The financial and tariff barriers embodied by Ohio River toll bridges, and more dull silence from the oligarch fluffers.

If you're surprised by these statistics, let's have coffee. I have bridge futures to sell you.

Ohio River crossings fall after start of bridge tolls, study shows

Traffic has soared by 75 percent on the region’s oldest bridge, the Clark Memorial, since drivers started paying to cross the river.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – New bridges. Billions of dollars spent. Years of construction.

So far: Less traffic across the Ohio River.

Fewer vehicles are crossing between Kentucky and Indiana since tolls were added to bridges between Louisville and Clark County, Ind., according to a preliminary report obtained by WDRB News.

The two state governments have not publicly released the study, a requirement of the Ohio River Bridges Project. But the draft version provides a first look at how drivers are responding to paying $2.05 to $12.30 to cross the river.

The traffic counts indicate that drivers apparently seeking to avoid tolls are flocking to the region’s oldest span – the 1920s-era Clark Memorial Bridge – in greater numbers than previously envisioned.

Unfortunately, the bridge in question is ours. A little more than two years from now, it's going to be closed for a lengthy period.

I-64 Sherman Minton Bridge

The Sherman Minton, which connects Louisville and New Albany, Ind., carried 90,000 vehicles in 2018, a 23 percent climb from 2013. It is the only toll-free interstate bridge in the Louisville area.

Indiana is planning an $80 million upgrade on the Minton in 2021, making structural repairs and doing other work meant to make the 56-year-old bridge safer. The span is expected to close for months.

In June, the Minton was reduced to one lane after a hole in the road surface opened and forced emergency repairs. The Indiana Department of Transportation has yet to fulfill a WDRB News public records request, submitted June 18, for the bridge’s recent inspection records.

In fact, I've nothing bad to say about Deaf Gahan in this regard. Granted, Gahan hasn't said the first word publicly about contingencies and coping mechanisms for 2021, but it probably won't matter because he won't be mayor any longer.

#FireGahan2019

But it's important that someone begin thinking about this, and the Sherman Minton's 2021 repair closure absolutely has to be a campaign issue for mayoral and city council candidates in 2019 -- and since it's going to be equally important for every resident of Floyd County, cooperation between arms of government must be part of the coping equation.

Meanwhile, the oligarchs seem to be choking on the fruit of their megalomania.

The metro area’s chambers of commerce – Greater Louisville Inc. and One Southern Indiana – backed the project and were members of The Bridges Coalition, a collection of business, labor and government groups that lobbied for the work.

Greater Louisville Inc. hasn't reviewed the study or discussed the current traffic patterns with transportation experts, Sarah Davasher-Wisdom, the chamber's chief operating officer, said in a statement.

"That said, we do believe that the construction of the two new bridges and the rebuild of the downtown interchange has provided new opportunities for economic growth and commerce on both sides of the river," she said.

Speaking of pure evasion, 1Si stares at the ceiling. Are any arts or humanities majors available to interpret Dant Chesser's intentional omissions?

Wendy Dant Chesser, president and CEO of One Southern Indiana, noted in an email that the report doesn’t provide any insight into economic growth and declined to comment in detail.

Ah, but the guy from Ogle gets it.

Kent Lanum, President and CEO of the Jeffersonville, Ind.-based Ogle Foundation, also said the study doesn’t explain what is contributing to the reduced traffic, but it raises concerns nonetheless.

“What was once a cultural and historical barrier for our region to kind of get across between Southern Indiana and Kentucky is now more of a financial and tariff barrier,” he said. “And people are acting with their pocketbooks.”

Toll bridges: "The mental model that says traffic levels are some inexorable natural force like the tides, which must be accommodated or else, is just wrong."

From 2010. Now he wants to toll interstates.

Joe Cortright's latest dispatch in the "Louisville Traffic Experiment" series (below) prompted a few thoughts from Jeff Gillenwater, NAC's junior editor, from whom I enjoy purloining passages like this one because he's so damned good in expressing them.

I chuckled the other day when Kentucky transportation officials said it would take a while for traffic counts to increase owing to time spent figuring out new or alternative routes. Not only did they not include people deciding to just not make the trip(s) among possible alternatives - something a lot of us pointed out would happen - but they also left out the even more obvious: all the alternative route seekers I know or have heard about are seeking to avoid tolls, not pay them.

Lots of area businesses have instructed employees who regularly traverse I-65 to cross the river at 2nd Street for all their daytime trips. It's not like it's crowded in the middle of the day or takes much, if any, extra time or driving. Likewise, as I've already mentioned, I've had occasion lately to talk with a lot of out-of-towners who are seeking and finding non-tolled alternatives as well.

We're nowhere near good enough at political organizing to stop bad projects like this, but we're not entirely stupid, either.

And now the source:

The latest from the Louisville traffic experiment, by Joe Cortright (City Observatory)

Even with the free alternative closed, traffic is very light on the new I-65 bridges

Time for one of our periodic check-ins on our real world transportation pricing experiment in Louisville, Kentucky. As you recall, we’ve been watching Louisville closely, because just at the end of last year, the city started what amounts to a laboratory experiment in transportation behavior. Kentucky and Indiana build a new bridge to double the capacity of the I-65 freeway as it crosses the Ohio River near downtown Louisville. At the same time, it put tolls on the I-65 crossing, but not on the nearby Second Street Bridge, an older, four-lane highway bridge that connects Louisville to the Indiana suburbs north of the River.

