Podcast Props
Props to Mary Welp for starting a series on podcasts and starting out with “To the Best of Our Knowledge.” Such a great show. Along with “WTF” with Mark Marron, “TTBOOK” is my go-to, a must hear every week. I look forward to more suggestions.
P.S.: I’m still looking for a great kid’s podcast for my 4-year-old. We’ve had some success with “Sesame Street” and “They Might Be Giants,” but I always like to hear more suggestions.
New Loserville edition is great. Keep up the good work.
Jeremy Markle, Highlands
Reconsider Bridges
I am anti-toll because I am anti-bridge. Until we have exhausted all alternative transportation options, we shouldn’t proceed with any bridge. We are putting all of our eggs into a project that encourages our dependence on foreign oil, encourages our solitary confinement in metal cages, and encourages a sedentary (and stressful and dangerous) means of travel. Bike lanes, level sidewalks and increased bus service should take precedence before more red carpet is laid for cars. For those of us who are choosing a car-free lifestyle, and especially for those who don’t have a choice, Louisville needs to level the playing field. We ALL should have a variety of transportation options available. The Bridges Project is ugly, even in its final form. None of the Foamcore posters depict the reality of 11 years of construction. Our jewel of a downtown waterfront will be disfigured — a great waste considering extensive (and expensive) efforts to make it livable. Who will want to coexist next to this tangle of asphalt? And, finally, consider that the construction jobs created are finite in their time frame. They, like many things nowadays, are not built to last.
Louisville has an opportunity. We can become an equal-opportunity transit city, glorifying all modes of transportation. “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity,” said Rollo May. Bridges Authority, please be courageous and reconsider this entire project.
Mary Beth Brown, Old Louisville
Don’t Develop
Hollenbach-Oakley aspires to change the zoning of their 165 acres, which has a Cornerstone 2010 “neighborhood designation,” to “industrial suburban workplace.”
Until the city can afford to restore TARC services that have been removed, as well as make the financial commitment to extend TARC services to this new community, we have no business allowing it to be developed.
Until all our existing neighborhoods can receive the Greg Fischer-promised “world-class best-practice” services, like the ones enjoyed by those living and working within the Louisville Downtown Management District, or even by those services enjoyed in third-sixth class cities, we have no business developing new suburban land that would drain Louisville’s resources. One of the most frustrating realities in our city is that when one walks outside the boundaries of LDMD services, like to the Smoketown area around Sheppard Square, the piles of collecting trash are left year-round to rot and pose public health hazards, not to mention aesthetic injustice, until a couple days before the Pegasus Parade.
The message we are sending to the kids in those neighborhoods is not subtle — you’re trash, and your wellbeing and health does not matter, unless people are watching.
Until we can respect our existing neighborhoods and the families within them, we have no business creating new ones.
Curtis Morrison, Highlands
This article appears in December 22, 2010.