A half-century after Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road on the River is underway in Jeffersonville.

From George Martin all the way to Mike Moore ...

Yesterday I was delighted to help out for a few hours at the Clark-Floyd Counties Convention Tourism Bureau's information booth, situated by the Pearl Street entrance to Abbey Road on the River.

The Big Four Bridge is open for transit, with the ramp descending to street level adjacent to the fest gate. If you decide to walk, Budweiser wants you to keep moving.

Presumably no listening, either.

The festival takes up the whole rectangular expanse of the park built around the bridge. There'll always be first-year jitters, but yesterday it appeared that the fest's infrastructure had been well-planned.

As always in autocentric America, parking stands to be the biggest issue, thought there are hotel shuttles to help with out-of-town guests. Use the damn walking bridge, Louisvillians.

Of course, me being me, the biggest question is how much the city of Jeffersonville is budgeting for five days of Beatlemania. Recalling the reluctance of City Hall in New Albany to openly discuss how much Harvest Homecoming actually costs, it's an answer I'm unlikely to receive.

But just imagine being able to house all of Harvest Homecoming inside the expanse the size of Big Four Station, engineered precisely for this purpose (and others). No merchant would be blocked, and the independent businesses nearby would be in a position to enjoy the best of both worlds.

A boy can dream. Thanks to the bureau for having me -- and by the way, it's fazed, not phased.

Abbey Road on the River starts off cloudy, but recovers, by Danielle Grady (All Things Bright and Jeffersonville)

JEFFERSONVILLE — The first day of Abbey Road on the River’s first year in Jeffersonville didn’t start out perfectly.

Rain the day before pushed back the gate opening for The Beatles festival from noon to 4 p.m.

By late-afternoon on Thursday, however, temperatures had risen into the 60s and a small crowd of Abbey Road-die hards had gathered at the foot of the Big Four Bridge awaiting the five-day festival’s beginning.

Suzie Atkins, a six-years-or-so veteran, was among the not-phased.

“There’s always bad weather the first day and things get pushed back,” she said.

Abbey Road on the River, which was previously held in Louisville for 12 years, moved across the river to downtown Jeffersonville for 2017 after the festival founder decided to look for a different spot.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Complexities and simplicities in Boomtown.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Complexities and simplicities in Boomtown.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Yesterday we learned there will be a sophomore edition of the Boomtown Ball & Festival, to be held on Sunday, May 24. As reported by the News and Tribune, City Hall's press release leaves a few details unreported, but the broad overview is complete.

BAND BUZZ: Houndmouth to present encore Boomtown Ball & Festival in New Albany

NEW ALBANY — A band with New Albany roots making waves on the national music scene is presenting the second annual Boomtown Ball & Festival, and is curating the event’s music lineup.

Houndmouth, along with New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan and WFPK, are staging the Sunday, May 24 event, which serves as the kickoff for New Albany’s Bicentennial Park Summer Concert Series, according to a news release from Production Simple.

The release does not state whether Houndmouth will perform at the event.

As for the band, Houndmouth's tour schedule shows the group with the weekend off, and it is as yet unclear whether the newspaper's reporter Daniel Suddeath will await their arrival with subpoena in hand.

As for NABC's beer of the same name, of which somewhere between 15 and 20 kegs were vended to eager fest goers in 2014, readers from Timbuktu know exactly as much as I do. Really.

The same consideration applies to speculation about the fest's difficult and intricate layout, which (I'm guessing) will change owing to construction under way at the farmers market. Without a trace of irony, permit me to wish the best to whomever works out the "drinks enclosure" details this year.

It won't be me. After all, I'm on leave of absence. Following is last year's Boomtown preview.

---

Complexities and simplicities in Boomtown.

(original 2014 text)

Friday is a very important day. That’s because I’m getting a haircut. Personally, it is slated to be a timely and symbolic act, considering that my year to date has constituted a journey from complexity to simplicity – and for me, taking care of foot-long hair has become far too complicated.

This hirsute situation, which has taken several years to create, will be rectified in short order with the generous assistance of Strandz & Threadz, which will be staging its annual Cuts for a Cure. My original aim was to solicit donors for the occasion, but unfortunately the daily grind has been a bit too … well, complicated, so instead, I’ll make a donation on behalf of those friends who would have been subjected to the hard sell. It’s simpler that way.

---

By all rights, Tuesday should have been a day for New Albanians to triumphantly remind the world that while Jeffersonville’s connecting ramp to the Big Four Bridge finally was open, those many months of barred, inaccessible ineptitude could not possibly be forgotten – and, by comparison, New Albany still had its act together as the Brooklyn/Hoboken/Boomtown/Not Jeffersonville of the Falls Cities.

In fact, one can conceive of only a handful of ways for us to flush such a commanding lead in the waning seconds, among them photos of a Democratic grandee in bed with a sheep, a Padgett truck wedged into two Spring Street buildings while trying to make a turn, or 387 Little Leaguers forming a human chain across the Plan Commission.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and somewhere in the world an elderly Franco Harris donned a Red Devils uniform, grinning broadly in approval as we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, yielding the usual media spin:

Reporting from Jeffersonville: Look at these delighted folks crowding the Big Four in their spandex with Bibles, ice cream cones and homespun drooling.

Reporting from New Albany: POLICE SCANDAL! NEWS AT 11!

Two days later, it has gotten even more Byzantine. Sifting through the usual stenography from the same Jimmy Olsens:

First, a police officer registered a complaint over alleged incidents some years back, and threatened a lawsuit.

Next, the chief of police suddenly quit for “family” reasons, followed by her second in command, albeit of a different family.

