Transportation in Louisville, Kentucky

As with most American cities, Transportation in Louisville, Kentucky is based primarilly on automobiles. However, the city traces its foundation to the era where the river was the primary means of transportation, and railroads has always been an important part of local industry for over a century. In more recent times Louisville has become a national hub for air cargo, creating over 20,000 local jobs. Most recently, Louisville has come into the national spotlight for its initiatives to promote both utilitarian and recreational bicycling.

Roads

The city's road system is arranged in a fairly typical system common to many cities in the United States. Streets in the downtown business district are arranged as a grid, with several alternating one-way streets. Many major roads begin at or near the downtown area and travel outwards from the city like the spokes of a wheel. There are also several roads, such as Bardstown Road and Shelbyville Road, which lead outwards from Louisville to the outlying Kentucky towns of Bardstown and Shelbyville, respectively. (See External links for links to several online maps.)

Interstates I-64, I-65 pass through and I-71 begins in Louisville. Since all three of these highways intersect at virtually the same location in the city just east of Downtown, this spot has become known as "Spaghetti Junction", as the large mass of highways and exits resembles a bowl of spaghetti when viewed from the air. Louisville Waterfront Park is built under and near this interchange.
I-264 ("Henry Watterson Expressway" east of US 31W and "Shawnee Expressway" west of US 31W) and I-265 ("Gene Snyder Freeway") form loops around the city on the Kentucky side. Interestingly enough, Louisville is the only city in the nation to contain two consecutively-numbered, three-digit Interstate highways.

Plans for two more bridges to connect Louisville to Indiana, along with a reconfiguration of Spaghetti Junction, have been under consideration for years and some exploratory construction began in 2007. One bridge will be located downtown for relief of I-65 traffic. The other will connect the Indiana and Kentucky I-265's (via KY-841). [cite news|author=Green, Marcus|title=Bridge project tunnels' cost rises; Exploratory shaft will plot path for two others|url=http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070716/ZONE04/707160405/1008/NEWS01|publisher="The Courier-Journal" |date=2007-07-16 |accessdate=2007-07-16]

Airports

Louisville's main airport is the centrally located Louisville International Airport, whose IATA Airport Code (SDF) reflects its former name of Standiford Field. The airport is also home to the UPS Worldport. The first runway was constructed in 1941 and used for World War II aircraft, and the airport opened for business on November 15 1947.

Well over 3.5 million passengers and over 3 billion pounds (1,400,000 t) of cargo pass through the airport each year. The airport, having recently completed major terminal renovations, has three operational runways. The two parallel main runways run north/south and allow for simultaneous takeoffs and landings. The east/west runway is shorter and generally only used in adverse weather conditions.

The much smaller Bowman Field is used mainly for general aviation. Bowman Field, which opened in 1921, was the city's first airport. Some business aviation, as well as flight instruction and other private flying primarily operate out of this field.

Waterways

The McAlpine Locks and Dam is located on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, near the downtown area. The locks were constructed to allow shipping past the Falls of the Ohio. In 2001 over 55 million tons of commodities passed through the locks. A new lock is currently being constructed to replace two of the auxiliary locks, with a projected completion date of 2008.

Ferry Service connected Louisville to Southern Indiana for decades, but was made obsolete when the Clark Memorial Bridge was opened.

Public transit

Public transportation includes buses and chartered vans run by the Transit Authority of River City (TARC). The city buses serve all parts of downtown Louisville and Jefferson County, as well as Kentucky suburbs in Oldham County, Bullitt County, and the Indiana suburbs of Jeffersonville, Clarksville and New Albany. In addition to regular city buses, transit throughout the downtown hotel and shopping districts is served by a series of motorized trolleys (see right) known as the "Toonerville II Trolley".

Louisville has several multi-use trails for bikes and pedestrians, many of which are not connected to each other rendering them useless for traversing the city. In the central city, there are several on-road bike paths that help cyclists get around the city by bicycle.

Like most cities, Louisville was served by electric streetcars into the 20th century. The last streetcars ran on May 1 1948, carrying passengers to and from the Kentucky Derby.

Rail

Louisville has historically been a major center for railway traffic. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad was once headquartered here, before it was purchased by CSX Transportation. Today the city is served by two major freight railroads, CSX (with a major classification yard in the southern part of the metro area) and Norfolk Southern. Five major main lines connect Louisville to the rest of the region. Two regional railroads, the Paducah and Louisville Railway and the Louisville and Indiana Railroad, also serve the city. With the discontinuance of the short-lived "Kentucky Cardinal" in 2003, Amtrak passenger trains no longer serve Louisville; it is thus the fifth-largest city in the country (behind Phoenix, Columbus, Las Vegas, and Nashville) with no passenger rail service. [cite web|url= http://www.trainweb.org/moksrail/documents/pop/msa.htm|title=Metropolitan Areas Served by Amtrak|date=2006-11-23]

Bikeways

Since its first Bike Summit in 2005, Louisville has rapidly gained recognition for its bicycling initiatives. In March 2007, Mayor Jerry Abramson delivered the keynote address at the League of American Bicyclists National Bike Summit in Washington D.C. where he described the history, present reality, and future of bicycling in Louisville. [ [http://www.thefredcast.com/?p=152 The FredCast Cycling Podcast of Mayor Abramson's speech to the League of American Bicyclists National Bike Summit] ]

The city is developing on-street bike lanes and shared-lanes, but the most notable of its bicycling initiatives is the development of a one-hundred mile "Metro Loop" trail to encircle the entire county. By the end of 2007, nearly 1/3 of this loop will be complete, with another 1/3 to 1/2 coming in the next three to five years as part of the Floyd's Fork corridor project. The entire project is being overseen by the City of Parks initiative. $38 million dollars in federal funding has been secured for the Floyd's Fork portion of this project alone, with another $20 million in private funding.In 2006, Louisville was named a [http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/communities/ Bronze-Level Bicycle Friendly Community] by the League of American Bicyclists in recognition of its commitment to developing bicycling infrastructure and promoting bicycling education and awareness. The [http://www.louisvilleky.gov/bikelouisville Bike Louisville program] in city government works closely with partner organizations such as [http://www.bicyclingforlouisville.org Bicycling for Louisville] and the [http://www.louisvillebicycleclub.org Louisville Bicycle Club] to implement the recommendations of the 2005 Bike Summit as outlined in the [http://www.louisvilleky.gov/BikeLouisville/bikefriendly.htm Bike-Friendly Louisville Plan] .

However, many local bikers are frustrated with the lack of useful bike lanes connecting residential areas to business, entertainment and retail areas. For example, a $65 million redesign of Westport Road provided bike lanes only a third of the way, failing to connect residential areas like St. Matthews with suburban retail areas. Even Mayor Abramson admitted Louisville's current bike path offerings were a "urban planning mistake". [cite news |first=Chris |last=Otts |title=Lack of lanes frustrates bikers; Westport Road plan has only partial paths |publisher="The Courier-Journal" |date=2007-10-25 |accessdate=2007-10-25 |url=http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071025/NEWS01/710250382/1008/NEWS01]

References

External links

* [http://www.louisvilleky.gov/bikelouisville Louisville Metro's Bike Louisville website]