Suburban gun sales quadruple as "Mayor Greg Fischer and Louisville waterfront officials say the time is right to renew the push for pedestrian and cycling access on the K&I Bridge."

Here's the first reference to the K&I Bridge in this blog's 14-year history, occurring on February 10, 2005.

Mayors united in support for K & I bicycle link

Last fall, during a chat with NA Confidential, former Councilman Richard Bliss took note of the K & I bicycling proposal.

The railroad isn’t hard to work with, we recall Bliss saying at the time. He added that so long as you’re willing to take all the responsibility, do all the work, pay for all of it and accept all the insurance liability, the railroad’s right with you on a project.

Readers can click here for links to another dozen articles about the K&I appearing in this space during the last seven years, like this one on February 9, 2016.

K & I: It's like a litmus test for prejudice ... and it's got hazmat, too.

It remains difficult to for me to fathom the disgruntlement in some quarters expressed at renewed calls for the K & I to be converted into a shared use path ...

... Huckabee-voting Louisville East End suburbanites bash the notion of potential expenditures to assist mobility and interconnected neighborhoods, preferring to reserve transportation subsidies for their own auto-centric sprawl.

New Albanians are terrified that ISIS-colored refugees are in Portland, just waiting for a footpath to launch attacks on Dewey Heights.

Portlanders exactly say the same, only in reverse.

All of it remains purely theoretical, and yet already social media experts are debating policing levels, surveillance against chicanery, and all the other details barely mentioned when the Big Four's conversion was lauded as a victory for modernity.

Then there's the entity that should be on the nationalization chopping block, Norfolk Southern.

Fast-forwarding to the present, it seems the local imagination drought still very much afflicts us. Today a Facebook discussion broke out about Green's WDRB piece (below), and I believe these viewpoints lowered my IQ by at least 30 points, leaving me with very little brain power to emphasize a point we've been making here for about a thousand years, or at least since President Lincoln mistakenly awarded right-of-ways to the railroads from terra firma down to the planet's core, and up in the sky all the way to Jupiter.

Nationalize Norfolk Southern's skanky asses.

Wait -- that's a valid consideration, but not what I meant to say, which is this:

Whether the K&I pedway happens or not, the decision and the process will have next to nothing to do with New Albany, in the sense that the city of Louisville will be the prime mover.

Kentucky owns the river, and Norfolk Southern the bridge. New Gahanians are merely bit players in all this, so if the mayor starts taking credit for any of it, vote for someone else.

ANYONE else. After all, #EightIsEnough

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer backs new effort for K&I Bridge pedestrian path, by Marcus Green (WDRB)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Mayor Greg Fischer and Louisville waterfront officials say the time is right to renew the push for pedestrian and cycling access on the K&I Bridge.

The Waterfront Development Corp. broached the issue briefly at its meeting this month after Fischer, a board member, asked whether the renovated Sherman Minton Bridge will include a path for cyclists. That project won’t.

But Fischer told WDRB News in an interview that it’s important to finish an Ohio River loop between Louisville and Southern Indiana, where a trail system in Clark and Floyd counties is being completed.

On the Louisville side, early work is underway to expand Waterfront Park to the west and toward Norfolk Southern Corp.’s railroad bridge between the Portland neighborhood and New Albany, Ind.

Despite previous pressure from elected officials and business leaders in Kentucky and Indiana, Norfolk Southern has resisted efforts to allow people on the span’s former car lanes. The company did not return a phone message seeking comment ...

K & I: It's like a litmus test for prejudice ... and it's got hazmat, too.

It remains difficult to for me to fathom the disgruntlement in some quarters expressed at renewed calls for the K & I to be converted into a shared use path.

Broken Sidewalk properly reiterates: "It’s time to open the K&I Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists."

A future K & I shared-use path? It's "not a priority for One Southern Indiana" unless Norfolk Southern can move the bridge to River Ridge.

Or this one from 2013.

A report on the history of the K & I Bridge.

... (Steven R.) Greseth's extensive legal research (he readily concedes it is neither legal advice nor legal opinion) succeeds in asking a whole different set of questions, which might be boiled down to this: How many, if any, of a century's worth of legal obligations is the present-day owner of the K & I now obliged to uphold?

