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)