I have a novel idea. Why don’t we let DC deal with DC’s problems? Let’s put 70-S, and I-95 via downtown DC (I-395) back in the plans. I’m thoroughly disgusted with DC traffic problems being pawned off to Maryland. Man up. Nobody wants an interstate in thier backyard… but it would only serve DC right to have thier share.

And you continually talk about how urban sprawl is a bad thing. I have lived in Houston for many years, and I have lived in New Jersey and was in NYC many many times, and I have been to Chicago many times as well. I must tell you that Houston’s sprawl is much much better than millions of people living on top of each other. I would much prefer urban sprawl and less people per square mile than tall buildings and crowded dirty streets with everyone fighting for space.

I should also mention that Houston’s urban sprawl means more trees, lawns and green spaces than an NYC style build on top of each other mixed use strategy.

highways are not the real answer after the fact. roads have been known to change weather patterns from pasture destruction and such. if the solution was to go with auto trains it would dramatically subtract from the compounding issues of polution over time, and oil issues for starters.

to sum up its a good idea and its needed for military purposes with SOME civilian use but after the fact if FT Bragg/Pope AFB didnt exist it wouldnt be needed.

Newark DE is also the home of the University of Delaware and has a reasonably effective free bus service in town run by the university. Having rail service south at reasonable prices (Amtrak is NOT reasonable for students) would greatly reduce the number of students who require cars on campus.

As a resident that commuted from Indiana, then lived downtown, then commuted from the East, I have found it integral to the flow of traffic. A couple of years ago they shut down the very section of the highway that 8664 wants to get rid of for maintenance. It crippled the city! Commuters were practically incapable of entering and exiting the city. Downtown was flooded with re-routed traffic causing traffic jams that lasted well into the night.

I do believe that another bridge on the East End would alleviate quite a bit of unnecessary traffic heading over I-65 to the east and I definitely believe that it is quite ridiculous for there to be only one off-ramp from I-65 heading to I-64 East and West and I-71 North and South. Almost all of the traffic jams from Indiana to Louisville are a result of a majority of the traffic attempting to squeeze into that single lane before mish-meshing with all of the traffic already on those two interstates as they intertwine and then head their separate ways. It’s quite the obstacle! Routing the off-ramp for one of the highways further down or expanding the off-ramp would be a welcomed relief for the daily commuters. I’ve been lucky enough that I was headed straight into downtown and could bypass the parking-lot known as I-65 via the 2nd street bridge.

I think that a mixture of providing more bridges at different locations allowing for through traffic to bypass the city and increasing very slightly the off-ramps from the existing I-65 bridge to I-71 and I-64 would be quite productive without taking away from the current beauty of the city.

Removing that portion of the interstate would funnel traffic into downtown that would not need to leave the Interstate otherwise, slowing their commute and putting them in the way of the downtown driver. The interstate functions to reduce travel time from distended locations and shield the downtown blocks from the influx of through traffic. It was mentioned before also, if the purpose is to reunite the urbanite with the city, how is creating an impassible roadway in their path going to assist with this. While living downtown, I often took walks with my preschooler all the way to the waterfront and found no issue at all with crossing safely underneath the interstate. The whole area is so well integrated that it is barely noticeable that such a large amount of traffic is passing right there.

Although…. I would be concerned about living in one of the multi-million dollar condo’s with a glass wall over looking the interstate that everyone can see in. I hope they are conscious of how visible they are and choose to wear only what they would be seen in in public when their shades aren’t drawn!

I-66 West deserves to be number 1, not number 4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_66_(west)
Seriously, we need an interstate to connect Somerset and London, which is already served by four-lane highways? This is an interstate hundreds of miles long that wouldn’t connect any communities larger than 60,000 people.

8664 is a plan to boost the property values of the wealthiest section of Louisville, the East End, while further marginalizing some of the most underserved and underconnected areas, Portland and the West End. The debate over building an East End bridge versus a downtown bridge has been going on for many years in Louisville; and 8664 is an attempt to make sure that, even if the ORBP falters, the interests of east-enders are insured.

River Road on the east side of Louisville is one of the city’s worst roads for pedestrians and cyclists. Directing traffic off of the I-64 Sherman Minton bridge onto a similar surface road on the west side is a sure way to “cut Louisville off from the river.” And anyone who regularly cycles the Riverwalk west of downtown can attest how common flooding problems can be.

