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Bike Couriers Bike Shop in the News
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Media
Bike Couriers Bike Shop in the News
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Second Street Bridge not closed to everyone Louisville, KY Fox 41 TV Thursday, 16 April, 2009 Dick Irby |
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The annual closing of the Second Street Bridge for Thunder Over Louisville preparations is likely to produce some unhappy rush hour motorists. Motorists who find the Second Street bridge closed before Thunder have the Kennedy and Sherman Minton bridges to turn to. But cyclists and pedestrians lose the only option they have to get between Kentucky and Indiana.
Ray Schuhmann didn't have to cancel his haircut appointment in Clarksville Friday. A Derby Festival-run shuttle simply loaded up his bike and took him across the Second Street Bridge despite the work to arm it with fireworks. "I was going to ask how to get back across the bridge and I met you guys. You guys got me across. Thank you very much," says Eric Krause. As the early response shows, a lot more people walk or bike across the Second Street Bridge each day than you might think -- and not just for exercise. Many depend on the bridge to get to work in Kentucky and Indiana. The Kentucky Derby Festival didn't just wake up one day and decide a bike/pedestrian shuttle was a good idea. Jackie Green owns a company which delivers documents by bicycle. The yearly Second Street Bridge Thunder closing prevents his couriers from making Indiana deliveries. And a little research revealed the bridge closing was likely illegal. "It is a civil right to cross a state line," Green says. "Folks who do not own cars, whose travel is done by foot or by bicycle, were denied their constitutional right, and that was the leverage we used to open up the discussion." Two citizen organizations, Bicycling for Louisville and Safe Street Louisville, joined Jackie Green in lobbying for the shuttle. The free rides across the Second Street Bridge will continue until 11 a.m. Saturday, then resume at 2 a.m. Sunday. They will continue until the bridge re-opens Sunday afternoon.
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