"Bike-tastic" Louisville gets national attention

Louisville is getting just the kind of love that Mayor Greg Fischer wanted when he launched a program to make bicycling more inviting.

And the positive media reports of the city's growing bicycle infrastructure come as the city's public works department has begun to roll out an expanded 100-mile network of bike routes with special markings.

REJournals.com recently plugged Louisville as a city that's meeting demands of Millennials -- and people of all ages -- who are looking to rent in urban centers, by including bike facilities. They mentioned Louisville along with Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Columbus as hot locations:

All of the communities that we are working in have invested heavily in their downtowns. They've all added bicycle and pedestrian amenities to help people get around, so that they don't have to depend on their cars. They are all working to make their downtowns walkable.

And then just two days ago, Grist, the venerable online environmental magazine published in Seattle, had a story under a headline that the mayor's spokesman, Chris Poynter, could have written: Louisville is gunning to be the most bike-tastic city in America.

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It starts out this way:

Louisville, Ky., the Gateway to the South, is claiming the lane — lots of them, actually — for non-car commuters. The city's bike department, Bike Louisville, started blocking streets to motor vehicles and diverting cars to roundabout detours. This calms traffic stress down to a level of approximately zero, and creates an emissions-free environment where cyclists and pedestrians alike can feel safe. Now, Bike Louisville is implementing a citywide system called Neighborways that slows down traffic in residential areas, and adds trees and other green infrastructure. Heck, but if this is the gateway to the South, count me in.

So the Grist story got some of it wrong -- the city hasn't kicked cars off any streets yet , for example. But it does pay homage to the direction we're going. None of this is really new. I've been writing about the city's bike efforts for several years, starting with a summit called by former Mayor Jerry Abramson, and later when Fischer reinvigorated those efforts despite criticism from some Louisville Metro Council members.

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The so-called Neighborways remind me of the old bike routes of the 1970s and 1980s, with communities developing maps and posting small signs on streets, just amped up. Neighborways, city officials say, are "low-volume streets that have been optimized for bicycle travel through pavement markings, signage, traffic calming and intersection crossing treatments.

Traffic calming means features that slow motor vehicles down.

These bicycle boulevards will be more obvious than the old bike routes, with more markings for motorists and bike riders alike to see, and "wayfinding" signs to help bicyclists navigate the city. From the city's Bike Louisville website:

By 2015, Louisville will be implementing over 100-miles of neighborways on local streets. The initial phases of implementation will include low-cost, high visibility pavement markings. As funds become available, routes show increased use, and local neighborhood support builds, the neighborways could evolve to incorporate higher design details such as signage, traffic calming, and traffic reduction. The list below outlines the potential levels of design. Each of these levels will require direct public input, working with adjacent property owners and affected neighborhoods.

The recently reincarnated blog Broken Sidewalk also explained what's going on:

Louisville, like a lot of cities, has many options besides expressways and arterials, including secondary connector streets, low-traffic alleys, and quieter neighborhood streets which can provide a lower-stress transportation experience. If you can connect these secondary-street routes and provide innovative infrastructure improvements to calm traffic further, a new network of bike routes can take shape, a concept typically called a "bike boulevard" in many cities.

And as I found this morning, even the chill of early winter weather isn't keeping some bicyclists from these new bicycle facilities. The city's approach to bike infrastructure, reminds me of the famous line in the movie Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will come. And now, others are taking notice.