Louisville needs more bridges, not fewer.

The existing interchange of those 3 interstates immediately east of downtown Louisville MUST be replaced. With the new bridge and interchange there will still be 8 elevated lanes at downtown proper. No more land over downtown will be taken, and in fact, east of Waterfront Park a significant area, on the river-ward side where I71/I64 junction just east of the “spaghetti junction” is currently located, will be opened up along the River Road corridor. The new configuration will place the highway lanes farther from the park over what are now auto salvage yards, a cement plant and an abandoned brownfield oil terminal.

A group that is against this project as planned calls themselves “8664″ because they want to chop 1 mile out of the middle of I64 where it passes downtown Louisville under the Belvedere, a festival plaza and green roof on top of a parking garage and over the elevated interstate. The 8664.org crowd claims that they want to connect pedestrians and bicyclists coming from downtown Louisville to the waterfront by replacing I64 along the downtown waterfront with a surface parkway. They ignore the fact that the 30,000 or so commuters coming into downtown from the west would be put onto that surface road, making pedestrians have to cross that traffic instead of walking under the highway, as they do now under the elevated I64.

They also disregard the fact that the reason these highways are elevated is to keep them above the 100-yr floodplain. River Road underneath I64 downtown floods regularly. The 1997 flood reached within 3′ of the top of the piers supporting I64. Cutting a “Parkway” through the floodwall down there is not only NOT a good idea, it wouldn’t be allowed because the road would be in the floodplain. The “Parkway” at ground level would be impassible every time the Ohio River comes up over it, often several days per year. Even if allowed, it would add tremendously to the cost to have to replace sections of the floodwall and levee and install multiple lanes worth of new floodgates. Sewers and pump stations would also have to be removed, reconfigured and replaced.

Proponents of “8664″ completely disregard the fact that there is no other direct way for people coming from the west side of town to get to the east side of town, including to the five hospitals that are all clustered on the east side of Downtown. It is easy to disregard them because those people live in the Black and Poor White neighborhoods on the west, and they have not been asked for their opinion on this lunacy. The push to get rid of I64 is entirely coming from the wealthy White eastern part of town from people who probably never go west of 9th street. They have no idea how long it might take someone suffering a heart attack at 39th & Bank St to get to a hospital if the ambulance couldn’t go up a ramp and drive 4 miles on an interstate to the emergency room.

The primary pushers behind eliminating I64 probably do know how much their family’s real estate at 9th and Main might be worth if there weren’t a set of elevated on-ramps and 7 lanes of I64 next to their very nice tourist attraction.

The 8664.org tries to compare this project to cities where waterfront interstates have been removed, such as Portland OR. The difference is that those other cities had a parallel highway on the other side of the river connected to their downtown by multiple bridges. Louisville does not, and cannot. Southern Indiana has wetlands and the Falls of the Ohio fossil beds over there, as well as two state parks, residential neighborhoods, and a wastewater treatment plant. They are not going to sacrifice those so that certain Louisvillians can have a nicer view out their windows. The only other bridge across the Ohio River at Louisville is the Sherman Minton Bridge on I64, 4 miles west of downtown. The 8664 plan would make the Sherman Minton a ‘bridge to nowhere.’

Someone’s wish to chop about a mile out of the middle of I64 does not change the need for an additional I65 bridge across the Ohio River in Downtown Louisville, and that a small, very vocal and well-financed group of people is lobbying to do that is no basis for listing this project on your webpage.

The “I66″ corridor in Southern Kentucky IS indeed an interstate to no state that would have severe ecological impacts on the Rockcastle River watershed for no apparent reason. THAT project should be number one on this list.
Regards,
S:-D

If any true person who drives daily to downtown Louisville would know, all it takes is one wreck on any of the 3 interstates (65,64,71) to almost stop traffic. My belief is to get the above mentioned travelers out of downtown get them around the city and on their way.

Come on the true drivers into Louisville no who they are, they are the ones that go to the football. basketball games and leave early in the 2nd half because they want to beat that traffic. Anyone that thinks the 8664 plan would create more issues, well they have already left and are no longer looking at things with new and better ideas and just think more lanes will be better. Just look at 264 (Watterson) for proof that more lanes do not alleviate traffic.