As we reported in February, the initial month’s worth of data on bridge traffic shows that adding tolls (which run from $1 to $4 for cars) have caused traffic levels to fall by almost half, from about 122,000 vehicles per day to about 66,000. We showed photographs from area traffic-cams that show rush hour traffic on the tolled bridges almost empty, while traffic was fairly think on the free Second Street Bridge.

The latest phase of our experiment came this past this weekend, courtesy of “Thunder Over Louisville” a kind of combined concert, airshow and fireworks display that is held annually. To handle the big crowds the come downtown, and afford great vantage points, the city closes the Second Street Bridge. It did so on Thursday. So we looked to see how this affected traffic levels.

Viva Oligarchy! It was our own Indiana politicians who abdicated their duties to represent their constituents' interests, and brought us bridge tolls.

Mr. Epperson nails it in his opening paragraph of his letter to the editor, but then strays into Loony Tunes territory by tagging John Yarmouth as being responsible for tolls. There'll be an answer below, but first:

Bridge tolls a hardship for some (News and Tribune)

As a disabled senior citizen with cancer, I’m already burdened with many medical debts. I often must see my personal doctor in Louisville. The tolls for passage across the bridge may be negligible for young working people, but they are a hardship for the poor and elderly. No discounts are available for locals, yet an interstate driver can simply not pay if they even get a toll charge of $4.

What a waste of time and added expense 3rd District Kentucky congressman John Yarmuth caused, delaying this project and increasing its costs. This is the reason we now have to pay a toll. I urge all Southern Indiana citizens to talk to their friends and family in Louisville to retire this scoundrelous politician.

David Epperson

At the newspaper's Fb page, KLB replies by shining the spotlight precisely where it stands to illuminate the greatest number of parties responsible for tolling -- namely, right here in Indiana. It's a devastating indictment, don't you think?

Sadly, Mr. Epperson's plight of being subject to tolls despite needing to access medical services in Louisville is due less to John Yarmuth and far more to his own political representatives on the Indiana side abdicating their duties to represent their constituents' interests.

They're the ones who allowed the plan to balloon from one bridge to 2 with a Spaghetti Junction rebuild.

They're the ones who let one governor choose an east end route that crossed a (albeit questionably) historic property that required an expensive tunnel to cross.

They're the ones who let another governor get a pass for reneging on his promise that our bridges would be built with state funds and not tolls.

They're the ones who ignored the fact that their constituents who work in Louisville already pay a tax to Louisville to cover using their infrastructure.

They're the ones who allowed the tolling plan to be set up in such a way that Hoosiers would pay far more tolls even while the states split the revenue equally.

They're the ones that allowed a toll set up that lets out-of-state/out-of-region drivers get away without paying (because collection rates for tolling-by-mail are dismal where they're utilized in other states) thus handing the tolling burden even more so on Hoosiers.

UPDATED Clerely, schools should be included in redevelopment commission decisions.

(6:00 p.m.: See update below)

It took a few days to get back to this one.

Southern Indiana lawmakers to file toll-related bills in 2017 session ... General Assembly's 2017 session begins Tuesday, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

Let's be clear: Tender mercies for the toll-afflicted never came up even once for Ron Grooms when the tolling oligarchs first came calling, and he climbed into bed with them.

I suppose we must give Ron partial credit for belatedly grasping the simple fact that tolling disproportionately taxes the working poor, even if he steadfastly ignored all attempts to convince him of this at the time.

But wait -- buried at the bottom amid "other bills to be filed by local lawmakers" is something of genuine interest.

• REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSIONS — Gives local school corporations one voting appointment to municipal redevelopment commissions by taking one appointment from mayor's administration, with the intention to better include schools in redevelopment decisions (Clere)

Well, look at that. If Jeff Gahan stands to lose an appointment to the body that works most diligently to keep his campaign finance beaks wet, we might yet be entertained by a good, old-fashioned self-immolation -- though I still think New Albany City FC is funnier.

Thanks to Elizabeth Beilman for posting this update from the Indiana General Assembly page. As you can see, the legislation also provides unfilled vacancies on the board of municipal housing authorities.

DIGEST

Appointments to local boards and commissions. Provides that after June 30, 2017, one of the commissioners appointed to a redevelopment commission must be a member of the governing body of a school corporation that includes all or part of the territory served by the redevelopment commission. Provides for the appointment to be made by the appointing governing body as determined in the statute. Removes language providing for the appointment of nonvoting advisers to redevelopment commissions from the governing bodies of school corporations. Provides that nonvoting advisers serve until a member of the governing body of a school corporation is appointed to the redevelopment commission. Provides that if the executive or fiscal body of a municipality does not fill a vacancy in the municipal housing authority before the 61st day after the vacancy occurs, the remaining members of the housing authority shall fill the vacancy. Provides that the remaining members are authorized to fill the vacancy even if the number of remaining members is not sufficient for a quorum. Provides that an individual who is acting as a member of a housing authority 60 days after the expiration of the individual's term as a member of the housing authority may continue to act as a member for purposes of filling the vacancy. (Provides for expiration of this provision.)

Chronicles of toll dodging in New Gahania: "Once the traffic passes Vincennes, however, there’s little there to calm it."

