Tear Down That Interstate!

Hubbard Painting
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Submitted 11/19/2007
To CJ

Here in Louisville, we have been trying for a few years to get a couple of new bridges built: One spanning the Ohio downtown and one further east. At a cost of a few billion dollars, of course.

The reasoning being is that we have more traffic load than our roads can bear. But, as I’ve heard noted before, trying to solve traffic problems by building more roads (and bridges) is like trying to solve obesity issues by buying a larger belt.

There is a local group here who have encouraged the exact opposite (sort of). The 86-64 campaign has been encouraging city leaders to consider actually removing Interstate 64 which runs along the Ohio – cutting off downtown Louisville from the river which birthed us.

They’ve suggested this partially – but not solely – for aesthetic reasons. The Build More Bridges crowd would have us increasing the size of the monster that keeps us from the river, making a bad problem worse. Naturally, the supporters of the Build More Bridges solution loathe the 86-64 people, who are threatening their bridge solution.

In today’s local paper, the Bridges people wrote a letter criticizing the 86-64 people. They said that getting rid of I-64 downtown threatens our economy and, besides, this was already decided four years ago. I responded to their letter:

I'm writing in response to the “Build the Bridges” letter in today's paper. They suggested that getting rid of I-64 downtown "would eradicate any chance of having any bridge built for the foreseeable future, effectively jeopardizing our region's economic vitality."

He went on to note that this has already been decided, back in 2003.

What they fail to take into account is that gas prices have more than doubled since 2003. Experts from many fields are telling us that we are peaking out on our available affordable oil.

In the coming decades, we will no longer have access to cheap oil. With oil supplies diminishing, we will simply not be able to drive as we've done the last few decades.

Those who support continuing with the assumption that we WILL continue to get around as always are not facing this new reality. Short of any evidence of new fuel supplies (in the amazing quantity and cheap price that we've had with oil), it would behoove us to begin planning for new means of transportation.

The Bridges Coalition suggested that the 8664 plan will "derail progress." But planning our future on last century’s solutions is the surest way to derail progress.