Then, a grand jury made a report on a recent alleged episode involving a police officer, but declined to issue an indictment.

An agoraphobic City Hall seemingly shaken to its core by the grudging necessity of appearing in public to address any issue other than “quality of life” in EDIT-funded parks gradually rushed forward to reassure the citizenry that each of these policing occurrences took place in a hermetically sealed vacuum similar to that surrounding municipal parks construction decision-making.

Now our choices are to ignore these protests of non-linkage and retreat to our favorite watering holes to formulate conspiracy theories, a habit sometimes referred to by cultural anthropologists as the “old lady Internet troll with dangling cigarette” theorem, or to go even deeper by pondering which is worse, multiple acts of weirdness taken together or separately?

As far as I’m concerned, it’s Rosenbarger’s fault, and nothing a few bump-outs wouldn’t cure.

But seriously: At this precise moment, the only thing crystal clear about any of it is that we’ll have a new police chief. Beyond that, it’s all innuendo and murk. I’m not jumping to conclusions.

When we’re finished gossiping, might someone – City Hall, police department, Democratic central committee, Kim Jung-un – take an interest in the escalating speeds on our almost entirely unenforced one-way arterial streets?

---

This brings me to Sunday, when there’ll be a new event downtown called the Boomtown Ball and Festival. Boomtown is the brainchild of Houndmouth, a Southern Indiana musical group with strong ties to New Albany. The city has played a leading role in this celebration, as with the Bicentennial Park Concert Series, which begins on Friday, May 30.

On Sunday evening, the band will play a sold-out indoor show at The Grand. During the afternoon preceding Houndmouth’s performance, other bands will play on an outdoor stage at Market and Third, as selected and booked by Houndmouth and Production Simple, while in the farmers market space and on Bank Street, there will be vendors of all varieties as organized and arranged in the loose aggregation known as the Flea Off Market. It’s an all-ages, all-interests event.

A consortium of downtown food and drink businesses will operate the Boomtown Tavern, located within the confines of the farmers market pavilion. Owing to Indiana state law, the entire Boomtown festival will be located within a fence and enclosures, but of course, the full range of downtown’s independent businesses are a short walk away. Many of them will observe special Sunday opening hours for the occasion.

In a conceptual sense, if the Boomtown festival were to declare its relationship status, the likely choice would be “It’s Complicated.” Nothing about it has been simple, and yet the day slowly is coming together. By Sunday, we’ll be ready to muddle through it, and I’m sure everything will work out acceptably.

It’s worth remembering that when it comes to serving the cause of simplicity, communication goes a very long way toward reducing complexity to manageable levels, if not eliminating it outright. During the course of my involvement with Boomtown, I’ve tried to make decisions and urge solutions on the basis of more communication, not less, and in the simple recognition that downtown stakeholders already have issues with unanswered questions pertaining to pre-existing impositions (read: Harvest Homecoming) without needing any more of them.

I’m hoping that in spite of the many rough spots experienced while planning and executing this complicated first-time event, all those working so hard to make it happen will learn from the input offered by those doing business downtown, every day of the year. I can’t speak for everyone, but it has been revealing for me.

Downtown has changed, and we just can’t persist in top-down planning without seeking some measure of consensus first, from those who stand to be affected by the actions being considered.

Granted, the Boomtown Ball will bring commerce downtown on a Sunday, and of course, that’s a good thing, but it must be grasped by those in positions of authority that starting the Ball rolling by emphasizing the importance of a Louisville-based flea market – a fine and reputable institution in its own right – sent an immediate and frankly insulting signal to local merchants, which sounded like this: “We’re not good enough here, so we’ll bring in someone else’s panache.”

No, this was not the city’s intent. However, it was ill-considered just the same, and it has complicated every step of the process since.

Simplicity? Please, and here’s an example.

“Do you mind if we use your space?”

David Karem tells big greasy whoppers about the Big Four Bridge.

David Karem must think we aren't very bright.

Pedestrian bridge will close rather than salt or shovel snow and ice, by Gordon Boyd (WAVE-3)

"This is a bridge that is not part of the Kentucky highway transportation system," Karem said. "It's an amenity now. So when it comes to maintenance and repairs, we're on our own."

JeffG reminds us of the arrangement v.v. the Ohio River Bridges Project.

Bamboozled again. This bridge is primary transportation infrastructure, not an amenity. Can you imagine them saying they wouldn't clean the Kennedy Bridge? Remember when removing non-automobile options from the new bridge was justified by opening this one for that traffic?

You can feel the gears grinding in their heads: "How can it be 'primary' if it doesn't involve a car?"

Drinking Progressively: Let's make it Tuesday evenings, beginning on November 25.

Following up: Progressive embarrassment, political cowardice and NA falling behind Jeffersonville.

There was this, and quite a lot of you read it today. I'm thankful.

ON THE AVENUES: Really, the word “progressive” embarrasses you? That’s okay, because political cowardice disgusts me.

... Of course, right now, as it stands, the city’s interminable, fear-driven delay of street grid reform is quite effectively achieving the very same result (small business failure), by leaving in place a one-way arterial street grid that nullifies every penny-ante ribbon cutting and “stay open late” promotion tossed into the air by increasingly desperate indie shop owners in the absence of a downtown economic development plan, because while street grid reform could be so very helpful, and constitute an economic development plan in itself, it would fatally embarrass a Democratic mayor to be seen openly advocating it.

Subsequently, JeffG succinctly applied my column's conclusions to a real-life evening with real, live people.

