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Bike Couriers Bike Shop in the News
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One bridge or two? Both are bad ideas by Jackie Green The Courier-Journal Monday, April 1, 2008 Louisville, Ky. |
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In January Kentuckiana Transportation Action Partnership, a coalition of 25 citizen organizations and businesses, went to Frankfort with a specific message for legislators - "the financial plan of the Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges Project is unrealistic". The Senate and the House both responded with new funding legislation. The new “Creative Financing” plans are equally unrealistic. The public is not going to accept tolling one, two or all bridges, higher vehicle registration fees ($30-$40 increases), higher local gas taxes, higher sales taxes, insurance taxes, higher property taxes, hotel room taxes, car rental taxes, local taxing districts, private development financial participation, and public borrowing (bonds and bond secured grants).
The Bridges Project not only ignores funding realities, but it also fails to address broader financial/economic concerns. It ignores the energy and environmental realities of the 21st Century. Nor does it address the needs of all people, regardless of socioeconomic status. Where is the wisdom of building more interstate highway capacity as fuel prices become unaffordable, as an aging population can no longer drive, as youth demand non-automotive mobility, as earth's climate destabilizes, as local economies reduce the need to truck material great distances, as freight shifts from road to rail, as military action in oil fields consumes the petroleum that escapes destruction in the conflict, and as Kentuckiana awakens to the need to walk, bicycle and ride the bus? Investment in two interstate highway bridges is a bad investment in more private motor vehicle infrastructure. Investment in one interstate highway bridge (per 8664 or Riverfields) is a bad investment postponing our investment in public transit. One bridge or two bridges - both are bad ideas. Invest regionally in public transit and make our streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.
Jackie Green
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