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The Bridges Authority tried to bury the news of a $3 toll estimate on a Friday afternoon, but citizens are paying attention and are tired of the ORBP boondoggle. You can read the report, but it's more interesting to read what the Mayoral candidates had to say about it.

Hal Heiner:

"This afternoon the Louisville Southern Indiana Bridges Authority submitted a report to the regional planning agency with estimated tolls of $6 per trip.  This would represent one of Louisville's largest tax increases and I will not support this rate.  While we realize this is a preliminary number, I urge the authority to work diligently to reduce this rate.  If $6 per trip is the only way the authority can build 2 bridges, then I believe we need to reduce the scope of the project by breaking it into more manageable phases with the east end bridge being the first phase of a multi phase project.  While I believe I-65 and Spaghetti Junction will ultimately have to be addressed, I find a $6 trip financially irresponsible and a burden Louisvillians will not accept."

Greg Fischer:

"We need to build the bridges and to create the thousands of jobs that come with it - but a $3 toll is simply too much"

OK, now we're getting somewhere. The question is, what are we going to do about it? 

Here's what we had to say about it:

"It's time to divide this boondoggle of a project and build the east end bridge without tolls. We ask Greg Fischer and Hal Heiner to stand united for this important regional infrastructure project"

This afternoon on NPR's Marketplace, Andrea Bernstein reported from New York City where there is growing momentum to remove an elevated portion of the FDR Drive.

You can listen to the piece by clicking here. Click Listen Now and go to 22:10. You can also view the Photo Gallery Slideshow.

The piece concluded:

"But around the country, mayors and governors are eying urban highway teardowns as the road to development, not congestion."

Except in Louisville, KY where outgoing Mayor Jerry Abramson has been aligned for decades with a special interest group to stop the East End Bridge.

Louisville needs to change. Louisvillians are ready for change. It's time!

"For more than a decade, a plan pushed by some [Louisville] residents and transportation advocates has sat on the fringes of the State Transportation Department's to-do list, in part because it would be a radical undoing: tearing down [I-64 on Louisville's riverfront]."

OK, so we made a few changes to the NYTimes article. It's just a matter of time though. We'll get there. Read the article.

Louisville Magazine Editor Bruce Allar compares BP and the Bridges:

"I don't know about you, but I think I'd place my future infrastructure investment bets with a whiz like Buffett before laying them down with the 1990s thinking that produced our current interstate highway plan calling for two bridges and a rebuilt Spaghetti Junction."

Then Jonathan Meador with LEO followed suit with an excellent piece, Louisville Mag pooh-poohs Bridges. It ends... 

"Regardless, now that Louisville Magazine has joined The New Albany News and Tribune, LEO Weekly and other local news organs in speaking out against/being critical of/not blindly following the ORBP, that leaves The Courier-Journal as the loudest (and sole) media drum-banger for this tone-deaf waste of Kentuckiana taxpayers' money, which would be sadder were it not wholly unsurprising."

... but you should just click the link and read the whole thing.

In this week's LEO, writer Steve Shaw covers the state of the ORBP's financing options. Attending last week's Bridges Authority meeting, he updates readers on the Bridges Project boondoggle:

"Last Thursday, the Ohio River Bridges Project Bi-State Authority heard impassioned pleas to finance and build the East End bridge first; downsize the demolition and expansion of Spaghetti Junction; not to toll existing bridges; not to toll any bridges; not to build a downtown bridge; and to scrap the project in favor of public transit."

Read the article on LEOWeekly

The end of the article also provided a curious quote from Candidate Greg Fischer:

"There's a lot of people that are excited about something that may not occur."

We'll try to seek clarification on that comment.

The article about the "Our Cities Ourselves" exhibit in New York City begins:

"Imagine no cars -- or fewer, anyway.

In New York, a two-mile stretch of the FDR Drive parkway is torn down to open lower Manhattan for parks and plazas, and bicyclists are given their own lane on the Brooklyn Bridge.

An elevated highway in Guangzhou, China, is transformed into a pedestrian promenade and rooftops are linked by raised walkways and bikeways."

--

"A year ago nobody thought you could close Broadway," he said. "But suddenly it's closed, and everyone loves it."

Read more

The "mainstream" media is covering how the best and brightest thinkers are looking at cities in new ways to make them more human-scale and environmentally sustainable. Our latest video discusses some of these issues, but Louisville's political leadership is too entrenched with the anti East End Bridge folks to do the right thing for our future. Who are you going to vote for to lead Louisville? Are they going to do the right thing?

One week after LEO's article about Louisville's most expensive house - the $260 Million Drumanard Estate - a group of local activists called Say No to Bridge Tolls filed a request with the Kentucky Heritage Council to have the house removed from the National Register of Historic Places. We can think of about 260 Million reasons this is a good idea. You can read all about it in today's Courier article, and you won't want to miss the comments to get some of the local flavor.

For those of you who haven't been following the ORBP boondoggle; a nice old house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places 20 years ago in an effort by wealthy land owners to prevent the much needed East End Bridge from going through their estates. Because of it's "historic" designation, Kentucky was going to spend an extra $260 Million to tunnel under the property. Clearly ridiculous.

Thanks to WFPL's Gabe Bullard for bring the Infrastructurist post "What does "Livability" mean to the US Government?" to Louisville's blogsphere. Incredibly, US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood thinks Livability has something to do with using your feet.

"So in 2001, Missouri and Illinois went back to the drawing board. Both states agreed the project was too big and too costly. With money lacking, the solution was to downsize and build the bridge in phases. Ironically, the phase idea was borrowed from the Ohio River Bridges Project."

Watch Part I and Part II of the TV coverage.

On April 19th, we emailed a Transportation Questionnaire to all the Mayoral Candidates. Last weekend we received the final responses, so we've compiled the results. We'd like to thank the candidates and their campaigns for taking the time and responding to our questions about Louisville's transportation future.

Here's today's Press Release which began...

Mayoral candidates oppose the ORBP by a 2-to-1 margin

Strong agreement on the East End Bridge, opposition to tolls on existing bridges and reversible lanes on the 2^nd Street Bridge.

Here's a link directly to the results in table form.

And here are the unedited individual questionnaire responses:
Tyler Allen (D)
Greg Fischer (D)
Jackie Green (I)
Hal Heiner (R) - refused
Jim King (D)
Lisa Moxley (D)
Jonathon Robertson (R)
David Tandy (D)
Chris Thieneman (R)
Shannon White (D)