K and I spent last evening at BSB with a group of artists, musicians, and writers preparing for an exhibit and performances in New Albany. Initial conversation was about redevelopment in various areas of the metro. When it came to NA, the very first thing mentioned (and not by K or me) was that there are some good things happening (independent businesses and arts) but that the streets "are so wide and fast, it makes it all less appealing". The first response? Another person pointed to Elm Street where they'd just been, saying, "Yeah, people do what seems like 80 mph just on that street, and it's smaller than some of the rest", pointing out Spring as worse. When I explained that some of us are aware and have been petitioning the City for change, the original commenter said "I'm sure you are, it's needed" and then proceeded to make a comparison with Jeffersonville, where the streets are narrower, slower, and more visitor friendly. Then someone else mentioned that the general consensus among their acquaintances was that they wished New Albany's businesses and activities were in Jeffersonville.

That's right, Jeff and David and John and Adam.

In Jeffersonville.

Back in July, I clearly repudiated Big Four Envy, and enunciated the program by which New Albany could have its own "Big Four." We're due for a reprise, so here is an excerpt.

ON THE AVENUES: We have our own Big Four. They’re called Main, Market, Spring and Elm.

... The Big Four Bridge is open every day, and people use it every day. It isn’t open once a year, or once a month. It’s every day. As I write, metro Louisville residents are making the Big Four part of their daily arsenal of lifestyle and recreational choices. That’s all of it in a nutshell. Meanwhile, New Albany has the ideal means to steal a march not just on Jeffersonville, but on the remainder of the metropolitan area, by thinking about what makes the Big Four “special” on a daily basis … just without an actual bridge.

With our streets.

We have a street study coming from the nationally renowned Jeff Speck, who (believe it or not) knows even more about such matters than Bob Caesar, and when Speck’s study is finished, we must embrace walkability and embark upon a progressive, rapid, no-compromises program of traffic calming, complete streets and two-way street conversions.

By doing so, and by staking a claim to being the most walkable and bikeable neighborhood in metro Louisville, we can utilize the street grid we already possess to enhance our quality of life every single day, not just during those exhaustively conjured “special” occasions.

In effect, and to a far greater physical degree, New Albany’s street grid is our Big Four Bridge. The reformatted street grid is the canvas, and its users will do the painting. A walkable and bikeable street grid will be the daily complement to business and residential interests, rather than catering solely to cars and trucks alone, encouraging a broader base for the type of “special” activities the city currently takes upon itself to plan. They’ll happen more often, and more spontaneously, as instigated by businesses and residents.

In short, New Albany can be rendered “special” every single day by design, with the street grid supporting revitalization, not working against it – as our sad, outmoded truck-choked, speeding one-way streets do now.

There's the tourist slogan: "New Albany: For 196 Years, We Coulda Been a Contender."

Drinking Progressively: Let's make it Tuesday evenings, beginning on November 25.

"Cyclists, slow down. Pedestrians, move out of the way. Share the bridge!"

As Ryan Rogers presciently observed:

Bicyclists and pedestrians have been cohabiting the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges in NYC for a long time.

That's true, Ryan, but here in Indyucky, there must be a long, slow learning curve when entirely new ways of thinking come at us like so many alien space ships brazenly landing atop the Creation Museum.

First there was a "threat" to make cyclists walk the Big Four Bridge, then there wasn't. Louisville Waterfront Park has addressed the teapot tempest with two posts at its Fb page. As a public service, here they are, in their entirety.

Just a few words about one of the most popular venues in Waterfront Park - the Big Four Bridge. The Big Four Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge.

Can't we all just get along? Pedestrians - be aware that you are sharing the bridge with cyclists. Cyclists - be aware that you are sharing the bridge with pedestrians. Everyone - be considerate of those who share the space with you!

The bridge is a unique space. It shares uses as well as users. It is not just a traditional commuter path - it is also a recreational path and a park space. It isn't just a way to get from Point A to Point B - it's also a scenic overlook, a social occasion. That means cyclists aren't going to be able to treat it like an expressway - they need to think of it more like a school zone and slow down. And pedestrians - be like the little school kids and remember what your mom and dad taught you - look both ways before crossing. Also, keep an eye on your kids. That cyclist wants to avoid an accident just as much as you do!

Pedestrians - the cyclists aren't being rude when they ring those little bells or call out from behind you - they are letting you know they are there - just scoot over and let them by.

Pedestrians - please don't walk 4 or 5 or 6 abreast. The space is simply not wide enough for this. You are blocking other users - cyclists and pedestrians - from getting by. Think how irritated you get in the grocery store when people park their carts in the middle of the aisle and then stand beside them and talk. Don't be those aisle-blocking cart people.

There has been rudeness on both sides. That needs to stop. Everyone, just slow down, take a deep breath, and accept that during busy times it's going to take a bit longer to get from one end to the other. Be patient! This bridge is for everyone to enjoy - young and old, fit and (ahem) not so fit (ok, that's me. ), differently-abled, wheels and no wheels. Please, let's not make anyone feel unwelcome or uncomfortable about using the bridge.

It's simple. Be aware. Be considerate. Enjoy the space and let it be enjoyable for others. Cyclists, slow down. Pedestrians, move out of the way. Share the bridge!

That is all.

So, to recap and be absolutely clear: YES!!! Bikes are still allowed on the Big Four Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge. NO!!!! You don't have to walk your bikes across. Please, everyone, just be considerate of those around you, and enjoy the bridge! (I know I'm using a lot of !!!!!, but somehow I feel like I'm not being heard today. )

And now, for the hardest part of all: Once you've learned Big Four Bridge etiquette, try not to forget that the very same guidelines apply when walking, biking or DRIVING YOUR CAR anywhere else ... even when YOU'RE NOT ON THE BIG FOUR BRIDGE.

