"Welcome to Toll Free New Albany."

Yes, our official civic slogan has been written for us by the likes of Kerry Stemler, who spent Wednesday in a state of multi-orgasmic stupor, cuddling a souvenir facsimile of Reardon Metal from the Church of Ayn Rand, slobbering atop reams of falsified CDM Smith tolling statistics, and singing hymns of praise to Mitt Romney in a raspy, capitalism-ravaged voice.

New Albany's strategy now becomes so incredibly simple that Bob Caesar will never grasp it for as long as he lives: Begin a ceaseless comprehensive complete streets program now to avert the detrimental aspect of a toll-free Sherman Minton (i.e., oblivious pass-through traffic damaging our neighborhoods) and educate the masses as to the "come to NA" benefits of the very same toll-free bridge.

It isn't a question of money. Do we have the civic intelligence and political courage to put the hammer down on bad traffic, and skim the benefits of good traffic? Let the debate begin, and Bob, just for once, perhaps you can read up on it -- wait, not so fast ... put that IRS code book down ...

Feds OK tolling for bridges project, by Braden Lammers (The "Bama Pensioners Luv Chick-fil-A Journal)

LOUISVILLE — The Federal Highway Administration has approved tolling as part of the financing plan for the Ohio River Bridges Project.

The $2.6 billion plan to construct an east-end bridge, a new downtown bridge and to reconstruct Spaghetti Junction has long awaited word from the federal government on tolling the new infrastructure in order to pay for the project.

Tolls will appear on “only on the new east-end crossing and the downtown crossing, which includes a new I-65 bridge for northbound traffic only and a revamped Kennedy Bridge for southbound traffic only,” according to a press release.