Am I the only one finding it bizarre that Scott Wood now is the city's de facto spokesman for street grid decisions he has played little part in making?

Isn't Wood supposed to be serving as site manager and press agent for the Summit Springs hilltop high-rise middle-finger-to-environmental-consciousness city collaboration with the Carefree Kelleys?

Then again, Gahan/Rosenbarger/Duggins are the Toxic Troika when it comes to coherence in such matters.

The bottom line remains unaltered.

Our Ever-Victorious Iron-Willed Leader deserves no credit whatever for "his" two-way street grid reform, which will be implemented both incompletely and too late to help with the opening phases of bridge tolling. Rather, Jeff Gahan prefers that we all be guinea pigs in an experiment to determine whether INDOT's rosy predictions about toll dodging's brevity are correct.

Since many commuters are taking a long weekend, we may not see the true nature of things until Monday morning.

Bridge tolls: For K-Stem, it hasn't been this good since that last lunch date with Mitch Daniels.

"Southern Indiana residents brace for impact of upcoming tolls," unless they're at Oligarch Shillworthy Pay Grade.

THE UNTOLLED STORY: Is New Albany ready for extra traffic on the Sherman Minton?, by Danielle Grady (Hiring Freeze Gazette)

NEW ALBANY — Scott Wood is expecting extra traffic in New Albany soon.

The director of the city plan commission said that he and other officials believe that when tolling begins on the Lewis and Clark, Abraham Lincoln and Kennedy bridges on Dec. 30, more cars will be using the untolled Sherman Minton Bridge to travel from Indiana to Kentucky — and some of those cars will be crossing through downtown New Albany to get there.

Wood isn’t alone in his assessment.

Traffic models created by Hannum, Wagle & Cline Engineering Inc. for the city also show that more people will be driving in New Albany in the future, Wood said.

But those models are conservative in the eyes of the city. They don’t predict there will be a significant increase in traffic during rush hour, Wood said.

Officials who are locals, such as Wood, have ideas different from HWC on how they would get from Indiana to Kentucky if they were avoiding tolls. They envision routes that might take drivers through downtown New Albany.

Still, HWC’s traffic models and the city’s predictions aren’t too different, Wood said. The expectation remains: New Albany will be busier starting in three days.

So what has been done to prepare for more drivers?

Bridge tolls: For K-Stem, it hasn't been this good since that last lunch date with Mitch Daniels.

It's a load, all right -- of oligarchic bullshit. That's why it's a good thing we have River Lube ...

"Southern Indiana residents brace for impact of upcoming tolls," unless they're at Oligarch Shillworthy Pay Grade.

Source: IndyStar (2013).

“I think over the next couple years or so after we get through the opening and initial shock of the tolls, that tolls are going to receive very little discussion in that the economic benefits that we will be seeing will become the focus of the discussion.”
 -- Uric Dufrene, IU Southeast Vice Chancellor and Oligarch Fellatrix

Good work by Beilman, who opts for the deft touch in depicting tolling's impact on different income groups, and allows Dufrene's salaried (above) detachment to reveal itself.

Southern Indiana residents brace for impact of upcoming tolls, by Elizabeth Beilman (Hanson's Harley Folly) ... Staff Reporter Danielle Grady contributed to this story

 ... Uric Dufrene, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and finance professor for Indiana University Southeast, said residents will need to make decisions about how to handle the cost of tolls based on their individual circumstances.

(The Clark Memorial Bridge ... along with the Sherman Minton, will remain untolled. The Kennedy, Lincoln, and Lewis and Clark bridges will have tolls)

“There, I think consumers or individual households can balance the cost of the tolls versus the benefits of time and distance,” Dufrene said.

Here's the inconvenient flip side, one you'll seldom hear Dufrene (or Kerry Stemler) address.

 ... people living in low-income areas, defined by one-person households with less than $10,830 in annual income in 2010, will bear a disproportionately high effect of tolls.

Phil Ellis, executive director of Community Action of Southern Indiana, hears from the low-income residents served by the nonprofit organization that tolls will hit them hard. CASI provides assistance to people for costs like utilities, but they won’t be able to help with tolls since no federal program provides funding for this cost.

“They’re going to have to sacrifice something in order to pay that toll,” Ellis said. “That might be a decrease in groceries, that could be not being able to pay their full utility bills ... Something’s going to be left unpaid, to be honest with you.”

Somewhere between $40 and $80 a month may not seem significant when weighed against the overall economic impact on the region in the years to come.

“But for the immediate need of individuals with low income, they’ll be the last to benefit from any type of economic boom or anything of that nature, because most of them don’t have the education or skills to be eligible or qualified to have one of those [new] jobs ...

“You’re talking a person where $80 could feed them for a week, could feed their family for a week,” Ellis said. “That’s major.”

The next downtown merchant meeting is tomorrow morning (Tuesday, December 20) at 8:30 a.m. at Seeds and Greens.

The next Merchant/Business Meeting is tomorrow, December 20, 8:30 a.m. at Seeds and Greens Natural Market & Deli, 207 W. First Street in New Albany.

If the city is represented, expect to hear this:

Because when you've wasted five whole years prior to tolling, you might as well put as much lipstick as possible on the pig.

Bridge porn raincoating reaches thunderous orgasmic crescendo as preparedness for pass-through toll dodging remains nil.

