“Councilman Hal Heiner’s plan will take our city back to the 1950s. We cannot afford that,” says the Rev. Frank Smith Jr., president of the coalition, which represents over 100 churches. “Mr. Heiner is playing games with our children — and trying to drive votes based on fear. That is shameful.”

The 30-second commercial began airing earlier this week, and in it the east Louisville Republican says it is time to end the Jefferson County Public School’s “failed student assignment plan.”

The controversial plan attempts to keep the county’s public schools integrated by taking the socioeconomic characteristics of a student’s neighborhood into consideration when making enrollment decisions. The current plan replaced a desegregation initiative that looked at a students’ race when assigning them to schools after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that plan in 2007.

The ministers join Heiner’s opponent, Democrat Greg Fischer and JCPS Superintendent Sheldon Berman, who have already criticized the ad, saying it turns children into paws, politicizes their education and panders to voters considering that the mayor of Louisville has no formal power over the school system.

The Heiner campaign says it will not remove the ad, and contends that they are not advocating for neighborhood schools in the commercial, but are pushing for a conversation to improve on the achievement gap and address failing schools in the district.

“Hal Heiner rejects the idea that we cannot have a discussion on education in this community.  This community has gone too long without taking a fresh look at education, and it is time to ask ourselves if this is acceptable,” says Joe Burgan, Heiner’s campaign manager. “Is it acceptable to have a dropout rate that is double the state average?  Is it acceptable to have 6 failing schools and to have our children riding buses for 3 hours a day?  Something has to change, and Hal is unapologetic for standing up for parents and children across this community.”

The most recent test scores are a dismal picture that shows JCPS are well below federal expectations in the No Child Left Behind guidelines, failing to adequately meet the math and reading standards. The Courier-Journal reported that just 21 percent of the district’s 133 schools met all their goals, compared with 37 percent last year and 44 percent in 2008. The numbers are particularly low among among the district’s minority and low-income students.

And a recent report released by the Schott Foundation showed the graduation rate for African-American males in JCPS in the 2007-2008 school year was only 36 percent, which is well below the national average.

The new plan has been a hot button issue in the community for the past few years, with many parents upset that their children are kept out of schools closer to home and are being forced to ride buses for hours. Recently, a lawsuit challenging the plan that was brought by several parents was dismissed by Jefferson Circuit Judge Irv Maze.

The ministerial coalition said it agrees that long bus rides aren’t good for children, but that diversity remains an important issue in the community. The group of ministers said JCPS officials need to make improvements to the current assignment plan rather than throwing it out altogether.

“I think diversity, achievement (gap) and everything needs to be excellent and we need to improve in all areas. That’s what makes Louisville competitive,” says the Rev. Smith. “We need the diversity because cultural experiences on all backgrounds are part of a quality education.”

CART alleged the feds failed to fully and fairly consider public transportation alternatives that “would greatly reduce the need for one of both proposed new bridges and the planned movement and drastic relocation of Spaghetti Junction.” The group further claimed that its many elderly and disabled members, who increasingly depend on public transit, “will continue to suffer injury due to” the highway administration’s “failure to comply with the law.”

CART sought to join a lawsuit by River Fields Inc., a conservation group, and its co-plaintiff, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, filed in September of last year, shortly before the expiration of a six-year statute of limitations.

In court documents, CART conceded it missed the statute of limitations for filing an original action but cited a federal rule of civil procedure in arguing that the court had discretion to allow it to join in because it “has a claim or defense that shares with the main action a common question of fact or law.”

The highway administration, in opposition, argued “the only issue CART and Plaintiffs have in common are very general NEPA claims.”

“There is no basis for finding that CART’s intervening complaint relates back to the original complaint filed in this action,” wrote U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II. “Thus, the court determines that CART’s claims are barred by the applicable statute of limitations and that intervention would be futile.”

