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?

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.

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.