

I wonder if giving the impression that one could get to the businesses and attractions of Louisville from downtown New Albany in a few minutes with no traffic and no gas or parking expenses would help our neighborhoods? If a family could get by with one car instead of a loan, insurance, maintenance, and gas for a second, I wonder how they might spend that extra money. Probably on something silly like local commerce or education.

Much of our Mona Lisa is a rail line. Why not take it back and make good environmental and economic use of it?

Jeff Gillenwater said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
A Democrat in Floyd County said...

Good reading. Be aware they are also trying to lower the Ohio River standards regarding pollution.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

To further understand the utter ridiculousness of the dual bridge, concrete monster plan, readers should have a look at this page on the Ohio River Bridges web site.

In exchange for approval and funding, the officials in charge of the project are being required by even bigger bureaucrats to host a Smart Growth conference!

Be sure to click on the Speaker Bios link. There you'll find biographical information for keynote speaker Walter Kulash, a traffic engineer who's noted for his work on livable traffic design, park-once districts and implementing walking programs to formerly automobile-blighted areas.

It should be noted that Mr. Kulash is the author of this article about the positive effects of creating ground level neighborhood traffic by eliminating unnecessary interstates. The 8664 crew even links to it from their site.

Having made the decision to expand the interstate system, the Bridges officials are now going to pay someone to come explain why they should do the exact opposite. Brilliant.

I was thinking of going but I think I'll save my money to see Jim Brady speak at the NRA gun control convention.

G Coyle said...

I love all the rail ideas. Would love to see a street car back on Spring St which would connect to a light rail to downtown louisville. That'd be some fine urban living. Throw in the greenway and it's like too good to be true. How 'bout some ferry service just like in the olden days? Oh - yeah - those falls...