Recently in ORBP Category

Nice work New Albany City Council! They passed a resolution opposing tolls on the ORBP and other SI communities should do the same.

Read about it on LEO and NA Confidential.

The Courier-Journal has not done a poll on bridge alternatives since 1996. Luckily, CN2 polled the issue and the results are dramatic.

According to a newly released poll, only 14.5% of Louisvillians support building two bridges. Here's a look at the results:

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.

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.

"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.

Waterfront Park's "Great" Lawn                     (ROLLOVER PHOTO)

ORBP's plan would make I-64 50% wider than it is today - that's 75 feet wider. Also notice that the rendering doesn't include a shadow, but if constructed -- planned  to be 10 feet higher than its current height -- the shadow from I-64 will cover the majority of what we now call our Great Lawn.

Slugger Field

The new Spaghetti Junction ramps will be at least 35 feet above the ground and plow right through Slugger Fields parking lot. The ORBP's current rendering of the above ramps show them avoiding the Slugger Field's parking lot, so we've requested accurate renderings.  

Click the link below to see what happens to the Xtreme Park and more.

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)

In Sunday's editorial they said this:

"Moreover, after some initial confusion about his position, Mr. Fischer has unequivocally endorsed the record of decision on the Ohio River Bridges Project, which calls for simultaneously proceeding on construction of two bridges -- one in the eastern part of the county, one downtown -- and on a reconfiguration of Spaghetti Junction."

They continue to make this claim, but it is NOT TRUE. The ROD doesn't specify the order of construction and in fact the current ORBP schedule has the East End Bridge completed one year before construction on the downtown bridge begins. 

Additionally, every editorial that mentions the bridges should come with the following disclaimer:

"Opinion Editor Keith Runyon lives near the path of the East End Bridge and is married to the Director of River Fields, the organization responsible for delaying the bridge for the last three decades."

Lastly, C-J, try to spell the name of our city correctly. It's not "Louisvillle". 

Yesterday the Bridges Authority emailed me to let me know their new website is up. You can check it out at www.bridgesauthority.com.

When I perused the image gallery, the rendering below caught my eye because it's different from other renderings and the Google Map overlay on their website.

For starters, notice how the interstate ramp closest to Slugger Field goes behind the existing billboard at the far side of parking lot. But when you look at the Google overlay from ORBP website, you see it clearly goes right through the middle of the parking lot. See below:

Another "issue" I noticed is that originally there were two streets that connected Butchertown to the waterfront, but now there's only one. Hmmm.

Exploring further, the Third Street ramp that was moved east, dumping traffic onto River Road at Waterfront Park (see below) is missing from the image on the Authority's website. Maybe they are using old rendering for some reason.