Got it? Now, take it away, Matt Nash.

NASH: Bike lane designation needs to be reconsidered

On Wednesday I rode my bicycle across the Big Four Bridge, the converted railroad bridge that has been transformed into a pedestrian bridge and has been more popular than most people ever expected. As I was riding across I noticed that the markings that had been painted on to designate the bike lane have been removed. I was curious as to why and thought that I might investigate when I got home.

ON THE AVENUES: We have our own Big Four. They’re called Main, Market, Spring and Elm.

ON THE AVENUES: We have our own Big Four. They’re called Main, Market, Spring and Elm.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

If car ownership is mandatory, [the place is] not urban.
– Donald Baxter

Seeing as you’re entitled to my opinion, here it is.

I believe it serves as evidence of a lack of imagination (at best) and a latent inferiority complex (at the worst) when we focus on the occasional yearly highlight at the expense of everyday possibilities.

Take Harvest Homecoming.

Please, take it.

(rim shot)

Actually, today I have come neither to bury Harvest Homecoming, nor to praise it. Rather, I’d like for you to consider the primary operational conceit of Harvest Homecoming, and by this, I don’t mean the festival’s campy parade, or its elephant ear-fueled events, or even its Wal-Mart target demographic.

What I mean is the most, basic, elemental aspect of Harvest Homecoming itself.

It occurs only once each year.

It is designed to be a temporary annual festival, and has been planned and designed accordingly. In short, everyday reality downtown is radically supplanted, and a template of temporary reality superimposed atop it.

This spring, when New Albany city officials began exploring the conceptual threads that led to Boomtown, their thinking was the same. It was to be a special event, perhaps repeated once each year in May, so as to contrast and bookend with Harvest Homecoming’s October hegemony.

Note that by drawing this very contrast, City Hall is implicitly conceding that Harvest Homecoming’s autumnal invasiveness downtown will continue to go unreformed, but that’s a different topic for another time. Simply know that Boomtown differs from Harvest Homecoming in one highly significant way, because while it is a one-off event, it actually showcases downtown rather than buries it.

---

We might take this “special event” notion a step further, and posit that thinking in terms of one-off festivals and celebrations is a recurring feature of city government, now and in the past. For instance, there’s the Bicentennial Park concert series and the July 3 fireworks.

Develop New Albany organizes special events like the Jingle Walk and the now mercifully defunct Exclusively New Albany. NA First is planning its third annual Indie Fest. Churches have their summer picnics, and so on.

As a restaurant and brewery owner, we sometimes think in a similar way as these groups. There’s Gravity Head each year, and the brew crew spends most weekends during the warm weather months showcasing our wares at annual outdoor celebrations throughout Indiana and Kentucky (and one in Wisconsin). It’s always fun to do something different.

But the trick isn’t in the special events, although they require hard work and expertise to execute correctly. Rather, the objective for a food and drink business is to provide consistency on a daily basis, each and every time the door is unlocked and customers are invited inside. To do so, we try to institute a routine. If the routine is working as it should, you’ll get a clean glass each time you order a beer, even if the contents vary in style.

Throughout the year, customers come to us all the time when we’re not doing anything “special” – but they are. Maybe it’s a date night, someone’s birthday, a promotion or a graduation. They come to celebrate their world, in our place, by drinking our beer and eating our food. We provide a canvas, but our customers do the painting.

It’s what a city does, too. The special event planning only makes sense if the daily routine of infrastructure is maintained for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Admittedly these days utility monopolies do much of it, although City Hall successfully reabsorbed the sewer department.

The city controls a cemetery and a system of public parks, features of which are usable throughout the year. It also possesses the street grid, which is the biggest single chunk of municipal property, and therein lies my larger point.

Since the Big Four Bridge opened and Jeffersonville became the new regional hottest ticket, I’ve heard many worried comments and witnessed an epidemic of hand-wringing. Can’t New Albany get a bridge, too? Can’t we stage more festivals, more special events, and more one-offs – you know, like Jeffersonville does?

Well, there won’t be a pedestrian bridge for New Albany unless we pry the K & I out of Norfolk Southern’s (preferably) cold, dead hands, and while we’re on the topic, do you know what is the most important facet of the Big Four Bridge?

It isn’t special at all.

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The Big Four is open every day, and people use it every day. It isn’t open once a year, or once a month. It’s every day. As I write, metro Louisville residents are making the Big Four part of their daily arsenal of lifestyle and recreational choices. That’s all of it in a nutshell. Meanwhile, New Albany has the ideal means to steal a march not just on Jeffersonville, but on the remainder of the metropolitan area, by thinking about what makes the Big Four “special” on a daily basis … just without an actual bridge.

With our streets.

We have a street study coming from the nationally renowned Jeff Speck, who (believe it or not) knows even more about such matters than Bob Caesar, and when Speck’s study is finished, we must embrace walkability and embark upon a progressive, rapid, no-compromises program of traffic calming, complete streets and two-way street conversions.

By doing so, and by staking a claim to being the most walkable and bikeable neighborhood in metro Louisville, we can utilize the street grid we already possess to enhance our quality of life every single day, not just during those exhaustively conjured “special” occasions.

In effect, and to a far greater physical degree, New Albany’s street grid is our Big Four Bridge. The reformatted street grid is the canvas, and its users will do the painting. A walkable and bikeable street grid will be the daily complement to business and residential interests, rather than catering solely to cars and trucks alone, encouraging a broader base for the type of “special” activities the city currently takes upon itself to plan. They’ll happen more often, and more spontaneously, as instigated by businesses and residents.