Of course, the least imaginative east end bridge name possible was the final choice, and that's exactly what we've come to expect from brain-dead state ruling elites.

Not since Dagny Taggart swooned over Readen Metal has there been such breathless coverage of concrete and steel, though in terms of dreadful photo ops, it was Jeffersonville's turn to pull a short straw.

Actually, a can of multinational swill might be the ideal metaphor for the history and practice of the Ohio River Bridges Boondoggle, although it's doubtful Moore grasps this. Cheers, Mike. The campaign finance slush River Ridge spills in a shift dwarfs that produced in New Gahania.

Speaking of which, here's the view from the News and Tribune:

And here is the way Team Gahan saw it:

Toll dodging begins in just a few days, folks. For bridge opening coverage at the News and Tribune, go here.

Amid the media's 2016 bridge envy and tolling glorification, we turn to this 2010 letter from a local independent business owner.

Ah, yes. Quaint memories of the gangbang foisted on Southern Indiana by our benevolent oligarchs, circa 2010, with the pop shot finally arriving six years later, in three ... two ... one ...

Over at Facebook, Keg Liquors owner Todd Antz looked back to those wonderful times when the area's heaviest hitters gathered together to bolt the autocentric fix firmly into place.

Six years ago, I posted this letter that was sent to the Bridges Authority about the project and tolling. To me it is ironic that this should pop up in my Facebook memories one day after they announce the starting date of tolls on the new bridges. After 6 years, I still believe everything that I wrote back then.

One quick reference. Someone on the Bridges Authority board publicly declared that only 3% of the population were against tolls. This was loudly denounced at the time, but I wanted to make sure that number was thrown back in their faces.

Here is the text of Todd's letter, from December 14, 2010.

---

My public comment to the Bridges Authority

Dear Bridges Authority,

As a small business owner in Clarksville, I wish to share my opinions with you on your plans to toll the existing bridges in order to finance the new proposed bridge(s). I own a small business that attracts many people from Kentucky over to Southern Indiana. By placing tolls of any amount, you will hinder my business and other small businesses on both sides of the bridge. The environment for small businesses is difficult enough these days without something else making it even more difficult.

For years, there has been a cultural divide between people living on both sides of the river, but over the past 10 years, that divide is slowly fading away. I feel that your plans will do nothing more than re-widen that divide between our two states that we have been working for years to unite. Southern Indiana and Louisville are indeed one community, and you do not charge a fee to go from one side of the community to another.

As a business owner, I have to watch every dollar that comes into my business and manage it accordingly. If I wanted to expand my business, I would carefully plan things out, and spend money as it becomes available. If my eventual plans were to build two new sites, I would budget and build when I could rather than attempting to build everything at once, putting myself deeply in debt. And I surely could not charge a fee for someone to come into my business. Why you as an authority feel that you have to do everything at once, when you do not have enough capital to do the job correctly is apparently beyond me. Also why you feel you can place a toll on existing Interstate(s) to finance this project is apparently beyond me as well.

I am for building a bridge, and possibly another if it is determined to be necessary, but only if it can be done in an affordable manner. The numbers the Bridges Authority have made public simply do not add up. The revenue you will possibly bring in is not enough to pay for the loans, and your tolling rates will have to increase, making this project too expensive for the people you claim to be representing. I proudly count myself in your supposed 3% that are against the tolls. I do believe that whoever thinks that there is only 3% of the area population against tolls must be using the same math that you all are using to do your budgetary planning for this project. You have had numerous cities, towns and communities put forth resolutions against the tolls, as well as business groups on both sides of the river. Surely that alone is more than just 3%. Poll the common person and the number of responses against tolling would surely add up to more than 3%. I honestly think you might have your numbers backwards and only 3% of the population is in favor of tolls.

I have the feeling that my words will mean nothing to you, as you have ignored public sentiment, and derided those who do not agree with you. I sincerely hope that this message does become public record as you have noted above.

Sincerely,

Todd Antz

ASK THE BORED: Light-struck animals, rebooted holograms and the tolling land rush coming soon.

To repeat, my humble good intentions have been swept aside by the basic human imperative of self-preservation, and I haven't attended a Board of Public Works and Safety meeting since before the hilarious unpleasantness of November 8, when the local political party branch responsible for appointments, patronage, campaign finance sluice dredging and a gently pervasive wetting of beaks -- in fact, for these very prized seats on BOW, as both institution and the institutionalized -- was handed a vicious, epic bloodbath of an electoral beat-down.

But enough of that. Whether Adam ever acquires the good sense to resign or not, the epochal time draws ever closer, and the minutes of BOW's last few meetings reveals a fervent and renewed desire ...

 ... to avoid the challenge entirely.

However, it is reported that city software engineers are hard at work reprogramming the mayoral hologram to direct snarled traffic and hand out Bicentennial coffee table books to frustrated pass-through motorists who live outside the city limits.

Meanwhile, here are a few inconvenient truths.

When will tolling start? We'll know Tuesday, by Madeleine Winer (Courier-Journal)

Officials will announce when tolling will start on the Abraham Lincoln, Kennedy and East End bridges Tuesday.

RiverLink spokeswoman Mindy Peterson and Clint Murphy, the director of tolling oversight for the Indiana Department of Transportation, will make the announcement at 11 a.m. outside RiverLink's Jeffersonville Customer Service Center, 103 Quartermaster Court. The two will also provide an update on the number of RiverLink accounts opened to date, according to a news release.

