Members of the recent Nashville Tour will speak today at Metro Council Transportation & Public Works Committee today. It's at 5pm at City Hall.

Update: Ooops!

Looks like we dropped the ball on this one. Somehow we failed to confirm on Friday (gosh I wonder why) and so we didn't make the agenda. We'll try again in two weeks.

Photo courtesy Metro Jacksonville
 

Kentuckians Seek to Learn the Secrets of Success of the Nation's Least Expensive Commuter Rail System

On Friday, September 26th, local transportation professionals, public officials, press, and interested citizens journeyed from Louisville to Nashville to tour the Music City Star commuter rail system. This lucky group took a guided round-trip tour of the Music City Star rail system, toured the rail yards, talked with Music City Star personnel, and learned how Nashville managed to build the least expensive commuter rail system in the country at the bargain-basement cost of $1.3 million per mile.

Tour group and Nashville officials pose in front of train at Lebanon, TN

Music City Star in action - Photographer: Jonathan Guy

On September 26th, 2008 a group of represenetives from CART, KIRA, Louisville Metro Council, KIPDA, KYTC, and other interested folks went to Nashville, to tour the Music City Star commuter train, and hear about the system from the people that built it from a good idea into a working system.

Press Reports

• LEO
• Fox41
• C-J (briefly, 2nd from top)
• Excelent background article on the Music City Star.

CART Members Help Run Futuristic Transit System!

Historic inspection of system by Jefferson, Hardin, and Meade county officials to occur on November 8th. Thanks to the generous contributions of CART members and other concerned citizens, we now have enough money to run an inspection train and inspection bus along the Dixie Highway corridor. For three glorious hours, Louisville will have something resembling a commuter system along Dixie Highway, out to Fort Knox, and south to Elizabethtown.

This day will not have been possible without the generous contributions of the following entitites:

Photo courtesy Brian Wiggins
www.pbase.com/savethewave

If you're only now learning of this fundraising drive, but you still want to contribute, rest assured the CART General Fund has been greatly depleted from jump-starting this venture. By joining CART today, you'll ensure CART has the funds to seize future opportunities to promote public transportation.

The Kentucky - Indiana Rail Advocates is, like CART, a citizen advocacy group for rail in the region around Louisville. Their most active member, John Owen, has been the mastermind & prime force behind the Paducah & Louisiville inspection train project. 

In the 1990s, KIRA enjoyed life as the Rail Task Force, commissioned by the city of Louisville to investigate passenger rail. Their crowning achievement came around 2004 when AMTRAK started service to Louisville Union Station. When AMTRAK pulled out, the group went dormant. However, last week they held their first meeting of 2008. I am hoping they once again become a force in Louisville's transportation activism community!

John Owen & I visited City councils in Hardin and Meade counties yesterday, asking for $100 donations towards the P&L inspection train. We were well received, and we did some good education on defining commuter rail for these people.

Kudos for the councils of Radcliff, Mulldraugh, and West Point for investing in the future.

The time to contribute money to transit is now. We can take a major step towards improved regional transportation around Louisville. Through the tireless efforts of Metro Council, KIRA, and CART, we are very close to operating two exciting demonstrations:

1. An "inspection train" on the Paducah & Louisville track, going from downtown Louisville out to Elizabethtown KY, a model of what a commuter rail line could look like on that corridor.
2. A city-to-city bus ride back to Louisville aboard a Miller Transportation's bus, a model for a better way of connecting Kentucky's cities.

Click Read More for how to contribute!

If you attended the CART Annual meeting on Wednesday, July 23, you heard the discussion of an exciting proposal to demonstrate that commuter rail is a real possibility in Louisville. 

CART is partnering with KIRA, the Kentucky and Indiana Rail Advocates, to sponsor an “inspection train” down Dixie Highway toward Fort Knox, using the Paducah & Louisville Railway.  It will be a trip for various city officials to see the railway and imagine what the corridor could become. A similar inspection train led to the creation of the Music City Star on the Nashville & Eastern railroad.