In short, New Albany can be rendered “special” every single day by design, with the street grid supporting revitalization, not working against it – as our sad, outmoded truck-choked, speeding one-way streets do now.

All we have to fear is fear itself.

And that, my friends, is the biggest problem of all because boy, are we scared.

ON THE AVENUES: Bridge envy in a time of 18-wheelers.

ON THE AVENUES: Bridge envy in a time of 18-wheelers. 

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Surely at least a few New Albany governmental officials and their perennial glad-handlers, the Democratic Party’s oblivious and antediluvian grandees, have not failed to grasp the supreme irony of Jeffersonville’s miraculous overnight conversion to regional hot spot.

It’s all because of a bridge, of course, but not just any bridge. It’s an urban conversion of an abandoned rail link, and an epochal adaptive reuse. It’s a bridge for people who walk (gasp), and to a slightly lesser extent, those who bike. It is not one of the billion dollar bridges being constructed for cars, trucks and automotive-laced Viagra bingeing.

What’s more, the Big Four pedestrian bridge is a generator of virtual reality unparalleled outside of Pixar. The novelty of the bridge’s mere presence is a glamor shot for Jeffersonville, which in the main is no less gritty than before, but now finds itself sexy as viewed from mid-river, suddenly acclaimed by area style arbiters as the latest and greatest Southern Indiana city ever to have refrained from canal building.

All of this front-running is fitting and proper, and personally, I’m happy that Jeffersonville finally has a shtick to call its own. Sadly, there’ll be some tough times ahead for Jeff’s emerging downtown indie entrepreneurs as the Kerry Stemler Memorial Cluster Project achieves full monetary tumescence, because Stemler’s Golly will deter those driving among us, for whom walking was something to be abandoned after high school, along with homework, pom poms and hope.

At the moment, it’s more interesting to see the Big Four’s effect on the New Albanian civic thought process. However, as usual, first there must be evidence of thought.

I see the outline of something from 1947. Can someone call the forensics team? It might be an idea, or at least a local Democratic Party platform plank.

---

I think that New Albany’s recurring, historic and indigenous manic depression currently is being manifested by bridge envy on an epic scale.

While it is true that the K & I bridge should be forcibly removed from the leaden grip of Norfolk Southern – the quicker and more violently, the better – in order to “close” the recreational loop, hopes and dreams that a railway Hail Mary will occur any time soon is a waste of valuable time in the here and now.

Furthermore, even if the K & I opened tomorrow for pedestrian and bicycling use, timer-serving city officials like John “Let’s Move the Tractor Trailers Down Spring and Elm” Rosenbarger could not be trusted at all to actually link it to anything in any way that makes sense.

It’s relatively easy to imagine eager folks coming across the K & I and descending to the Greenway, but it’s impossible to picture them moving from the bridge to Vincennes Street without encountering a Rosenbarger Roundabout serving to channel them right back to Portland, or perhaps 50 mph traffic discouraging forward progress.

Trust me on this one: When I’m elected mayor, Rosenbarger will become the highest paid cigarette butt remover this city has ever seen, leaving him free to mutter like a plucked peacock about the eternal stupidity of his political bosses, and the boundless depravity of the general public, but deprived of his ability to punish us any further with Gail Wynand-style “improvements” to the street grid.

But I digress.

Actually, New Albany doesn’t need a pedestrian bridge, although we’ll take it when it finally comes. What we need most of all is to look at the principles animating the success of the Big Four, and to apply them to the city’s layout at-large.

Self-evidently, these animating principles are walkability and bikeability. If our street grid reflects the characteristics that now are making the Big Four so popular, we benefit even more than Jeffersonville, because in New Albany, walkability and bikeability can be harnessed to connect neighborhoods with the central business district, and link the same neighborhoods to outlying “thinking” destinations like IU Southeast and the Purdue Center.

Two-way completed streets made suitable for all persons, not just those piloting motorized vehicles, should be the stated, above-board, publicly advance and ultimate goal.

Apart from Rosenbarger himself, who quite soon will be looking for creative, self-serving ways to biblically emulate Peter and deny Jeff Speck three or more times, New Albany’s city officials theoretically agree with me, and promise to embrace Speck’s street study as a means toward the end I’m prescribing here today.

Will they follow through?

---

The tractor trailer driver unceremoniously flipped me off, and I laughed out loud.

After all, all I’d done was take his picture – more accurately, I’d photographed his block-long vehicle occupying the entirety of Spring Street, from one side to the other, inclusive of both bicycle lanes to nowhere, in an effort to make a turn without commanding the sidewalk.

But why the bird, dude?

How do you know that my shutter wasn’t snapping because my hot male metal engine lust had been aroused, and that far from denigrating you, or exposing you, that I was expressing my solidarity with you – with all that power, all that huge machine-precision monster truck clear-the-fuck-away authority, right here in the so-called “neighborhood” where I live?

Or: Is that Peterbilt, or are you just happy to see me?

It’s just life in Truck Through City, where on consecutive days in June, neither the city council nor the board of public works (and safety, natch) had any clue as to existing rules governing use of the streets both purport to administer. Thanks again to Todd Bailey, our returning chief of police, for his ongoing research about the same, and his public avowal that problems obviously exist.

Wow. Think about it. If the mayor knew you were going to be open and honest, Chief, you may not have gotten the job back.

Good luck.

ON THE AVENUES: Complexities and simplicities in Boomtown.

