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Streets for People: The Newsletter

a round-up of the news affecting our streets, parks, and other public spaces

Working to transform Louisville's streets and neighborhoods into vibrant, active places where biking is safe and convenient for everyone.

Advocacy Alert

Bardstown Road Redesign

On April 19th, the city presented its redesign concept of Bardstown Road at a public meeting. You can find the city’s presentation here and our write-up of the plan for Insider Louisville here.

There’s a lot to like about the plan, especially the removal of the “ping pong” lights and redesign from Douglass Loop to Broadway. Here are our overall, high-level thoughts on the proposal.

The Good:

Making a large section of Bardstown Road a two-lane road (one lane in each direction) is an excellent move that will make the street safer for all users.
Likewise, dedicated turn lanes at major intersections will reduce the number of crashes and make those intersections safer for everyone.
Paid parking and the removal of the rush hour parking restriction will be great for businesses, drivers looking for parking spots, and pedestrians (oh...and al fresco dining too!). Parked cars provide a safety buffer between moving vehicles and walkers, and are great for traffic calming.
“Curb bumpouts” at some crosswalk locations will make it safer for pedestrians by reducing the length of the crosswalk. We love it!

The Meh:

Keeping Bardstown Road as 4-5 lanes from I-264 to Douglass Loop will continue to encourage speeding. With high traffic volumes, minimal parking demand, and wide shoulders, the roadway does not lend itself to a pedestrian-friendly experience, and there’s little in this plan that changes that.

The Suggestions:

Crossing Bardstown Road on foot will continue to be a problem. One problem is that there are stretches of the street where one must walk hundreds of feet in between crosswalk opportunities. The city’s design could do better by providing more crosswalk opportunities -- particularly at locations adjacent to TARC stops.
Another difficulty with crossing Bardstown Road is that the walking signals do not trigger automatically for pedestrians, but instead require the pushing of a “beg button.” The plan should replace all “beg buttons” with automatic crossing signals.
The city acknowledges that there are not any suggested bike facilities in their plan for a safer Bardstown Road, despite bike safety being one of the original goals of the study. (Kudos to them for being up-front about this.) As a remedy, the city should invest in protected bike lanes on adjacent/parallel roads -- Norris, Douglass, and Baxter -- in order to make the corridor more accessible to people on bikes.

Now that you know our thoughts, we encourage you to let the city know what you think by completing this online survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PRGL3SD

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Advocacy Alert

I-265 Widening Community Meeting

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is considering widening an 11.5-mile stretch of the Gene Snyder Freeway (I-265) between Taylorsville Road and I-71. (Oh no!!!)

The KYTC's "I-265 Widening Project" page is here:
https://transportation.ky.gov/DistrictFive/Pages/Interstate-265-Widening-Project.aspx

And the online comment form is here: https://qk4.typeform.com/to/mZAE1C

The community meeting for this project will be held Tuesday, May 8 from 5:00 to 7:00pm at Ascension Lutheran Church, located at 13725 Shelbyville Road in Louisville.

We invite you to write-in with your comments or attend the public meeting. This is a key opportunity for telling our state transportation officials that they should not (repeat: NOT) widen Gene Snyder.

There’s plenty of great research into why road widening does not alleviate traffic congestion and why it increases traffic speeds. Check out this article from Vox: The "Fundamental Rule" of Traffic: Building New Roads Just Makes People Drive More. And this recent op-ed in the New York Times: Cars Are Ruining Our Cities.