Peterson said critical testing of the tolling system is complete, which included end to end testing to make sure toll gantries registered vehicles of different sizes and that tolls were applied appropriately. RiverLink will use all-electronic toll gantries to track vehicles crossing the bridges, meaning no toll booths or coin machines will be used and drivers won't have to stop or wait in lines to pay the toll.

The clock is ticking. Bridge completion and tolling is coming by the end of December, and Team Gahan is 100% unprepared.

Here's the set:

Now we know when the East End bridge will open (maybe) (Business First)

We have a tentative date for the opening of the East End bridge: the weekend of Dec. 17-18.

And the spike:

So when will tolling begin? Mindy Peterson, a spokeswoman for the downtown crossing and the RiverLink tolling system, told the CJ that a start date hasn't been determined. But she said tolls could be levied on the Lincoln and Kennedy bridges before the East End bridge opens.

That's two weeks, maybe three. What's the short term plan, Jeff?

Nuttin', honey.

 ... Supporters of two-way conversions say the change could help discourage Spring and Elm streets as a Ohio River Bridges Project toll-dodging method. The Sherman Minton Bridge connecting West Louisville and New Albany is one of two bridges that will be toll free at the end of the year.

"They've dragged their feet so much that the tolls are going to happen before they do anything," Mark Sanders, vice president of the (East Spring Street) neighborhood association, said.

It turns out that improv isn't just for comedy clubs any more.

ASK THE BORED: They have a plan to prevent toll dodging, and have scheduled it for completion one year after tolling begins. Yay!

I haven't attended a Board of Public Works and Safety meeting since before the unpleasantness of November 8, when the local political party branch responsible for appointments, patronage and a gently pervasive wetting of beaks -- in fact, for these very prized seats on BOW -- was handed a vicious, epic bloodbath of a beat-down.

Consequently, the Green Mouse reports newfound popularity for this fashionable statement of beans, franks and whiplash. You can bet that if HWC Engineering offered orthopedic body gadgets, the contract already would have been signed, sealed and sluiced.

By the way, kindly note that Team Gahan's campaign finance lube jobs with HWC are so comforting that the engineering firm is opening a branch office right across the street from City Hall. Now, THAT's service with a smile -- and an invoice.

Two weeks ago, and by its own publicly stated reckoning, BOW struck a heroic faux blow for presumed preparedness in the face of the traffic diversions and dodging sure to follow the implementation of bridge tolls.

In short, a tragically butchered two-way street plan edited to the very edge of insensibility (but campaign finance ready!) was formally approved, and the back-slapping commenced.

UPDATE: Two-ways streets in downtown New Albany are a go; Switch to be in place by end of next year, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

 ... "It's a shame it couldn't be done this year, but jumping through all the hoops with federal dollars and all — it's worth the wait," Warren Nash, board of works president, said.

The Federal Highway Administration will fund about $2 million of the project, leaving the city to pay $400,000.

My, my. What's even more shameful than a political time-server's breathtaking insincerity is the project's price tag of almost $3 million, for what amounts to an omnibus paving project with one (!) bicycle lane and the same old cluelessness from suburban-think city officials, who never have understood what Jeff Speck was saying, not once, and never will.

But the overarching point is summarized by this meme, encapsulating a question that has failed to occur to several dozen local newspaper reporters.

Verily, if the Downtown Grid Modernization Project (DGMP -- nice acronym, and the word for "poop" in Mongolian) is intended as a means of taming toll dodgers, and if the curative project won't be finished until a year after tolling begins, then WHAT'S THE PLAN FOR THE INTERVENING 12 MONTHS?

In order to be answered, the question must be asked, and you know the reaction if NAC tries to ask it.

What we'd surely get would be Team Gahan's tried-and-true boilerplate:

"You want answers? (Yawn) I'll check the Gahan for Next account, and if your name's not there, I'm sure the Indiana Public Access counselor has room on his schedule."

Two-way streets and one-way mentalities. What could possibly go wrong?

Before I drift into unconsciousness, here's a link where you can learn more about the advent of Kerry Stemler's auto-erotic tolling boondoggle, with an added bonus of an economic development study that didn't include independent local businesses, as well as typically incoherent testimony from State Senator Ron Grooms, who has been trying for five years to explain why he never grasped the impact of tolling during the time when he performed yeoman's service as One Southern Indiana lapdog.

But damn, those royalty checks come in handy when it's time to buy groceries, don't they, Ron?

Drivers brace for start of bridge tolls, by Madeleine Winer (Courier-Journal)

With the arrival of the holiday season comes colder weather, family gatherings and this year, for Kentuckiana, bridge tolls.

For the thousands of drivers who cross the Ohio River daily, that also means toll dodging or buying a transponder and setting up an account with RiverLink, the electronic tolling system that could cost them more than $40 a month.

ON THE AVENUES: His nose knows tolls and polls (2010).

ON THE AVENUES: His nose knows tolls and polls (2010).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Let's turn back that forever unforgiving stuck-in-the-70s New Albany alarm clock to October 21, 2010, and the following essay from the time of my employment (yes, they actually paid a few farthings) as pre-merger New Albany Tribune columnist. It has never appeared here previously.