Build the East End Bridge first let the traffic normalize to the new directions around Louisville lets make the city world class and reconnect with the river that built this city in the first place.

With respect to the I69 Extension, Gov. Daniels has and continues to sell Indiana tax payers short. Just recently, Gov. Daniels issued directives to INDOT to “throw away the federal highway construction rulebook whenever possible.” http://www.fox28.com/Global/story.asp?S=10387047

Not only does Gov. Daniels think that ignoring Federal code is an acceptable and safe way to do business, he continues to ignore the wishes of Indiana Tax Payers. I69 provides NOTHING for citizens that reside within Regions 5, 8 & 11 except minimum wage paying jobs.

With respect to Louisville, I spent many days navigating I65/I64 & I71. There are far fewer days when a serious accident or fatality incident does not occur on the Kennedy Bridge or at Hospital Curve. For those that navigate these corridors on a regular basis, there is a reason why 18 Wheelers grab the left lane 1 to 1.5 miles out and hang there until they are through Hospital Curve or even all the way down to the Gene Snyder. Though truck traffic is restricted through portions of I65, we’d rather take the risk of being caught with our pants down than be stuck in an Accordion style traffic jam. Though I am not versed enough to say whether or not the expansion of the East Bridge is a viable solution to this issue, I do know that until SOMETHING is done, more people will be seriously injured and killed needlessly. If I am correct, hasn’t the west bound connector of 265 been an unresolved issue for the past 10 years? Maybe the West Bound connector could be finished and truck traffic diverted around down town freeing up a lot of traffic.

Whether that is a solution to the problem I do not know. I do know this much. Anywhere, ANYWHERE you have multiple interstates ending, beginning and continuing through one another, there are going to be congestion issues. Until Indiana & Kentucky take a serious approach to it’s transportation infer structure, and for that matter our nation, projects like these will always be a cash cow for some and a socicial/economical and ecological challenges for others.

All of these federal pork-ways are supposedly to address traffic demands twenty years in the future — not current traffic levels. But as the oil supplies dwindle, and the “alternatives” are shown to be less concentrated than fossil fuels, it is obvious there will be less traffic as the years go by. Nationally, VMT - Vehicle Miles Traveled - have “peaked,” and as the downslope of Peak Oil becomes harder to deny, total VMTs will decline as well.

As for the Inter County Connector in Maryland, the primary reason for that sprawlway is to connect the various Fed.Gov compounds and contractors, not for traffic issues. Perhaps it could be called the NSA Expressway, since it will connect the world’s largest collection of computers with the high-tech contractors along I-270.

The goal for the ICC was also to induce more sprawl north of the route, but the collapse of the real estate market will probably slow that down considerably. I hope the citizens of suburban Maryland are able to adapt to higher carbon monoxide levels - clean air is obviously an overrated concept, getting somewhere a few minutes faster is more important than using up the world’s oil supplies and poisoning your grandchildren.

Gov. Glendening was forced to withdraw his blatant support for this highway in the late 1990s when the Federal Highway Administration privately told him that the project would not meet “legal sufficiency.” He kept the project on life support and let his successor push the project through, along with the Bush administration’s “streamlining” of relevant highway laws.

The interstate highway system will be an interesting relic after the oil is gone, far more fascinating to future generations than Ankor Wat in Cambodia, the Egyptian Pyramids or the stone heads of Easter Island.

P.S. Thomas i really hope that you’re joking

Thank you for furthering your addiction to gasoline. We love you.

That aside, would many soldiers choose to go to Raleigh for entertainment if it took 25 minutes instead of the hour it does now? I know I would. I spend most of my weekends in Raleigh or Charlotte as it is. But the businesses that would suffer most are the usual garrison-town sprawl, anyway. Fayetteville’s “city center” is only about three blocks long (for a city of 90,000 or so), and inconvenient to reach from Ft Bragg, so the indie movie theater and the antique shops aren’t exactly dependent on us soldiers. Far harder hit would be the… adult entertainment establishments that line Bragg Blvd, pretty much the definition of “the worst kind of sprawl”.

P.S. Those who developed the 8664 idea are not mindless hippies. They are in fact energetic and visionary businessmen who see very practical solutions to a problem, and are not crusaders for some selfish, short sighted cause.

Since it isn’t, your comments cannot be taken seriously.

Roads do exist for a reason-but that is no justification for building bad and useless ones.