What people are saying

Responses to "Highways And History: A True Story" Editorial

Monday's editorial, "Highways and History", has plenty to say about the past, but nary a word about the future. In referring to Tyler Allen's vision of an interstate-free waterfront as "nostalgia", the author is missing the point entirely.

The vision presented in Mr. Allen's simple and powerful picture of an open, beautiful waterfront is not a vision of a return to some non-existent past. Nor is it a simplistic pipe-dream of the removal of an ugly, but indispensable, highway. Rather, it is the way a vast number of Americans would like the cities of our future to look. Implicit in this vision is an entirely new way of doing community planning, particularly transportation.

In a time when we are fighting wars over oil and it is becoming increasingly burdensome on the average person's finances to drive a car, is it really so realistic to assume that encouraging the increase of traffic through the expansion of automobile-based infrastructure is the best way to plan for the coming century? Since the heyday of the automobile reached its apex fifty years ago, it has become increasingly obvious that, as a transportation system for large communities, total reliance on individual cars and on highways to carry them is ridiculously expensive, inefficient, and detrimental to life in our communities. The proposed downtown bridge plan would destroy a vast area of our beautiful, unique, historic city for the sake of a highway that no one will be able to afford to use in twenty years.

There are better ways of solving the problem of transportation that are far cheaper, more beautiful, and more practical than spending ten years and two billion dollars to build a gigantic octopus of concrete and steel. Other cities have implemented plans like Tyler Allen's, and their success has been demonstrated. In fact, with our new Waterfront Park and other downtown developments, we are already on the path to this new kind of urban thinking.

Opponents of 8664 like to dismiss its hope for a better future as being a fool's fantasy. They say, as your editorial did, that since we have already gone so far down the wrong road, it is "too late" to turn back and try another way. This is the defeatist thinking of people who have lost all hope. Some of us, defiantly, still dream of a better world for our grandchildren, much as they did in the 1950's when technology seemed to hold so much promise for tomorrow. Today, we have a clearer idea of the best way to make our world better, one which would use our technology to solve problems such as city transportation in a different way. Can we learn from our mistakes, or can we not? More importantly, why has a solution such as Mr. Allen's not been given equal consideration in the public realm, rather than simply being glanced at and tossed aside as "unrealistic" because it does not look like the familiar pattern of fifty years ago? It is your editorial that is stuck in the past, not Mr. Allen and his many supporters

- Jennifer Futrell

The editorial "Highways and history: a true story" lacked vision and missed the mark.
The 8664.org movement does not intend to debate our city's history, but to awaken the public to development issues that will impact our community for generations.

The highway and bridge plans were conceived before Louisville became "The City of Parks", before the transition to Metro government, before "Cornerstone 20/20", before updated farmland studies, Museum Plaza, and the downtown arena. These developments oblige us to a comprehensive review of our plans. Our city is changing. As we move forward the future demands a pragmatic development process.

Like other cities faced with similar challenges, we have a choice that will define our future. The infrastructure overhaul and subsequent revitalization of our waterfront will allow us to compete and thrive in a modern era.

Our citizens and government representatives should revisit critical issues despite having debated them for decades. We have the opportunity to build a city for the future that drives innovation and growth. The Partnership Project identified, "Green cities are successful and prosperous and are attractive to young people and entrepreneurs because these cities provide a high quality of life."

- Heather M. Farrer

Your editorial is a lot of facts and history but it has nothing to do with why we should eliminate I-64 and not build a downtown bridge.

Everyone knows now and knew then, that I-64 downtown was/is a mistake. A recent letter from a retired engineer said the only reason it was built there was to eliminate an old railway and because it was the least expensive option available at that time. That doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. Yes Jefferson county/Louisville at that time grew like all other cities – to the suburbs. It was a trend and we had to be part of it. The building of I-64 across downtown had nothing to do with it.

You say Fourth and Broadway is dead because of Waterfront Park, the Belvedere, the Science Museum, Kentucky Center for the Arts, parking garages, and I-64 access has something to do with it. How can I-64 contribute to downtown activity when there is only one exit downtown from the east and none from the west. Ninth Street could be argued as an exit but let's face it, it's not in the core area and few people use it.

About those 80,000 local trips made each day on I-64 downtown. If you divide them into 40,000 going east and 40,000 going west we can deduct the following. The 40,000 going east didn’t stop because there are no exits. A recent picture in the Courier-Journal about westbound traffic coming into Louisville from the east where I-71 and I-64 joined, it showed the following. There were approximately seventeen cars in the picture. Twelve cars were shown in the lane to go north across I-65 to Indiana (71%); three cars were going west on I-64 (18%); two cars were in the third Street exit lane (11%). Tell me, how does downtown Louisville benefit from I-64. Think how much air pollution would be eliminated if 71,189 (89%) cars that don't want to be downtown were diverted around it.

Yes, there are mistakes to be corrected. This is about the only useful thing you said in the whole editorial. However, you are missing the point. You correct your mistakes by eliminating them... not duplicating them and calling it progress.

- Jim Holland