ON THE AVENUES: Complexities and simplicities in Boomtown.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Friday is a very important day. That’s because I’m getting a haircut. Personally, it is slated to be a timely and symbolic act, considering that my year to date has constituted a journey from complexity to simplicity – and for me, taking care of foot-long hair has become far too complicated.

This hirsute situation, which has taken several years to create, will be rectified in short order with the generous assistance of Strandz & Threadz, which will be staging its annual Cuts for a Cure. My original aim was to solicit donors for the occasion, but unfortunately the daily grind has been a bit too … well, complicated, so instead, I’ll make a donation on behalf of those friends who would have been subjected to the hard sell. It’s simpler that way.

---

By all rights, Tuesday should have been a day for New Albanians to triumphantly remind the world that while Jeffersonville’s connecting ramp to the Big Four Bridge finally was open, those many months of barred, inaccessible ineptitude could not possibly be forgotten – and, by comparison, New Albany still had its act together as the Brooklyn/Hoboken/Boomtown/Not Jeffersonville of the Falls Cities.

In fact, one can conceive of only a handful of ways for us to flush such a commanding lead in the waning seconds, among them photos of a Democratic grandee in bed with a sheep, a Padgett truck wedged into two Spring Street buildings while trying to make a turn, or 387 Little Leaguers forming a human chain across the Plan Commission.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and somewhere in the world an elderly Franco Harris donned a Red Devils uniform, grinning broadly in approval as we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, yielding the usual media spin:

Reporting from Jeffersonville:
Look at these delighted folks crowding the Big Four in their spandex with Bibles, ice cream cones and homespun drooling.

Reporting from New Albany:
POLICE SCANDAL! NEWS AT 11!

Two days later, it has gotten even more Byzantine. Sifting through the usual stenography from the same Jimmy Olsens:

First, a police officer registered a complaint over alleged incidents some years back, and threatened a lawsuit.

Next, the chief of police suddenly quit for “family” reasons, followed by her second in command, albeit of a different family.

Then, a grand jury made a report on a recent alleged episode involving a police officer, but declined to issue an indictment.

An agoraphobic City Hall seemingly shaken to its core by the grudging necessity of appearing in public to address any issue other than “quality of life” in EDIT-funded parks gradually rushed forward to reassure the citizenry that each of these policing occurrences took place in a hermetically sealed vacuum similar to that surrounding municipal parks construction decision-making.

Now our choices are to ignore these protests of non-linkage and retreat to our favorite watering holes to formulate conspiracy theories, a habit sometimes referred to by cultural anthropologists as the “old lady Internet troll with dangling cigarette” theorem, or to go even deeper by pondering which is worse, multiple acts of weirdness taken together or separately?

As far as I’m concerned, it’s Rosenbarger’s fault, and nothing a few bump-outs wouldn’t cure.

But seriously: At this precise moment, the only thing crystal clear about any of it is that we’ll have a new police chief. Beyond that, it’s all innuendo and murk. I’m not jumping to conclusions.

When we’re finished gossiping, might someone – City Hall, police department, Democratic central committee, Kim Jung-un – take an interest in the escalating speeds on our almost entirely unenforced one-way arterial streets?

---

This brings me to Sunday, when there’ll be a new event downtown called the Boomtown Ball and Festival. Boomtown is the brainchild of Houndmouth, a Southern Indiana musical group with strong ties to New Albany. The city has played a leading role in this celebration, as with the Bicentennial Park Concert Series, which begins on Friday, May 30.

On Sunday evening, the band will play a sold-out indoor show at The Grand. During the afternoon preceding Houndmouth’s performance, other bands will play on an outdoor stage at Market and Third, as selected and booked by Houndmouth and Production Simple, while in the farmers market space and on Bank Street, there will be vendors of all varieties as organized and arranged in the loose aggregation known as the Flea Off Market. It’s an all-ages, all-interests event.

A consortium of downtown food and drink businesses will operate the Boomtown Tavern, located within the confines of the farmers market pavilion. Owing to Indiana state law, the entire Boomtown festival will be located within a fence and enclosures, but of course, the full range of downtown’s independent businesses are a short walk away. Many of them will observe special Sunday opening hours for the occasion.

In a conceptual sense, if the Boomtown festival were to declare its relationship status, the likely choice would be “It’s Complicated.” Nothing about it has been simple, and yet the day slowly is coming together. By Sunday, we’ll be ready to muddle through it, and I’m sure everything will work out acceptably.

It’s worth remembering that when it comes to serving the cause of simplicity, communication goes a very long way toward reducing complexity to manageable levels, if not eliminating it outright. During the course of my involvement with Boomtown, I’ve tried to make decisions and urge solutions on the basis of more communication, not less, and in the simple recognition that downtown stakeholders already have issues with unanswered questions pertaining to pre-existing impositions (read: Harvest Homecoming) without needing any more of them.

I’m hoping that in spite of the many rough spots experienced while planning and executing this complicated first-time event, all those working so hard to make it happen will learn from the input offered by those doing business downtown, every day of the year. I can’t speak for everyone, but it has been revealing for me.

Downtown has changed, and we just can’t persist in top-down planning without seeking some measure of consensus first, from those who stand to be affected by the actions being considered. Granted, the Boomtown Ball will bring commerce downtown on a Sunday, and of course, that’s a good thing, but it must be grasped by those in positions of authority that starting the Ball rolling by emphasizing the importance of a Louisville-based flea market – a fine and reputable institution in its own right – sent an immediate and frankly insulting signal to local merchants, which sounded like this: “We’re not good enough here, so we’ll bring in someone else’s panache.”

No, this was not the city’s intent. However, it was ill-considered just the same, and it has complicated every step of the process since.

Simplicity? Please, and here’s an example.