Surveying the 2010 bridge tolling contestants, we see that Dalby, Price, Garry, Daniels and Grooms have long since swapped jobs, the latter now afflicting us with Chamber of Commerce envy in his second term as state senator, but either Chuck Freiberger or Jeff Gahan is going to take care of this in 2018 -- right?

Kerry Stemler, prime architect of the approaching bridge toll regime, remains in place as a well-groomed, obsequious and venerated regional figure of the country club set. His toll fetish is about to come to glorious fruition, but before this happens there'll be another potentially momentous event.

As readers already know, I'm a member of the current Leadership Southern Indiana class, and on the 19th is Economy & Commercial Enterprise Day. In the morning, we'll be touring the Port of Indiana, and one of our guides will be none other than Stemler, the gray eminence himself.

I'm giddy. Positively giddy. Now, back to the future, yet again.

---

His nose knows tolls and polls.

October 21, 2010

Doublethink: A simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas (Orwell).
-- Merriam Webster Dictionary

One Southern Indiana’s well-tailored chairman, Michael Dalby, stood before New Albany’s city council, a fractious and generally dysfunctional entity, one nonetheless transformed for the occasion into a veritable firing line of incisive questioning.

Huh? Evidently I’d missed a turn near Albuquerque.

At stake was payment to 1Si for vague economic development “services” previously rendered, for which Dalby advanced colorfully apocryphal claims, none accompanied by the slightest documentation, to the overall effect that without 1Si, New Albanians would be living in yurts on the Mongolian steppe, subsisting on fermented mare’s milk and, for entertainment, watching beetles copulate.

Eventually Steve Price zeroed in, embracing the campaign issue that seemingly came from nowhere this summer, but really didn’t, and asked (I’m paraphrasing): How can the current council financially support an organization that advocates tolling existing bridges to pay for the colossal Ohio River Bridges Project?

A well-rehearsed Dalby did not hesitate.

"We are not in favor of tolls. Nobody is in favor of tolls. That's not something we want to see happen."

A tremor ominously rumbled in all directions, and half a world away, a game of yak polo halted abruptly as the riders reached for their furiously stuttering BS Meters.

Back here in New Albany, after a hyper-kinetic bout of Duck Duck Goose, our council members approved a reduced stipend for 1Si and sent Dalby back to his executive suite. If I were Kay Garry, I’d stop payment on the check.

---

I say this because Dalby’s miraculous election eve conversion to tender, merciful concern for the pocketbooks of Southern Indiana plebeians doesn’t just strain one’s credulity.

It splits, breaks, smashes, mangles, incinerates, lacerates and spits in the very eye of credulity. Let’s avoid that other nasty “L” word, and say merely that Liberties with the truth are being taken. As such, kindly permit me to provide the sort of forensic evidence generally lacking when 1Si’s dampened palm comes at you, outstretched.

Here’s Michael Dalby in a press release that was quoted on April 15, 2010, in “The Ville Voice” on-line blog. His memo extols the virtues of the ORBP, and devotes hundreds of words to buffing and polishing the act of tolling, just in case a stray, ordinary soul in Kentuckiana might somehow notice that tolls were being considered as a financing option.

“We support the process that has been put in place by both Kentucky and Indiana – the formation of the Bi-State Authority – and giving them the ability to review any and all funding options … If viable funding options emerge that don’t include tolling, we fully support that approach. Nobody wants to pay tolls. However, if including high-speed electronic tolling is the only way to fund the project and get it built in a timely manner, then we will accept a funding solution that includes tolling.”

It is doublethink, writ large. Dalby now asks us to believe simultaneously in two contradictory ideas: That 1Si is “not in favor” of tolls and also “supports the process” of the unelected Bi-State Authority, which has the unimpeded power to levy tolls on existing bridges to finance the monstrosity of the ORBP.

And from whom does this unimpeded authority’s unelected power derive? From Indiana’s and Kentucky’s elected officials, foremost among them Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who clearly indicated his bridges project position in a video interview with the Courier-Journal (August 25, 2010):

“I don’t think anybody’s got even a wildly unrealistic plan that doesn't involve tolls."

To enforce discipline as Bi-State Authority capo to the governor’s folksy star turn as Hoosier Godfather, Daniels previously anointed local businessman, 1Si shadow government stalwart and Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana theocratic apologist Kerry Stemler.

While customarily operating on the hazy periphery preferred by traditional regional power elites, Stemler appears in daylight every now and then to utter fearsome non-negotiable bromides, as in his most recent public pronouncement on tolling in a Tribune article by Braden Lammers on October 9, 2010:

“I’ve studied this long enough. Tolling, for this to get built, will be a part of the project.”

No wonder the equestrian athletes in Arvaikheer tugged at their mustaches as the word “tilt” lit up their bovine manure detection devices.

Daniels says, “Tolls.”

Stemler says, “Tolls.”

The Bi-State Authority appointed by politicos to make tolling decisions without that minor, nagging democratic principle of polling, say, “Tolls.”

1Si’s Dalby says, “No tolls” and “Tolls,” simultaneously, and expects us to buy it. Doddering old Geppetto, among others, knows exactly what’s about to happen. But what about the Jeffersonville councilman, Ron “Profiles in Abstention” Grooms?

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Grooms, also a candidate for District 46 Indiana Senate, gave us a valuable pre-election glimpse of his legislative prowess last Monday.