The original lawsuit remains in settlement negotiations among the co-plaintiffs, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, the Indiana Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

River Fields and the National Trust claim the project was unlawfully approved and injures “their members by denying them (and the public) information that NEPA requires concerning impacts to significant historic properties and environmentally superior alternatives to the adopted action.” Their suit says the proposed eastern Jefferson County bridge will harm an area “characterized by large country estates, gentleman farms, recreational river camps, village hamlets and early African American neighborhoods.”

The lawsuit made news most recently when the Louisville Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges Authority planned but canceled a controversial closed-door session to discuss it before its last meeting on Sept. 2. The authority, which is not a party to the lawsuit, is subject to open-meetings and open-records laws.

The bi-state authority is expected to formulate a financial plan including tolls by year’s end.

If the plan is developed before the suit is settled, the plaintiffs “will seek injunctive relief prohibiting Defendants from providing any further financial assistance for the Project” until the highway administration complies with the law, according to the complaint.

— story submitted by Steve Shaw

The 14-member unelected body will examine alternatives to the $4.1. billion Ohio River Bridges Project, including grassroots favorite 8664 and the Mississippi River bridge, whose example speaks to the possibility of scaling down the massive project. In all likelihood, the Authority will take the opportunity to shoot down these said alternatives with half-baked logic and less-than-truthful numerology.

Earlier today, 8664 co-founder J.C. Stites released a statement in advance of the Authority’s upcoming Oct. 7 dog-and-pony.

With last week’s poll showing only 15 percent of Louisvillians support building two bridges, coupled with the overwhelmingly negative reaction to tolling Spaghetti Junction, it’s clearly time to look for better options,” said JC Stites, 8664 Co-Founder. According to Insight Communications’ recent poll, while only 14.5 percent supports building both bridges, a combined total of 64.6 percent support building the East End Bridge.

Building the East End Bridge has been the primary focus of 8664 for the past five years because it is the first vital phase of a three phase project that would reconnect downtown Louisville to the Ohio River.

8664 is making arrangements of Mr. Walter Kulash P.E., the engineer that conducted the 8664 Feasibility Study in 2007 to attend the next Bridges Authority meeting. Mr. Kulash described the 8664 alternative as “a simple, common-sense plan that meets the purpose of the Bridges project, at a fraction of the Bridges cost, while delivering vastly more civic quality of life benefits.”

Correcting False Statements

In addition to reviewing the engineering side of our alternative, we want to correct the misinformation being promoted by the Build the Bridges Coalition,” said Mr. Stites. The Build the Bridges Coalition is a political and business coalition promoting the Ohio River Bridges Project  regardless of its cost or impact. Mr. Stites continued, “Their messaging is a clear attempt to mislead the public and they need to stop.”

Among the erroneous information Stites will attempt to correct is the Coalition’s claim that the bridges project will create 56,000 jobs (it’ll only create about 5,400), as well as the notion that the project will add 45 acres to Waterfront Park (it won’t).

Stites also tells LEO Weekly that he’ll do “any and everything” to ensure that Kulash shows.

“Both bridges need to be built now,” they say, “and the 55,000 jobs the project will create will help the community moving forward, into the future, forever.” Platitudes like this, of course, play very well within the dumbed-down confines of political horse racing; and who doesn’t love jobs? (Communists, that’s fucking who.)

Unfortunately for all offending candidates — and the community they’re routinely lying to — the Ohio River Bridges Project isn’t going to create 55,000 jobs, nor will it create 40,000, or even 30,000 for that matter.

So is it 20,000? Nope. What about 10,000? Warmer.

Try 5,400, jerks.

A tip o’ the hat to Steve Magruder at Louisville History & Issues for digging up this oft-abused factoid:

…in the Build the Bridges Coalition’s study “Economic Benefits Assessment of the Ohio River Bridges Project“, Page 9, it states in the Exhibit 4 table that the 56,000+ figure is “worker years” and in the textual content they say that only “5,400 would be directly associated with the construction activity…”

It strongly appears we have a case of marketing the project by playing funny with the numbers, and stenographers at local television news stations are lapping up this marketing, rather than digging deeper and looking at the actual jobs impact.