Huckabee-voting Louisville East End suburbanites bash the notion of potential expenditures to assist mobility and interconnected neighborhoods, preferring to reserve transportation subsidies for their own auto-centric sprawl.

New Albanians are terrified that ISIS-colored refugees are in Portland, just waiting for a footpath to launch attacks on Dewey Heights.

Portlanders exactly say the same, only in reverse.

All of it remains purely theoretical, and yet already social media experts are debating policing levels, surveillance against chicanery, and all the other details barely mentioned when the Big Four's conversion was lauded as a victory for modernity.

Then there's the entity that should be on the nationalization chopping block, Norfolk Southern. Frequent blog reader A was struck by this passage in Marcus Green's WDRB article.

"Norfolk Southern's K & I Bridge exists today for a single purpose -- to provide safe transport for freight trains over the Ohio River,” (spokesman Dave) Pidgeon said in a statement. “NS generally does not support recreational trails next to active rail lines because of serious safety concerns, and we remain focused on providing safe, efficient and reliable freight transportation to our customers in Louisville and southern Indiana."

The railroad acknowledges that some want the span open to the public, but “ultimately the K&I Bridge is privately owned and operated for the single purpose of safely moving freight trains which carry ... both hazmat and non-hazmat cargo,” Pidgeon said. “We not only have safety concerns about public access along active right-of-way but also serious, prohibitive concerns about security and liability.”

Our reader brings the hammer down:

Perhaps someone could remind Norfolk Southern spokesperson Dave Pidgeon that the “both hazmat and non-hazmat cargo” already passes through both New Albany and Portland and Crescent Hill and St. Matthews and Anchorage ... That's a piss-poor reason to suggest folks can't walk the bridge. The railroad"s "hazmat and non-hazmat cargo” already passes within a very few feet of homes and children's bedrooms along the rail right-of-way.

It would be almost as interesting to know the contents of Norfolk Southern's hazmat cargo as it would the lead content of Indiana American's water supplies.

Broken Sidewalk properly reiterates: "It’s time to open the K&I Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists."

Their pearls of wisdom never cease.

Broken Sidewalk echoes the WDRB piece by Marcus Green, referenced at NAC on February 1. While linking to Green's excellent work last week, I couldn't resist exposing One Southern Indiana's non-stance, with our presumed vanguard asleep at the wheel unless Southern Indiana's auto-centric oligarchy is directly involved.

I suppose we must give some credit to Wendy Dant Chesser some credit for knowing whence her meal ticket originates. It's just a shame so many small and genuinely local independent businesses are duped along the way to help underwrite the propaganda.

But I seem to have digressed.

Back to the uniformly excellent Branden Klayko.

It’s time to open the K&I Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists; Railroad company has stymied efforts to date, but leaders continue conversion push.

... There’s an opportunity to create a shared-use path for cyclists and pedestrians along the Kentucky & Indiana (K&I) Bridge linking Louisville’s Portland neighborhood with the flourishing New Albany. A group of dedicated leaders from Kentucky and Indiana has been steadily pushing to open a former automobile lane closed in the ’70s on the bridge to create a 13-mile waterfront loop between the K&I and its Big Four counterpart.

Interestingly, when this topic was raised on Facebook, it took a turn I wasn't expecting.

Yes! Lets make a connection to the highest violent crime area in Louisville. Great!

To which I replied:

You might be interested to know that Portland residents express qualms for precisely the same reason.

Thus ensued a lengthy back 'n' forth, and for once, I found myself dumbfounded. How could it be that given New Albany's (shall we say) eternally transitional nature, there are people here worried about criminals crossing a pedestrian bridge from Portland?

As for the neglected area around the bridge approach on the New Albany side, surely we're the culpable ones. The city of New Albany has not invested in this area for 40 years, since the automotive lane was shut; when vehicular access was removed, the Vincennes corridor and surrounding neighborhood began dying, and successive City Hall regimes did and said nothing.

A useful K & I would be instrumental in rectifying this, whether via private or public investment, and probably both.

A friend provides the appropriate conclusion.

