Incomplete streets are the price we pay for "Bail, Caesar’s" modernity avoidance.

The Confidentials were returning from an errand in Louisville, and we made the usual descent into downtown New Albany via the I-64 ramp, crossing State Street and continuing east on Elm.

As the numbered streets from 3rd to 13th passed by, the missus asked, “Why can’t I imagine living on Elm Street?”

Obviously, lots of people DO live on Elm Street, but the fact remains that civic planners of a previous generation transformed Elm into a wide straightaway artery suitable only for vehicular speed and dullards’ misbehavior, and accordingly, that’s exactly the way most drivers treat it, at least from the ramp to Vincennes. It’s a situation entirely at odds with the concept of a safe neighborhood. Sidewalks are crummy, there’s no space for bicycles, and the overall effect is one of a racetrack slicing through a collection of hostage homes.

Any conceivable human aesthetic is erased daily by the auto-centric design, and any conceivable hope is paralyzed by force of timid civic habit, with New Albany’s current “leadership” cadre seemingly unable to skip past council person Bob Caesar’s personal mantra, one repeated so often that it might as well be the whole city’s hidebound eulogy: “I never met a fresh way of thinking that I like, or can even comprehend, so we need to protect ourselves at any cost from the book readers.”

And yes, "Bail, Caesar’s" modernity avoidance is costly. Very soon we’ll have spent upwards of $2 million to repair a quarter-mile stretch of Spring Street leading directly from Caesar’s business to his home in Silver Hills, where two other roads already provide access.

We’ll also be dumping close to $600,000 into a bicentennial park adjacent to two of Caesar’s beloved one-way downtown streets. In a few short years, when the Sherman Minton becomes the only major non-tolled bridge across the Ohio River (you can thank spineless “leaders” like Caesar for bridge tolls, too) – and if nothing is done to abate the ensuing crush of “pass through but do not stop” traffic on Spring Street – the automotive din alone likely will be sufficient to render Caesar’s bronze-plaque, bicentennial park legacy into a forum suitable only for dealing drugs and sipping Mad Dog.

And yet so much as mention the merits of two-way streets for living, breathing people, and listen as the budgetary moaning begins to mount.

Miraculously, New Albany has a brief window of opportunity in which we might “occupy” our own streets, and utilize the concept of purposeful design to the advantage of those living, working and paying taxes right here, as opposed to others from elsewhere who do not – and who neither care about our city, nor can be expected to contribute to a solution.

Is it more important to improve the quality of life in our own historic neighborhoods, or to provide high-speed conduits for outsiders racing to avoid Parson Clere’s bridge tolls?

The credo is right here. Perhaps it is time for this city’s officials and functionaries to hear you reciting it to them, as often as possible, since too few of them seem to be reading it with their own eyes.

The streets of our cities and towns are an important part of the livability of our communities. They ought to be for everyone, whether young or old, motorist or bicyclist, walker or wheelchair user, bus rider or shopkeeper. But too many of our streets are designed only for speeding cars, or worse, creeping traffic jams.
Now, in communities across the country, a movement is growing to complete the streets. States, cities and towns are asking their planners and engineers to build road networks that are safer, more livable, and welcoming to everyone.
Instituting a Complete Streets policy ensures that transportation planners and engineers consistently design and operate the entire roadway with all users in mind - including bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and riders, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.