The only candidates who know better, however, aren’t the ones being supported by this city’s endless supply of mindless lemmings who are currently backing either a pathological liar or a climate change denier. I have to remember, though, that Louisville isn’t accustomed to a race this big and this local since, well, ever, and the same goes for the local media. In the end, we might just be gravitating toward the devils we already sort of know.

[Side note: The bi-state bridges authority just replaced KTC-drone Joe Prather with a Lexington banker, which has to be good news for the oligarchical finance schemes that will be used to pay for the goddamned thing.]

How a candidate can support this project, tout its erroneous data and still be a front-runner in this race speaks volumes, I think, about the crushing buyer’s remorse that’s waiting for Louisville once this sad exercise in “democracy” is over.

On that note, might I interest you in a patent for an ice-machine?

The slate of schedule reductions will save TARC an estimated $3.5 million and the fare increase is expected to generate enough revenue to keep all express routes operating. In March, 12 of 16 express routes had been proposed for elimination. Many express riders who attended the public hearings March 9 through 11 said they would pay more to keep the express service.

The other changes approved by the board today are the elimination of four local routes and service reductions on 20. Another eight routes will have some route adjustments. Maps showing new routes and a chart showing the changes to all routes are attached.

Besides continuing the express routes, the board also voted to preserve Route #12 – Twelfth Street and Route #22- Twenty-second Street. The #58 – Bashford Manor –Oxmoor will be eliminated but a one-day shopper shuttle to Bashford Manor and Oxmoor Mall will take its place so that seniors in the area will have access to shopping.

The elimination of the Fourth Street Trolley and service reductions on the Main-Market Trolley are on hold while a proposal for outside funding is developed.

Click through for a list of eliminated and atrophied routes.The board voted to eliminate the following four routes:

#80 Hurstbourne Parkway
#59 River Road
#35 Indian Trail
#58 Bashford Manor/Oxmoor.

The following 20 routes will see service reductions effective June 6:

#2 Second Street
#4 Fourth Street
#6 Sixth Street
#17 Bardstown Road
#19 Muhammad Ali
#21 Chestnut Street
#25 Oak Street
#27 Hill Street
#29 Eastern Parkway
#31 Middletown
#37X Iroquois Park Express
#45X Okolona Express
#49X Westport Express
#50X Dixie Express
#52 Medical Center Circulator
#54X Manslick Express
#66X Mt. Washington-Shepherdsville Express
#67X Oldham 1-71 Express#72 Clarksville-New Albany.
#75 Bluegrass Industrial Shuttle

The grassroots organization says the juggernaut projects represents the “previous generation’s inability to overcome powerful special interests.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6qNMJMdDUY[/youtube]

Facing a projected $5.5 million revenue shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year, the public transit provider had proposed eliminating 20 routes and reducing service on 17 other bus lines to close that deficit. However, after getting an earful from riders about potential service cuts, TARC officials said they would modify those initial recommendations to the board.

TARC executive director Barry Barker told the board today that it can move ahead with eliminating four routes and while reducing service to 16 others. Those changes are expected to save the company about $2.5 million annually and will take effect on June 6.

However, the elimination of 12 of 16 express routes that was proposed last month is being postponed while TARC officials explore the financial feasibility of making up part of the shortfall by adding an additional $1 fare on all express routes and reducing rather than eliminating service on some of them.

With few immediate short-term solutions for TARC’s beleaguered budget and with frustrated passengers fearing the worst about thinning services, a chorus of community activists, elected officials and mayoral candidates have chimed in with ideas on fixing the busing system. Many have said it means renewing a long-term vision and commitment to public transportation services.

Among the many groups of riders troubled by the proposed cuts are residents in the Portland neighborhood, who drafted a letter to Barker with a proposal that suggested combining routes to preserve bus service in the area.