Maybe we should be build a wall.....REALLY? I don't see a pedestrian bridge drastically increasing crime. I don't see a criminal taking a hike across a pedestrian bridge to break into a downtown New Albany home or establishment. It's not like we are Manhattan over here. There is a bridge, the Sherman Minton, that already gives criminals easy access. I think we need to embrace each other's redevelopment efforts.

Unless, of course, such an embrace is prohibited by ordinance -- or One Southern Indiana.

A future K & I shared-use path? It's "not a priority for One Southern Indiana" unless Norfolk Southern can move the bridge to River Ridge.

Marcus Green provides a comprehensive summary of the issues pertaining to the K & I Bridge, and its future adaptation as a shared-use path linking New Albany and Portland.

The best way to proceed would be the immediate nationalization of Norfolk Southern, the seizure of its owners' assets, and the sowing of salt on their verdant properties.

Barring that, I'm narrowing the focus to One Southern Indiana and its CEO, Wendy Dant Chesser. Remember just a few months ago when Dant Chesser was leading the abortive charge for the auto-centric Regional Cities Initiative lottery, and while doing so, brushing aside eminent domain concerns?

Well, she's been born again.

“Having (the K & I) open would do things for this portion of New Albany and Louisville in the same way that it did for the Big Four Bridge in terms of economic development,” (the Greenway's Shaunna Graf) said.

But the K&I is “not a priority” for One Southern Indiana, the chamber of commerce for Clark and Floyd counties, and isn’t included in its advocacy agenda, said Wendy Dant Chesser, the chamber’s president and CEO.

Dant Chesser said she would like to see a loop across the river completed, but that it’s important to remember that Norfolk Southern owns the bridge.

“We have to approach this as any public project that would want access to private property,” she said. “So it has to be done with respect and the interest of the owner in mind.”

The upshot is this: When it comes to boilerplate corporate welfare for the big regional players, Dant Chesser is unconcerned about the property rights of smallholders. When the topic turns to an economic development idea standing primarily to benefit smallholders with little or no inconvenience to a big regional players, she's concerned about property rights.

This is One Southern Indiana in a rotten, venom-ridden nutshell, and if you're an independent small business owner making membership tithes to 1Si in the hope that some day, some of it might trickle down to you, cutting your wrists now would have the benefit of saving a great deal of time.

To repeat: Green does a great job here. Can we have a reporter yet?

SUNDAY EDITION | Louisville business group revives push for pedestrians, cyclists on K&I Bridge, Marcus Green (WDRB)

“I think what’s going to give is (Norfolk Southern's) reluctance.”

I've no idea whether the K & I resolution described below was passed, seeing as coverage of last night's Metro Council meeting has been focused on David Tandy's Omnibus Mimosa Reform Act of 2013.

NA councilman John Gonder, whose quote appears in the header, probably is right as to the inevitability of Norfolk Southern bowing to pressure from all sides. It'll take a while, and the railroad will have to be paid off with a sizable cocktail of cash, condoms and bourbon, and that's too bad, because it really should be nationalized.

But it will happen.

Louisville Metro Council to consider urging opening K&I Bridge to pedestrians, by Marcus Green (C-J)

... The resolution states that opening the bridge to the public will promote economic development, health and the environment, and that the structure has long been meant for public use. It “urges the bridge owners to recognize this community benefit.”

There are more than 100 examples of trails running next to active rail lines, according to research from Rails to Trails, a Washington, D.C-based nonprofit group that creates cycling and walking paths on former rail corridors.

K & I Bridge, in which we praise the virtues of condemnation.

Reporter Sheldon Shafer's right on top of it at the Courier-Journal, as David Karem says aloud what so many of us remember hearing discussed during pre-recessionary times, when the reopening of the K & I first became a public topic.

Condemnation suit could be pursued in effort to force opening K&I Bridge to walkers, bicyclists

 ... Louisville Metro Councilman Tom Owen, D-8th District and chairman of the transportation committee, said the K&I was open for public use — including to vehicles — from 1913 to 1979. It was designated U.S. 31 during those years.

That protracted public use and right-of-way could be grounds for pursuing a condemnation proceeding to get a court ruling to reopen the bridge’s former automobile decks to walkers and bicyclists, probably through federal court, officials said.