On colleague Keith Fetz’s compromise resolution, revised to specify the council’s opposition to tolls on existing bridges, as opposed to future tolls on freshly built ORBP bridges, Grooms heroically … abstained. The resolution passed.

On a motion requesting that the Jeffersonville city council attorney convey to One Southern Indiana the council’s concern with 1Si's partisan endorsements, and to request clarification of such political skullduggery in light of the council's annual $30,000 support level, Grooms courageously ... abstained once more, and the motion also passed.

Perhaps Grooms discerned a troubling conflict of interest in questioning the same ham-fisted political action committee that endorsed him. Fortunately for voters, divestment from 1Si and its hand-picked slate of candidates is a simple, elegant solution to doublethink in all its banality.

Isn’t there an election soon?

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September 29: ON THE AVENUES 3-PK, PART THREE: Survey says … Irv’s street grid agitprop won’t be putting Diogenes out of work any time soon.

September 29: ON THE AVENUES 3-PK, PART TWO: Inkem binkem notamus rex, protect us all from the city (still) with the hex (2014).

September 29: ON THE AVENUES 3-PK, PART ONE: Chocolate covered frozen banana republic, or "understanding" Harvest Homecoming, our peculiar institution (2014).

September 22: ON THE AVENUES: On two-way streets, a modest proposal for the consideration of my disoriented one-way counterpart.

Toll readiness as defined by ... by ... by ... say, what is this, invisible ink?

Yes, that's the one.*

Yesterday with open arms we welcomed cynicism back into our lives. It had been nearly thirty minutes, and I was starting to sweat.

A new buzz phrase enters City Hall's bunker-speak: "Downtown Grid Modernization Project." We believe it's a synonym for "non-existent."

If you read the subsequent newspaper account of the state of Indiana's auto-centric million-dollar grant to Southern Indiana, and specifically New Albany -- for future state senate candidates, "asphalt aplenty" money like this far outranks Viagra -- you'll have noticed this passage, as attributed to the straw that stirs our collective Shirley Temple.

"(The) downtown grid modernization project, which is a review of the downtown grid that will allow the city to ready itself for the completion of the Ohio River Bridges Project and the associated tolls."

Stop laughing and pay attention!

Shouldn't there be a follow-up question something like this one?

"Mayor Gahan, seeing as tolls begin in less than six months, can you explain precisely what this 'readiness' means, in the real world, and in the short-term, because after all, there is no long term when it comes to toll imposition."

The question hasn't been asked, except by me. A reporter should try asking it, for the only response I ever get goes something like this:

(crickets chirp)

(pins drop)

(somewhere, a dog forlornly barks)

(public access requests can be heard fluttering into garbage cans)

* thanks, J

Did you hear the one about New Albany's tolling preparedness plan?

Neither did we.

Apocalypse WOW: Pat McLaughlin thinks toll evaders will stop to shop in New Albany. Jeff Gahan doesn't return calls. Welcome to tolling preparedness, New Albany-style.

It would help to ask your district council representative (and all three at-large representatives), "What are we doing to prepare for tolling?"

City Council

At-Large – David Aebersold
1202 Aebersold Drive
(812) 944-9823, daebersold@cityofnewalbany.com

At-Large – Dave Barksdale
614 Terrace Court
(812) 945-1839, dbarksdale@cityofnewalbany.com

At-Large – Al Knable, MD
2241 Green Valley Road
(502) 386-5051, aknable@cityofnewalbany.com

1st District – Dan Coffey
425 West Seventh Street
(502) 797-8347, dcoffey@cityofnewalbany.com

2nd District – Robert Caesar
614 Camp Ave.
(812) 945-8744, rcaesar@cityofnewalbany.com

3rd District – Greg Phipps (Vice President)
1105 E Spring Street
(812) 949-8317, gphipps@cityofnewalbany.com

4th District – Patrick McLaughlin (President)
1739 Florence Ave.
(812) 949-9140, pmclaughlin@cityofnewalbany.com

5th District – Matthew Nash
2510 Larkwood Drive
(502) 718-4986, mnash@cityofnewalbany.com

6th District – Scott Blair
3925 Rainbow Drive
(812) 697-0128, sblair@cityofnewalbany.com

If the answer is, "the mayor's taking care of it behind closed doors," then perhaps you must also start thinking about a new councilman.

I know I am.

Apocalypse WOW: Pat McLaughlin thinks toll evaders will stop to shop in New Albany. Jeff Gahan doesn't return calls. Welcome to tolling preparedness, New Albany-style.

Imagine how a local newspaper might be functioning as tolling approaches. Imagine the hard questions a reporter might be asking of local officials. Imagine the dialogue that might be engendered.

Keep imagining, because we have no newspaper in New Albany.

Meanwhile, it still isn't clear what the city of New Albany's official position will be with respect to the issues discussed in Green's piece. We suspect servile silence, but only because it's what we've been conditioned to expect from Jeff Gahan, but note that if the council president's uninformed opinion is any indication, we might be better off with no opinion at all.

SUNDAY EDITION | Old overpasses to get more wear and tear as Kentuckiana drivers avoid bridge tolls, by Marcus Green (WDRB)

... “Talking to a lot of people that I know, they said they’re going to change their route of going to Indiana and coming around the Sherman Minton and ride all the way around to avoid paying a toll,” said Natalie Neil, who lives in the Shawnee/Chickasaw neighborhood in western Louisville.