Barker took heed to those suggestions and recommended combining the the 12th and 22nd Street lines, which connect the west Louisville community to southern Indiana and other main routes. Both had been proposed for elimination despite being considered public transit lifelines in the community.

“Folks have spent a lot energy and time telling us how we can save some of these services,” Barker said in a statement. “We are going to do everything we can to keep these routes, and preserve as many jobs as we possibly can.”

The city’s busing company will also hold off on changes to the Fourth Street Trolley while funding options are considered.

The final decision on the remaining service changes will be made at the next board meeting on April 26. Public hearings will be scheduled in April on the proposed fare increase for express routes.

Now, the Ohio River Bridges Project is estimated to cost 4.1 Billion dollars. This is due in part to the unnecessary tunnel beneath the Drumanard Estate, the proposed additional downtown bridge that will butcher historic Jeffersonville, and the re-building of spaghetti junction that will make I-64 23 lanes across Waterfront Park.

And now the Bi-State Bridges Authority want to even put tolls on the existing I-65 and the I-64 bridges to pay for it all. This is the last thing we need. New economic barriers to regional transportation is an insane idea.

How did “Build the East End Bridge” turn into all this mess? All we want is an East-End Bridge NOW.

Clarification: We’re not saying no tolls on new roads. Just no tolls on existing roads that ARE ALREADY PAID FOR.

Since the 14-member Bi-State Bridges Authority Panel Committee Group Enclave of Thuggery doesn’t really answer to “constituents,” swelling the ranks of a Facebook group will unfortunately have to suffice, so click here for freedom and democracy.

Additionally, Louisville builder and historian Steve Wiser has released his own critique of the Ohio River Bridges Project (aka NAMBLA). Wiser also presents his own plan, which would cost a lot less and make infinitely more sense — kind of like a similar proposal… — which means it will ultimately be ignored by the authority’s feudal overlord, Joe Prather.

Writes Wiser:

How did we as a community arrive at this point? We are about to build two
bridges and quadruple the size of spaghetti junction.  This $4.1 billion dollar
monster will by paid by tolls on the bridges.  Only the Chicago region and Louis-
ville will be the only inland cities with tolls.  St. Louis, Cincinnati, Memphis,
Pittsburgh, etc., do not have tolls.

Have we lost all perspective on how this will negatively harm our community’s
growth? This drastic situation did not occur overnight.  It’s been a slow, steady
50 year process that has resulted in this worst case scenario.

Costs have skyrocketed almost 2,000 percent since the initial projection of $200
million was made for the east end bridge in 1990.  The tunnel alone has soared
300% in just the last three years.

If today, without all this past history, a task force recommended a $4.1 billion
dollar, two bridge, massive overhaul of spaghetti junction, toll-funded proposal,
both governors would respond: ‘are you NUTS!?!  You want to divide our two
states with tolls?  Go back and find a more realistic solution!’

With all due respect to Wiser, calling for “realistic solutions” to any major problem facing the commonwealth when the Governor and the Mayor are campaigning together is pretty fucking unrealistic. This is a shame, of course, because Wiser’s (and 8664′s) ideas deserve more attention than what this community can apparently muster — so instead we’re getting the shitty plan we deserve.

Dubbed the “21st Century Public Transit & Jobs Plan,” Mongiardo’s proposal would provide intra-city transit to Louisvillians going to-and-from work by way of an elevated, state-of-the-art monorail circulator, as well as connect Jefferson County to other regions within the Commonwealth (and beyond) via a light-rail network built upon existing tracks. Additionally, park-and-ride stations will be constructed at outlying nodes and TARC’s fleet of buses will tailor routes around the new systems, maximizing the efficiency of each system and potentially operating them both.

“A comprehensive and fully integrated public transit system will spur revitalization and smart growth efforts not only in Louisville’s core,” Mongiardo said, “but also in some of the smaller, rural communities through where [sic] the hybrid light rail lines run as investors and businesses locate around these commuter collection points.”