Karem said metro officials are researching the possibility of a condemnation action toward that end.

Previously at NAC:

A report on the history of the K & I Bridge.

Norfolk Southern the problem, hundreds of crowbars the answer.

Norfolk Southern the problem, hundreds of crowbars the answer.

There remains only one reason why the K & I cannot be opened to non-motorized public access: The obstinacy of Norfolk Southern.

Last week, 9th District U.S. House Representative Todd Young toured the bridge. New Albany's Mayor Jeff Gahan concurrently indicated support for tearing down Norfolk Southern's wall, noting that the Vincennes Street corridor especially stands to benefit from the restored link between riverbanks. City and Greenway officials say that plans are in hand to link a reopened K & I to the Greenway itself. Shaunna Graf explains:

The City of New Albany is currently in the final stages of the design plan (working through INDOT) for the area of the Ohio River Greenway including the approach to Vincennes Street from 18th Street. Vincennes Street is the street which connects the K&I Bridge to New Albany. The approach/ramp will be at the current 18th Street and Water Street trail head continuing to Vincennes Street. There would be very little design needed to connect this feature to the eastern lane of the K&I Bridge.

The community gets it, and as we've observed previously:

The only sure way to make this happen is to pry the K & I from the cold, dead hands of Norfolk Southern, and the best leverage strategy is for local officials to work together. Think about it. Here's a project that seems to have both Todd Young and John Yarmuth sharing a goal. Such symbolism is too good to be wasted, and in terms of New Albany self-interest, a Greenway intersection with an accessible K & I virtually writes the Vincennes Street revitalization plan all by itself.

Now the prying merely needs to begin in earnest.

K & I as pedway? First it must be pried from the cold dead hands of the railroad.

Last week I received an e-mail from Louisville biking advocate Jackie Green, who has embraced the cause of K & I Bridge liberation. I'm certainly for it, and having pressure from the Louisville side of the river is absolutely necessary owing to the harsh reality of the subject heading. Before returning to Jackie's useful points, let's look back at the previous decade's worth of K & I coverage at NA Confidential.

August 10, 2012

Nash: "We need to ask the leaders of Norfolk Southern to take a closer look at this specific situation."

April 25, 2012

Nationalize the railroad = K & I problem disappears.

January 3, 2012

Serious mobility solution questions for Bridges Authority member Jerry Finn.

December 14, 2011

Thank you, John Gonder. That's exactly what I was thinking.

September 10, 2011

Norfolk Southern: Tear down this wall! Open this bridge!

October 31, 2005

UPDATED: Will the K & I Bridge link be restored? Can the Greenway be green? Why ask why?

February 10, 2005

Mayors united in support for K & I bicycle link

In Jackie's e-mail, he mentions the possibility of the monthly Louisville Full Moon Bike Ride morphing into a "protest" ride, and cites a developing coalition. Here are some of this goals:

- develop a wider email list of folk interested in seeing the K&I bridge open to the non-motorized public

- join forces with the Ohio River Greenway Commission

- work with Floyd County Council

- work with Portland Now

- explore an historical legal decision regarding the bridge with Louisville Metro Public Works

- build interest in the Full Moon bicycle ride as a monthly ‘protest’

- make plans for a community walk to the K&I from both sides of the river simultaneously

- etc.

More power to Jackie, and let's get it started.

Nash: "We need to ask the leaders of Norfolk Southern to take a closer look at this specific situation."

And if asking doesn't work, there's another solution: Nationalize the railroads.

NASH: Connecting our communities

... When you stand at the newly dedicated portion at the end of 18th Street in New Albany, you are basically in the shadow of the K & I Bridge. The bridge, which carries railroad cars between downtown New Albany and the west end of Louisville, has been closed to automobile traffic since it was damaged in the mid-1970s. It has been pointed out that it would make a perfect addition to the Greenway Project, but very little progress has seemed to be made in convincing the railroad that it would be a huge benefit to our community.

Norfolk Southern, which owns the railroad bridge, doesn’t seem very receptive to the possibility of opening up the bridge to the public.

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.