Recently in Traffic Study Category

"Politics, power and obstruction: Has Louisville's most prominent preservation group lost its vision?"

Steven Shaw did a heck of a job covering a very difficult story. Read it!

Yesterday's Courier-Journal headline painted a scary picture of Louisville's future traffic congestion. "Congestion rife on Louisville highways; Louisville among worst US cities its size with 38 hours lost yearly." Interesting timing considering that Metro Council will be asked to approve the creation of a tolling authority in the coming weeks.

But for readers who actually read the article, they found the headline to be misleading. For example, congestion has "stayed relatively constant from 1997 to 2007". This begs the question,

Why would we toll our bridges and triple the size of Spaghetti Junction when congestion hasn't increased over the past decade? 

The article also acknowledges that "the report's backers include road building and public transit interests." Road builders like to build roads. In fact, that's one of the ways they suggest we get out of this mess of congestion that hasn't increased in a decade, by building more roads. But we all know Barry Barker is correct when he says, "you can't build yourself out of congestion."

The other interesting fact about this hot-off-the-shelf 2009 report is that it didn't include any traffic data from 2008. As we've noted in other posts, Louisville's congestion is reported to have declined by 39% in 2008. This data is from INRIX, a privately held corporation founded by former Microsoft executives, not road building interests.

Did we mention that traffic on the Kennedy Bridge went down 15,000 cars/day last year? Look for a future post regarding the region's actual traffic counts.

Entering downtown from the East End

The State's "8664" traffic study incorrectly terminated all off ramps from Spaghetti Junction at Clay Street. This video shows how I-364 (today's I-64) would flow seamlessly through a simplified SJ to Waterfront Parkway. 

The video continues west along the Parkway to Roy Wilkins Boulevard (9th Street), which will become a significant central, unifying street. In the near future, we will release other videos showing different perspectives of Louisville's future.

According to INRIX's National Traffic Scorecard, Louisville's traffic congestion declined last year by 39%, well above the national average of 30%. That leaves Louisville in 46th place among US cities in terms of traffic congestion. That's pretty amazing for the "16th Largest City."

CEOs for Cities wrote a nice post about this called The Tipping Point.

The reduction in congestion definitely begs the question, "Why do we need a 23-lane interchange to rival Los Angeles, CA (the most congested city) when our traffic doesn't compare?" The East End Bridge alone will reduce Kennedy Bridge traffic by 18% according to the Environmental Impact Statement. It's time to take action to protect the future of our city.

This article in the January 29th Scientific American should be mandatory reading for a few folks in town.

We like reading scientific journals that say things like:

"closing a highway--that is, reducing network capacity--
improves the system's effectiveness."

This fact was made clear in our local example when KYTC's "8664" Traffic Study showed that an East End Bridge Only solution performed as well as the "two-bridge solution" that would cost twice as much and expand Spaghetti Junction to 23 lanes wide.

Here's a nice quote for our friends in Washington (Helloooo, Congressman Yarmuth!):

"As the Obama administration prepares to invest in the biggest public works project since the construction of the interstate highway system, the notion that fewer, more inclusive roads yield better results is especially timely."

Good stuff. Read the entire article. 

Half the cost of the Bridges Project (or $2 Billion) has nothing to do with a bridge. The proposed 23 lane wide Spaghetti Junction will make downtown a construction hell for 20 years. And you get to pay for it. $4, $5 or maybe even a $6 toll every time you want to cross the river. This project was supposed to improve "cross-river mobility."

The Transportation Cabinet denies they plan to widen I-71 and I-64 through the Cherokee Park, but it's in their traffic modeling. They wouldn't widen these interstates in their model if they didn't plan on actually widening them.

Build the East End Bridge without tolls

According to the Environmental Impact Statement ("EIS"), the East End Bridge performs better than a Downtown Bridge by more than 10,000 vehicles a day. And in the KYTC's "8664" traffic study, the "System Wide Performance" of a single-bridge solution matched the ORBP's two bridge solution. So we can actually spend less and get more if we build the East End Bridge, which we can do without tolls.

Contact your state representatives!

Response to the "8664" Study

On December 16^th the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet released an  "8664" Traffic study. Two days later, a Courier-Journal editorial celebrated our defeat. For those who oppose the East End Bridge, it made for great reading. Now we would like to respond with the facts.

The "8664" Study

Simply put, KYTC didn't study our alternative. We don't widen I-64 through Cherokee Park or terminate current day I-64 at Clay Street. There are other inaccuracies, but these two modeling "mistakes" serve to simultaneously increase traffic flow into downtown and restrict it once it gets there. On January 5^th, Transportation Secretary Prather acknowledged these mistakes.

Read our Letter to Secretary Joe Prather in response to the "8664" study.

Two important points:

1. A one-bridge solution performs as well as the ORBP. According to their own study, 8664's "System-wide Performance" was 99% as good as the $4.1 Billion ORBP. See "System Wide Measures" on page 8 of the KYTC 8664 study.
   
   
2. KYTC plans to widen I-71 and I-64 through Cherokee Park. In their "8664" study, the Tranportation Cabinet assumes that these interstates get wider, but they flatly deny that they plan to widen them. They can't have it both ways. They can't assume they'll be wider when modeling, and deny they plan to widen them. Contact your state representative today.

Today's article Study critical of 8664 proposal lacks a lot of things. Journalistic integrity among them. The study released yesterday by KYTC is unquestionably flawed. KYTC widened I-64 and I-71 into downtown. That's not in our plan. KYTC denies it's even in their plan. 

Only the very last paragraph of the article speaks to this:

"But there are no plans to widen that stretch of interstate, according to Kentucky Transportation Cabinet chief of staff Mike Hancock. "That is not back on the table," he said."

They can't have it both ways. They can't say it's not going to happen, but then include it in the 8664 study. Check that. They can have it both ways in the Courier if Marcus Green covers it.

A $60,000 PR hit job by KYTC

Today we received a copy of what is supposed to be a study of the 8664 alternative by KYTC's consultant. If they had wanted to make a good faith attempt of assessing our plan, they would have contacted us to clarify the specifics of our alternative and/or accepted our offer to provide a transportation engineer to oversee the study.

Instead they misrepresented our alternative by asserting:

• I-64 will be widened to six lanes through Cherokee Park
  (second to last bullet point on page 2)
• I-71 would also be widened to six lanes
• I-64 and I-71 terminate at Clay Street
• Waterfront Boulevard would divide the Great Lawn
• we don't address Kennedy Bridge rehabilitation

All of the above are incorrect, and therefore KYTC's analysis is NOT a 8664 Study. In fact, if you wanted the 8664 alternative to fail, you would do exactly what they have attempted to do -- force more interstate and limited access traffic into Spaghetti Junction and change where the I-64 ramp enters downtown.