“Do you mind if we use your space?”

Matt surveys INDOT's "bridge to nowhere."

You can almost see INDOT scratching its turbo-powered head, muttering: "Whass them pad-estrians want, aneeway ... the hole damn werld?"

NASH: Our ‘bridge to nowhere’, by Matt Nash (N and T)

During the 2008 presidential election “the bridge to nowhere” got a lot of press. The Alaskan bridge that hundreds of millions of federal dollars were earmarked for became the poster child for pork barrel spending.

Fast forward a few years and the citizens of Southern Indiana and Louisville have been sitting around waiting for the completion of the Big Four Bridge which has been a literal “Bridge to Nowhere.”

Here's the takeaway, one that most driving commuters never stop to consider.

Most people don’t realize it but hundreds of people utilize the Clark Memorial Bridge to get to work on a daily basis. Whether walking or riding a bike you can see people on the span at all hours of the day whether for exercise or for their basic transportation needs. Without a way to cross the Ohio River many people will not be able to make it to their jobs for several weeks without being able to utilize the Big Four Bridge.

As though INDOT would consider any non-automotive conveyance, whether a bicycle or one's own feet, as constituting "transportation."

Big Four + Big Four = Evidence ... of a plan in Jeffersonville.

Best wishes to Matt (Irish Exit) McMahan on the opening of Big Four Burgers + Beer in Jeffersonville. I know this is a big project for Matt, and as the newspaper headline indicates, his restaurant is the first of several "centered around Big Four Bridge."

Let's hope that the city of New Albany's economic development director is reading.

Previously we've noted the importance of the potential importance of the Big Four's pedestrian and bicycle access for Jeffersonville, which has always seemed to lack redevelopment focus. The bridge provides this focus, which places a rather considerable spotlight directly on revitalization-through-walkability issues -- and to the city's credit, the opportunity is being grabbed with both hands.

That's the first red flag waving in New Albany's general, plan-less direction.

Others are revealed in excerpts below. I've asked before: What is New Albany doing to incentivize investment downtown?

Anyone? Bueller?

Note two things Jeffersonville does that New Albany does not: Forgivable loans, and 10K facade grants ... although, in fairness, once we were prepared to give away a multi-million dollar parking garage. Just imagine if money like that were put to use as fertilizer for MULTIPLE revtalization projects? It almost makes me wish I could swim.

Burgers + Beer + open in Jeffersonville: First of the restaurants centered around Big Four Bridge opens, by Braden Lammers (Paywall Picayune)

The finishing touches are wrapping up, and at 11 a.m. today the Big Four is set to open.

No, it’s not the pedestrian and bicycle bridge nearby that lends its name to the space, but a restaurant called Big Four Burgers + Beer. Like the aforementioned Big Four Bridge, Big Four Burgers + Beer was behind schedule on its hopeful opening date, but only by two months, not a year behind schedule like the Ohio River span.

And after months of hard work, Matt McMahan, who developed the concept, said he is excited to open the restaurant in historic downtown Jeffersonville because there is nothing else like it in the area.
Additional seating will be available outdoors in the spring with another 40 seats on patios on both the first and second floors of the building. A third level of the 8,000-square-foot space, which was formerly Third Base Tavern, will be reserved for private parties.

To transform the former tavern into a restaurant space with exposed brick, dark hardwood floors and mason jar light fixtures, McMahan said it cost upwards of $100,000. The city of Jeffersonville helped to defer some of those costs as the restaurant received a $50,000 forgivable loan from the Redevelopment Commission and a $10,000 Jeffersonville Main Street facade grant.

Foggy Big Four Bridge images (Saturday morning, March 30).

When completed on the Indiana side, this is going to be huge for Jeffersonville. A bridge, a river ... something to think about as New Albanians contemplate our megabuck aquatics center

Rules of engagement for the Big Four.

I agree that skateboards and rollerblades can only detract from a cyclist's primary imperative, after dodging oblivious drivers: Avoiding fellow cyclists who insist piloting their bikes as thought they were skateboards.

Plan to walk, bike, run, but not skate over Louisville's Big Four Bridge, by Sheldon S. Shafer (Courier-Journal)

Runners and walkers are welcome; cyclists, too. You can even bring your dog, as long as you use a leash.

But if you’re a skateboarder or rollerblader, don’t plan on using the Big Four Bridge cross-river skywalk once it opens in December — the rules likely won’t allow it.

Big Four: A bridge that matters, and the planned Jeffersonville park.

This is a very good development for downtown Jeffersonville, but it's also somewhat galling to consider that if not for the intransigence of Norfolk Southern, New Albanians might have a prospect of leveraging a similar Vincennes Street resurgence by means of the K & I. Dewey Heights might yet again have a reason to live, and Li'l Stevie would be forced to retreat to a mountain holler elsewhere.

It's like I always say: Nationalize the damned railroad. Of course, the primary reason to doubt that Barack Obama is a socialist might be his failure to have nationalized it already.

WITH BIG FOUR BRIDGE TO OPEN NEXT YEAR, JEFFERSONVILLE PARK UNVEILED, by Branden Klayko (Broken Sidewalk)

... Big Four Station forms a gateway where the HNTB-designed northern ramp of the Big Four Bridge descends along the original path of the bridge’s approach, turns to the east, and meets the ground at Chestnut and Pearl streets. The current conceptual design includes four signature elements: a monumental obelisk at the base of the ramp, four sculptural light columns surrounding a water feature, and an open air pavilion.

Good news: Another Ohio Valley Greenway ribbon is cut.

