Louisville's Bridge to (India)Noplace.

For over twenty years, Louisville has been working at improving its "front door" image along the riverfront. We have Waterfront Park, that has replaced numerous scrap yards, warehouses, gravel pits, and other eyesores.

The crown jewel of this park, to many people, opened to the public today: The Big Four Bridge, named after the railroad company that had it built over a hundred years ago, had gone out of favor some time in the late 1950s or early 1960s, and the approaches were removed. There were some ideas of using it for condos at one point, and it had held lights for various charity campaigns over the years, but it was otherwise just sitting there.

In the mean time, "powers that be" in and around Louisville were working on the Ohio River Bridges Project, to add two interstate-level bridges between Kentucky and Indiana (a 1950s solution to a 2013 problem, but that's another rant). Since this is an interstate-grade project, the federal government requires a percentage of the total cost to be dedicated to adjacent bike and pedestrian infrastructure. This would normally take shape as bike lanes built on to or under or otherwise in conjunction with a cross-river bridge, but it was decided that it would be quicker and cheaper to divert some money to rehabbing the Big Four.

$25 or $50 million or so later, we have a gorgeous spiral ramp that leads to the bridge. The bridge has a nice shiny new concrete deck and spiffy new railings, lights, benches, and signage.

The ramp to ground at the Indiana side isn't ready, yet, and there is probably a Hoosier joke in there some place, relating to Kentucky's reputation for being twenty years behind the times.

As excited as I am about this bridge and what it means for transportation by bicycle or by walking, I have some reservations about the overall execution.

Instead of being a transportation bridge, it's become a linear park. I guess that's to be expected, given that it's part of the Waterfront Park complex, but to call it mainly a transportation piece is a bit deceiving.

As this image shows, the surface is marked with two faux rails. These are to evoke memories (as if anyone under forty would remember) of the bridge as a rail bridge, but they also serve in the current incarnation of the "bridge rules" as lane markings: walkers on either side of the rails, cyclists in the middle.

There isn't enough room between those lines for a fast oncoming pass for to cyclists.

I suppose I may be worrying about something that won't be a big deal--there is little enough bicycle traffic going across the river now that when cyclists do meet, there will likely be plenty of room for them to get outside the rails long enough to pass safely. Still, if this is successful in increasing cross-river bicycle traffic, it will become self-limiting. There is little room for growth in use beyond a handful of cyclists per five-minute period.

On the plus side, the concrete is nicely done, the railings are attractive, the light fixtures, well, I'll have to wait for an evening to ride down and have a look. The fixtures themselves are innocuous enough.

The folks in Indiana haven't quite caught up with us with regard to bridge access. They are working on it, and promise opening their ramp in a few months. They certainly have made progress:

I need to go back and get some pictures of the entryway. There are concerns with how that was done that I want to discuss at some point, and it will be easier with pictures.