blogs: Rick Redding 

This is getting good. Today Tyler Allen will go down to the Courier-Journal building at 3 and tell the newspaper's editorial board just where it can stick its opinion about the Ohio River Bridges Project. The Mayoral candidate, who's long opposed the Ohio River Bridge Project as pushed by the city and touted his own 8664 plan, seems to be a little hacked off about the C-J's latest in a series of editorials supporting the ORBP. On Friday, it published this:: ... the community should insist that candidates who aspire to city and state leadership fully embrace the bridges project. It was distressing, for example, to hear Democratic mayoral hopeful Greg Fischer say the other day that the effort should begin with a new East End bridge, with fixing Spaghetti Junction and building a new downtown bridge to come later. It shouldn't be necessary to repeat this for mayoral candidates, but here goes: The record of decision for the project is a done deal, arrived at after years of study and discussion and agreed to by a broad consensus of the political and business leadership in two states. It calls for both bridges to be pursued at the same time, and for good reason. The downtown bridge is needed primarily to meet the area's transportation needs; the eastern span will be an economic development boon. First of all, credit to Fischer for taking a strong position for the first time in the campaign. But Allen shouldn't be blamed for thinking the piece was directed at him. He's been fighting this case with the C-J's editors for years, and they've been consistently close-minded about alternatives to ORBP. The C-J's stance reminds me of George W. Bush -- who kept saying things that weren't true in hopes that eventually everyone would believe him. Well, the bridges aren't built, and no matter how many times the C-J and the Mayor and GLI and the Indiana politicians toe the company line, it's not too late to change direction before building an unnecessary $4.1 billion project. In fact, architect Steve Wiser has offered up a more sensible plan than the ORBP disaster, but no one except a few open-minded Mayoral candidates are taking it seriously. Today Allen used the word "fantasy" to describe the current bridge proposal, and continues making sensible arguments against it. Here's his statement: The charade continues. I strongly disagree with the CJ's editorial of February 5 calling on the “next wave of community leaders to get with the plan.” Now is not the time to “get with the plan”, now is the time for real leaders to step forward and publicly say enough is enough. The “plan” in this case is the Ohio River Bridges Project and the Tolling Authority set up to finance it by tolling the citizens of this community. The need to build the East End Bridge has been clear for more than half a century! The fact that it is not yet built has had enormous consequences for this community's belief that we can “get things done.” The solution to this problem is to build the East End Bridge, not continue down an unrealistic path in the wrong direction. It is a shame that the CJ has been taken in by the fantasy that the current bridges proposal is what the citizens want and the city needs. The idea that we are stuck with a political compromise set in motion before merger, and that has never been publicly vetted by our elected leaders since merger, is very bad public policy. Must Louisville bury its downtown under a $2 Billion 23 Lane-Wide New Spaghetti Junction just to have the privilege of connecting I-265? Must Jeffersonville double the size of I-65 through its downtown just so its citizens can finally bypass downtown on a East End Bridge on their morning commute to work? The answer is 'NO'. Let's be clear, we cannot set our city back just because very powerful people do not want an East End Bridge. Gov. Daniels told the authority at its first meeting that they “need to be creative” to get this financed. Creativity cannot be limited to where to look for money (especially since it's clear they are looking mostly into our pockets). Creativity demands looking at the needs and scaling the project down to what we can afford to build. Critics of mine, including the CJ, have said I'm a one issue candidate. Interestingly, they clearly believe that my so called “one issue” is “the most important civic undertaking in the metro region and is pivotal to the area's economic future.” Wow, we better get this right. The CJ thinks the candidates for Mayor should get in line. Louisville deserves a “new wave” of leaders who don't get in line, but rather listen to the citizens, demonstrate a vision and move Louisville forward... starting with an East End Bridge!

ADD A COMMENT

	Beverly Bartlett   mon feb 08 2010 at 12:46 pm         ·  I think you are the first person I've ever heard compare the CJ editorial board to George W. Bush!
	curtis   mon feb 08 2010 at 1:35 pm         ·  Beverly's right. Kudo's for your courage, Redding. I say we tell on them. I have a hunch Gannett doesn't realize just out of control it's editorial board really is. Since the majority of our citizens are for building the East End Bridge first, their arrogance in telling our leaders to "get with the plan" is lame as hell. http://www.gannett.com/contactus.htm
	Steve Magruder   mon feb 08 2010 at 1:41 pm         ·  Per usual, I have also responded to the C-J board's ongoing "sick prank against the best interests of the Louisville region". http://www.historyandissues.org/louisville/viewtopic.php?t=1888
	chuck   mon feb 08 2010 at 2:12 pm         ·  Louisville is OUR city and we deserve better than this. Louisville is one of the few cities in the country without a bypass. Everything is forced through our downtown, causing massive congestion, noise and air pollution. We need a BYPASS, not an EXPANSION of Spaghetti Monstrosity. And honestly, three downtown bridges are more than enough if we have a bypass. Why do the advocates for ORBP (4.2 BILLION!!) never mention that we already have the worst small particulate pollution in the country? The price we pay in air pollution for routing so much traffic through downtown is already staggering. It is NOT too late... Please call and write your elected leaders today and ask them to: Spend $1.2 Billion on an east end bridge to re-route 30K vehicles daily from downtown. Save the other $3 billion in cost. SAY NO TO TOLLS! ORBP can't, and they know it, which is why they created a bi-state tolling authority to fund this mess. To get more details, please visit: www.8664.org Best, - Chuck
	chuck   tue feb 09 2010 at 6:33 am         ·  NA Confidential makes an excellent point (as pointed out on Steve Magruder's site... oh what a tangled web we weave): "ORBP advocates have gone to great lengths to convince the public that any changes to the plan would result in the federal Record of Decision, the instrument giving initial approval, being vacated so that the project would have to go back to square one. That assertion, though, has been formally challenged by more than one authority who point out that a project that serves the same purpose and fits into the same environmental footprint would not require starting over but could be amended by a highly abbreviated process. In fact, it's not at all unusual for projects of this scope to go through a Record of Decision amendment process owing to the difficulty of financing them. The only official comment from ORBP advocates in response to that challenge of their assertion has been "No comment". Should we and the media just let that stand? As Tyler Allen suggests, for ORBP advocates, the finance authority, and the media to ignore all that in favor of continued smoke screens is detrimental to the region's future and the ability of residents to shape it."
	curtis   thu feb 11 2010 at 7:47 pm         ·  Chuck- I didn't realize you had such savvy views on this issue. You might not make that ridiculous GLI list, but you're more influential with people under 50 than anyone on the CJ editorial board. It's good to know you are like-minded.
	Bragi   sat feb 13 2010 at 12:32 am         ·  I'm sorry, but if they put a toll on the bridges Louisville effectively going to lose any business from Indiana and vice versa. People won't want to pay even a $0.50 toll, much less the several dollar one they've been trying to push. I suppose toll bridges would have the effect of reducing traffic through downtown simply because people won't be using them.
	chuck   sat feb 13 2010 at 10:45 am         ·  The tolls will almost certainly have to be universal to make them work. The committee was initially called the "bi-state tolling authority", but they've since backed off from that language because it's obvious that no one wants tolls. If you really want to fight traffic, air pollution, asthma and potentially even increased lung cancer downtown, fight FOR the east end bridge and fight AGAINST expanding Spaghetti Monstrosity and building yet another downtown bridge. Best, - C