Co-sponsored by the grassroots Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation — which has thus far invited all senatorial candidates to speak about transportation issues — Mongiardo’s presentation consisted of a general description of the plan’s four main components, their implementation and economic impact, as well as (to a certain extent) discussion of funding mechanisms.

The initial phase would create a rapid access monorail (RAM) running downtown (the northernmost stops being the new downtown arena and a “commuter collection point” at 26th and Main) and traveling south along, say, Floyd Street, with major stops at the U of L Medical Center, U of L’s Belknap campus, Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, Churchill Downs, the Kentucky Fair & Exposition Center, and — pending a hypothetical expansion of the hypothetical plan — terminating points at the UPS hub and Ford Motor plant. Fully automated, Epoct-esque people-movers would arrive at a rate of every few minutes, ferry up to 30 passengers at a time and travel up to speeds of 55 mph along an elevated rail that would not interfere with traditional rights-of-way.

And the cost of each ride? Less than the price of a daily newspaper.

Charles Schimpeler, the main architect of the plan and whose transportation engineering firm has completed similar projects in Miami and Los Angeles, said that due to the nature of current monorail technology and the simplicity of constructing a route above and parallel to traffic, each mile of inter-city double-track monorail would cost $25-$33 million. Spanning approximately 6 miles, the track alone would cost about $160 million.

“That’s far lower than the cost of the T2 line,” said Schimpeler, “which would’ve cost roughly $60 million per mile.” The “T2 line,” if you recall, was an ill-fated attempt to create something similar to Mongiardo’s proposal back in 2004, but was scraped due to its hefty price tag and lack of political support, the latter of which can be attributed to two pavement-friendly Republican senators and then-Rep. Anne “Champion of the Ohio River Bridges Project” Northup.

To hear the Lt. Governor’s opinion on the matter, all that’s needed to make his Powerpoint presentation into reality is a Senator with the stones to move state transportation dollars away from highway funding and back into public transit coffers. While some of this is clearly campaign posturing, Mongiardo is not entirely off base.

“He’s right,” said CART founder and president David Morse. “We need a political leader to change the rules that are screwing us on the federal level. Currently we don’t have that leader, so our money stays tied up in roads and highways.”

In 2007, Kentucky received less than a quarter of the $87 million in highway tax money it sent to Washington. For every dollar the state spends on public transportation, 7 dollars are shoved into the highway fund — hence our current fixation with the bloated, $4.4 billion Ohio River Bridges Project: it’s where all the money has migrated. The economic multiplier effect that properly funded and efficient systems like this one tend to generate cannot be overlooked, either, and was at the crux of Mongiardo’s argument for rail.

“If Kentucky is left out of a federal high speed rail network,” the candidate began, “I fear the economic consequences to our Commonwealth will be like those communities left out of the Federal Interstate Highway system. We will only fall farther behind in our efforts to expand economic opportunities and increase personal incomes.”

Though Mongiardo has said that the entire four-step proposal will cost $1 billion… I’m not quite sure of that yet. So check out next week’s LEO for more in depth, uncharacteristically even-handed coverage of Dr. Dan’s advocacy for socialist modes of transportation.

Now that the black, tar-coated heart of the behemoth ORBP is finally pumping to life, what about its leaner, cheaper and forward-thinking alternative: 8664? JC Stites, co-founder of the grassroots transportation alternative, says supporters will be in attendance at the hearing to listen and contribute to the dialogue.

“We will definitely have some people there,” he says. “We’re obviously interested in what’s going to happen. Due to the obstruction of the east end bridge,” (the immediate construction of which most Louisvillians support) “the price tag of the project has spiraled out of control.”

Whether the 11-person infrastructure panel — comprised largely of historically pavement-friendly KTC members — will entertain Stites & Co.’s proposal in lieu of following blindly an outdated, costly and unwanted project remains to be seen.