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Clifton sidewalk - photo Dave Morse

Complete, Clear, Safe and Accessible

Clifton Community Council Quarterly Meeting
March 25, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Clifton Center, 2117 Payne Street, at Clifton Ave.

Presented by the CCC Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Committee. Contact: Cassandra Culin kyspring@bells??th.net, 895-5727

"Evaluating Household Savings From High Quality Public Transit Service"

Today's TARC topic is the paper from Todd Litman at Victoria Transport Policy Institute. The whole paper is a fascinating collection of previous studies, and its worth reading the whole thing, but I wanted to bring out one or two particularly telling examples from it.

One new approach Litman takes it compare the total household transportation costs when high quality transit is put into the mix. Even though there's a higher tax rate, the overall personal transportation expenses go down:

Residents of communities with high quality public transportation spend significantly less on average on motor vehicles and transport overall, even taking into account additional subsidies.

Next interesting tidbit is the summary of benefits of supporting transit, even if you personally for some reason will never ride it no matter how great it is:

Today kicked off the public meetings on the TARC cuts. There were two meetings.

The first meeting at Union Station was packed. I expected 30 people. There were over 100!! People were polite but grumpy their routes were getting cut. People were casting blame everywhere - elected officials, TARC 'bloat', you name it. Nevertheless, I think the meeting was educational for most people there. The presentation was "folks: we're broke, that's why we're cutting your service". At least two council members and two mayoral candidates were there. The "Best Organized" Oscar certainly goes to the riders of the #66 Mt Washington / Sheperdsville express, who had signs, name tags, and maybe even a logo asking for their favourite route to be preserved!

more below the fold...

This week we're going to run an article every day related to TARC, the Transportation Authority of River City. Today's theme is:

The Story So Far

• TARC is forced into significant route cuts, including the virtual elimination of their express bus service. Read TARC's Frequently Asked Questions on the cuts.
• Public meetings on the route cuts will run all this week, see ridetarc.org for details.
• Local transportation activist John Owen is stirring up people to not take the cuts lying down, and plans public meetings. Read his press release.
• Mayoral Candidate Jackie Green is doing a "media event" at 10:30 am at TARC on Tuesday.
• Join your fellow TARC riders on the bus@cartky.org mailing list.
• Click below the fold for the Bad TARC Joke of the Day...

Join this open discussion email list to talk about life on TARC. Talk about problems, solutions, hopes, dreams, situations, routes -- whatever transit issue is on your mind. Once you're subscribed, you can email dozens of your fellow riders, from all across the system, with one easy email address: bus@cartky.org

Join the Conversation!

http://thesource.metro.net/2010/03/02/10-essential-transportation-blogs-...

UPDATE: Postponed by Senator Jim Bunning!

Mark your calendars for this important public participation opportunity! KIPDA conducts periodic performance reviews of their transportation planning department, and in the past these federal reports have been helpful in nudging the agency in the right direction.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is seeking public input during the federal review of the metropolitan transportation planning process for the Louisville Metropolitan Planning Area that takes place once every four years. A public meeting will be held on March 9, 2010 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the South Louisville Community Center, 2911 Taylor Blvd., in Louisville.

Here is a map. The TARC #29 goes right by, and the ultra-frequent #4 comes within a seven minute walk.

There has been a lot of confusion about Louisville's official status in the High Speed Rail push. When the President stands in front of a map showing a Louisville to Indy HSR link, people naturally ask why they haven't heard anything about it. CART president Ron Schneider made this post to the CART board, trying to clear up the confusion:

Folks:

Here are two maps, one from the midwest high speed rail associaton (MHSRA) and the other from the Federal Railroad Administration.  They show planned high speed rail corridors in the midwest and federally designated high speed rail corridors, respectively.  Both of these include a line from Indianapolis to Louisville, not for bus service, but for high speed rail service.  The service may not be as fast as the other lines in the MHSRA grid, but a speed of 90-110 mph cannot legally reached by a bus:

proceeds to benefit Bike!Bike!

This half-hour documentary looks at bike culture and bike lifestyles around the world with beautiful and inspiring scenes of bike use filmed in China, The Netherlands, Denmark, and the U.S.

This documentary touches on a surprising variety of subjects including romance, rebellion, early feminism, and spirituality - all viewed within the context of bicycling.