Re: Louisville’s Job Sprawl – A Challenge or Benefit to Louisville’s Future Growth?

Your own research shows that we need to solve our traffic delay problems. Otherwise, it will continue to encourage Job Sprawl as people get more and more frustrated with their long daily commutes. We need to widen I-71 from the Synder to downtown to at least 4 lanes in each direction. We also need to do the same for I - 64 even if it requires taking out the tunnel bottleneck at Cherokee Park. We could do it and replace it with a bridge asthetically pleasing for those concerned about the park.

Additionally, we need to build the east end bridge. Politics in this community have come before the public's best interest for long enough. Just build the bridge. If John Yarmuth had the commitment for the bridge like he said in his campaign, we could get it done. Wealthy Prospect political donors are the likely reason this bridge can't get built.

Re: Louisville’s Job Sprawl – A Challenge or Benefit to Louisville’s Future Growth?

LaGrange - you are missing the point of the study about commuting times in Louisiville.

The city is experiencing the increase of commuting hours due to people and jobs being allowed to seek their own level instead of of being better planned for such that people and jobs are closer to each other.

Increasing highway capacity has been proven time and time again to do nothing for decreasing traffic and commuting times. If anything, adding capacity just increases sprawl and further exacerbates decentralized growth, which just makes the commuting problem worse.

What is needed instead of just building and expanding more highways and bridges is a regional plan that incorporates zoning changes in the form of an Urban Growth Boundry and real mass transportation policies that allows people to get out of their cars and into trains, buses, etc.., or even better - plan our cities and suburbs that you are close enough to walk or ride your bike to work/office, shopping and recreation.

I'm assuming by your nickname, you work in LaGrange and commute into the city every day? Have you ever considered moving closer to where you work and save yourself the time money and effort required to sit in traffic on a daily basis?

That's what this research is trying to convey - not the need to pour more concrete in a fruitless effort to make it easier for you to drive (solo, I'm guessing) your 30 mile commute at 65 mph.

Re: Louisville’s Job Sprawl – A Challenge or Benefit to Louisville’s Future Growth?

I am one of those people with a commute of about 5 minutes. If I got up early enough I could certainly walk to work. I think this is one of the best things about living in the city, in addition to the fact that if I want to go somewhere else - like Oxmoor or The Summit - it takes no more than 20 minutes to get there. Generally the services within 10 minutes of my house are fine and I don't need to go farther out. In my neighborhood the housing prices are holding steady from a year or so ago and becasue of reasonable housing stock and prices we are not losing owner occupied housing to foreclosure.

Re: Louisville’s Job Sprawl – A Challenge or Benefit to Louisville’s Future Growth?

Carolyn’s comments take us to the heart of this issue. As the economy recovers, the Louisville region will want to position itself to take advantage of the renewed job growth and prosperity. These goals—creating a mix of people, jobs, and ideas, fostering innovation, reducing the region’s carbon footprint, connecting low-income workers to job opportunities—contribute to Louisville’s long-term economic success, and each depends not only on the number of jobs in the region but also on where they’re located.

A lot of the discussion sparked here has focused on highway expansion and the need for the bridge. It’s true that transportation planning is very much connected to the issue of job sprawl. But in addition to thinking about how roads and mass transit can influence job location, we should also talk about a number of other ways Louisville’s city and regional leaders can encourage compact development and discourage job sprawl. To keep the vitality of Louisville’s urban core as the anchor of the region, local leaders can continue to create a 24-hour downtown and promote knowledge-based industries that tend to locate in urban centers. They can also work to link up decisions about land use and planning with economic development strategies and transportation and housing policy. That kind of integrated thinking and planning can help Louisville preserve the great asset it has in its compactness and livability, and help position the region for economic success as we emerge from this recession.

Re: Louisville’s Job Sprawl – A Challenge or Benefit to Louisville’s Future Growth?

Hey better have a trip in Louisville CO.Ordinarily, there would be no reason to pay any attention to Louisville, CO. However, Louisville CO is getting some attention these days because it got the top spot in the list of CNN Money.com Best Cities to live in. A small mountain town with population of less than 20,000, straight out of South Park, median family income is nearly twice the national average – because only rich people can afford to live in mountain towns like Louisville, Colorado. At any rate, the list it tops tends to favor small towns (criteria being a population of 50,000 or less – hardly small) over cities. From the description of Louisville CO, it might be worth some easy payday loans to move there.