Neil said she uses the Minton twice a day for trips to New Albany. More traffic on the bridge is troubling, she said, because there’s “a lot of increase already.”

And:

Traffic on those structures in Floyd County is expected to increase by as much as 118 percent in the coming decades. Indiana plans maintenance and repair work on four of the overpasses before 2018, according to the state.

The state also aims to paint and maintain the Sherman Minton Bridge within the next four years, said Will Wingfield, spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation. The Minton was closed for about five months in 2011 and 2012 to fix a crack in a load-bearing beam.

This means that very soon, we'll either lose the Sherman Minton for an extended period, and/or see it tolled. But here's the important part (emphasis mine).

Opponents of tolling interstates often cite traffic diversion as a side effect of tolls and rate hikes.

“Tolls are often easily evaded, usually by motorists who are using an alternative route that unfortunately was not built to handle the level and type of traffic experienced due to that toll evasion,” said Stephanie Kane, spokeswoman for the Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates.

After reviewing projections showing increased traffic on the Minton, she said ambulances and other first responders could face delays getting across the river on I-64.

With the Minton remaining toll-free, traffic passing through New Albany is expected to double in the decades to come. Mayor Jeff Gahan did not return a phone message seeking comment, but council president Patrick McLaughlin said “it’s something that’s been constantly on our radar.”

McLaughlin stopped short of agreeing that traffic will rise at the levels predicted by INDOT, but he said any increase could give the city an economic boost.

“When trying to judge human nature,” he said, “no one really knows how that’s going to pan out.”

As bridge tolls approach, Team Gahan stocks up ... on industrial strength blinders.

Summer Guthrie, originator of the Southern Indiana-based Cabin Grill food truck, posted this photo on Fb.

Bluegill finds the target's center.

The two most popular choices are both the most practical for a majority and the most destructive for urban neighborhoods. Excellent planning and design.

Meanwhile, Jeff Gahan stays firmly on point.

Tolling inches ever closer as Jeff Gahan announces exciting new water slide.

The funniest part about yesterday's news stories about impending final approval of Ohio River bridges tolling rates can be summarized by this single sentence, in "Final Tolling Plan Released For Ohio River Bridges Project" (by Rick Howlett, WFPL):

Officials will vote on the tolling plan Wednesday.

Vote?

Think of it as the sort of election these guys used to hold.

Ah, yes; those halcyon days of 98.6% "yes," with the lone dissenter forced to relocate to luxury apartments being constructed from balsa and Elmer's.

Speaking of brand-dead regimes, over here in New Albany ...

It's going to be a long and degrading year, isn't it?

In which we catch Jeff Gahan in a flagrant, bald-faced lie about city streets, bridge tolls, and his city's non-readiness.

Yesterday we learned from the Courier-Journal's Lexy Gross (our newspaper was off at cooking school) that in spite of winks, nods, secret handshakes and Paddy Mac-brand decoder rings, Mayor Jeff Gahan persists in thinking that one-way traffic on Spring and Elm makes sense.

C-J report: Spiting Speck, Jeff Gahan still thinks that one-way traffic on Spring and Elm might be good for the city.

It's gotten so bad that even 3rd councilman Greg Phipps has noticed and is "very disturbed."

Once again, here's the damning passage, written by Gross:

... John Rosenbarger, New Albany public works projects supervisor, said Terra Haute, Ind., firm HWC Engineering is currently examining the city's options and how much it could cost to implement changes. Gahan said 80 percent of the project would be funded through the state and federal departments of transportation.

HWC has given the city two options: Spring Street and Elm Street would stay one-way from the interstate to Vincennes Street, or all of the downtown grid streets – from Oak to Main – would convert to two-way.

Gahan and Rosenbarger said they expect the analysis to take at least a few more months, then the city will release plans and costs for public discussion.

A few more months?

Let's take a closer look at what this means. Since Speck's study finally landed, NAC has been scanning those shards of information leaking out from City Hall's circled wagons.

Among other items stored under lock and key in Warren Nash's GI Joe foot locker, we've been looking for evidence of a timetable for two-way implementation, based not on what we seek as advocates, but on the city's publicly stated aim of linking street grid reform with impending bridge tolls, and ensuing traffic dislocations as drivers use New Albany as a cut-through to the untolled Sherman Minton Bridge.

Yes: Gahan's publicly stated aim.

The following passage appeared in Business First on January 7, 2015 -- 14 months before Gross's article yesterday.

The city of New Albany commissioned the (Speck) study after realizing that more motorists could be driven to cross the Sherman Minton Bridge after tolls are instituted as part of the Ohio River Bridges Project. New Albany is the first exit off the Sherman Minton, which will not be tolled.

"There is no question that the 'no-toll' situation is going to have an impact," New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan told Business First Tuesday after the YES! Fest kick-off event. "The city of New Albany is going to be ready."

Let's return to yesterday's C-J article.

Gahan said he doesn't expect the project to be complete until after the bridges start tolling.

Looks like Gahan lied.

Plain as day.

Maybe that's why they don't allow him to attend city council meetings.

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RQAW, HWC Engineering, municipal cowardice, Jeff Speck, and reading the tea leaves through dry heaves.

Unelected Bored of Works gets started gutting Speck as mayor endorses PAC checks from afar.