Matt Nash was on hand Wednesday morning for the dedication of the Greenway from 18th Street to Silver Creek: OHIO RIVER GREENWAY RIBBON CUTTING, by Matt Nash.

Meanwhile, the pop-up, roll-over 'Bama newspaper's Jerod Clapp covers the same ground in greater detail here.

In spite of work to come on the Greenway's stretch between 18th and the vicinity of the Riverfront Amphitheater in New Albany, the true "final frontier" of the trail is the trestle over Silver Creek and the path through some of Clark County's grittiest industrial landscape to a connection at Mill Creek. The trestle itself will cost a lot to retrofit, and complicating matters on land, archaeological sifting must be completed before the trail is constructed.

But at least the work continues, as does activity at the Big Four Bridge, and the day approaches when New Albany will be connected to Louisville's waterfront by a bicycle route, albeit it one passing through our neighboring communities to the east.

Obviously, we must conserve our strength and resources for the very last piece in the puzzle: Wresting  the K & I Bridge from the cold, dead hands of Norfolk Southern, and completing the necessary loop. Perhaps we can "occupy" it some sweet day.

Destruct to construct: Big Four.

Above is the view of where the descent from the Big Four will hit ground in Jeffersonville, looking south. Or is it a canal? Below is the photo I took a couple weeks ago, looking east.

Mike Hutt's gone/one more round/Mike Hutt's gone.

I'm just happy the work is underway. But nothing good comes easy, whether it's Jeffersonville, New Albany or Birdseye.

News and Tribune on the Big Four Bridge

Mike Hutt abandons a stool at Jerry's for a bunker at Clark County Chatter

$22 million to complete the Big Four Bridge bike and pedestrian pathway.

Recalling that recent "cuts" in the bloated monstrosity otherwise known as the Ohio River Bridges Project included moving money from a new downtown bridge to another way of providing access for walkers and bikers, I am assuming that this announcement about the Big Four's completion is contingent on the ORBP's implementation.

Our good friend Iamhoosier owns a calculator (so do I) and he knows how to use it (I don't); he reports that it comes out to $1,150.00 per foot of path. Granting that the Indiana ramp is an expensive proposition, I wonder how much this math applies to what it would cost to work similar wonders on the K & I -- that is, after we nationalize the railroad.

Big Four Bridge set for completion, by Philip Bailey (LEO)

In a project that officials say will further unite the region, the governors of Kentucky and Indiana announced that along with the city of Jeffersonville, the two states will allocate $22 million to complete the Big Four Bridge pedestrian and bicycle pathway to link Louisville and Southern Indiana.

The agreement will turn the unused and rusting span into a new bridge that will connect Louisville’s Waterfront Park to downtown Jeffersonville. The historic bridge was built for railroad traffic in 1895, but has been closed with its approaches removed since 1969.

Nationalizing the Norfolk Southern springs immediately to mind.

Some days it actually seems that the project will be finished before I'm too old to use it.

Obstacles remain, but Ohio River 'dreamway' taking shape, by Ben Zion Hershberg (Courier-Journal)

... But there are several stumbling blocks to completing the loop that will join Louisville and Southern Indiana, including work on making the Big Four bridge a walking path across the Ohio and obtaining pedestrian and bicycle access to the K&I Bridge between New Albany and Louisville.

Jeffersonville: Where the approaches to the Big Four Bridge formerly rested.

59 feet of dumbass, at least when it comes to the Indiana side of the Big Four bridge.

The reporter begins his account with massive understatement (italicized below).

Big Four Bridge backers pin hopes on stimulus grants for Indiana ramp, by Ben Zion Hershberg (Courier-Journal).

Tucked along Kentucky’s Ohio River shoreline, the 1,700-foot concrete ramp spirals up to meet the Big Four railroad bridge — a four-year, $8 million project to transform the aging trestle into a cross-river recreation trail for pedestrians and bicyclists.

But across the river in Jeffersonville, the Big Four remains untouched, ending abruptly in a sheer 59-foot drop to the shore below — a product of stalled plans and a lack of funding that officials concede has put it years behind Kentucky’s progress.

Think about that. Years behind Kentucky, although looking on the brighter side, the Commonwealth's Republicans just elected extremist nutjob Rand Paul to run for Senate, making it far easier for Jack Conway (D) to win the seat in the fall. Might Mitch Daniels devote a buck or two from Major Moves to a project that caters to wheels not powered by internal combustion engines?

Meanwhile, unintended irony abounds in the C-J piece, as with this passage:

They’re also seeking to pull $25 million from the Ohio River Bridges Project, arguing it would be less expensive and more pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists to use the Big Four than a proposed pedestrian and bicycle lane on the new downtown bridge.

Of course, absolutely the least expensive and most pleasant solution for a number of problems would be to scotch the planned downtown automotive bridge and use a fraction of the expense to improve bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure everywhere in Metro Louisville. Because it makes the most sense in the current age, it's naturally the least discussed option. Turns out that former Jeff mayor Rob Waiz never grasped it, either:

Waiz conceded (the Big Four) wasn’t a high priority. “Trying to bring in new businesses and jobs was my priority,” he said.

As Brendan Behan once loudly proclaimed, "JAY-sus."

Reams of evidence from across America and the planet point to just such projects as the Big Four as impetus for business and job creation, assuming your're trying to send the right message to the right people running and creating the right jobs. In the face of this, inert politicians like Waiz can do no better than mimic the provincial dullards who populate this area, scratching their heads, peeling another banana and decrying the theory of evolution as their prospects steadily dwindle.

Come to think of it, they might be on to something about evolution. It doesn't seem to evolve all the time ... by maybe it's just something in our (storm) water.