...but thanks for playing.
While we're on the topic of money today, WHAS reported last week that $421 million of federal money will go to road, bridge, and public infrastructure projects statewide as a stimulus package. And not one red cent will be given to the Ohio River Bridges Project. No soup for you, ORBP.
"Kentucky Transportation Secretary Joe Prather says he and state lawmakers are still hammering out a list of road projects whose construction contracts are ready to be let, to get underway, to put people to work. Some of those projects will be in Jefferson County. But not the bridges, which are still in the design phase. Mayor Abramson is hoping Louisville might get a chunk of a separate $1.5 billion pool of money set aside for giant national projects."
Rep. John Yarmuth (D - 3rd) said that "the stimulus dollars will be directed toward projects that can be started and completed within two years." The current projection for the ORBP proposal, which includes the construction of two new bridges spanning the Ohio and the expansion of the labyrinth-like Spaghetti Junciton, predicts that the total project will take 20 years and approximately $4 billion to complete.
No dice on free spaghetti from the government, so it looks like we're back to the drawing board, wherein a chunk of the project would be funded through tollways. No worries about additional traffic headaches, though, because Louisville Metro is looking into OMG ELECTRONIC TOLLZ!!!
Look, instead of adding to an already poorly designed highway infrastructure and letting motorists foot the bill through tolls, taxes, or otherwise, isn't it time that Abramson and the Courier Journal at least give some serious consideration to what the grassroots 8664.org is saying? The Transportation Cabinent's 86-64 Traffic Study disregarded key components of the 8664 concept, making their findings pretty much inconclusive on the plan's viability.
I'm not saying that 8664 has a flawless concept, or that the plan is fool proof. However, public works projects like The Embarcadero in San Francisco (which I have biked on myself) and New York City's West Side Highway are almost parallel examples - elevated highways on a waterfront suffering extreme congestion. And both these examples demonstrate how implementing smart growth, in considerably more densely populated cities no less, results in fewer accidents, more people utilizing alternate transportation, and more recreational opportunities along waterfront property. We have seen through the unbiased looking glass of history that alternatives to simply expanding already vast tracts of elevated concrete can work.
It's time to at least take these guys seriously.
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