By Lan Nguyen
Driving through Louisville on Interstate 65 and other roads near campus can be maddening, especially during rush hour. Get on the ramp, start going as fast as you can and hope you can merge before the ramp ends and someone hits you.
Recently, the University of Louisville requested that the state study the ramps on and off I-65 from the fairgrounds to just north of campus. The State General Assembly approved and provided $175,000 for the study. The study was conducted by the consulting firm Gresham Smith which was selected by the State Transportation Cabinet. The study was also supervised by various community officials, including Larry Owsley, vice president of Business Affairs at U of L.
Gresham Smith reported its findings and posed possible solutions to the advisory board. All of the problems found related to safety and spacing. Some of the ramps were found to be too close to one another, which made it difficult and rather dangerous for drivers trying to merge onto or get off the roads. One ramp was discovered not to have enough links for cars to accelerate at the speed needed for them to merge safely.
“Our primary concern is safety is there have been a frequent number of accidents in that quarter,” Owsley said. According the Kentucky State Highway Department, there have been a total of 1,180 accidents in Jefferson County from Jan. 1, 2004 through Sept. 22, 2005.
However, according to their records, there were not many reported accidents on the two ramps leading to U of L during the same time period. Arthur Street only had one accident and Eastern Parkway had two.
Problems with the ramps could be attributed to low funding from the state. In April 2003, U of L professors Barry Kornstein and Paul Coomes researched and wrote a paper on how the state goes about distributing money for transportation financing.
In the paper, they stated, “Louisville has benefited from federal funding of interstate highway projects in the past 20 years. [However, it] receives about $25 million less per year in federal highway construction funds and mass transit subsidies than it contributes to the Federal Highway Trust Funds through gasoline taxes.” The report concluded that the Kentucky government has a financial bias against Louisville Metro, indicated by the fact that more roads have been built in rural, isolated areas with little traffic than in “complex urban” areas where the majority of traffic occurs.
With the results of the new study, that could change. After the advisory council was presented with Gresham Smith’s data and recommendations, they added their comments. The information was then presented to the State Transportation Cabinet.
The council recommended that some ramps be closed and new ones opened to create more space between ramps, and that changes are made to some of the current ramps to let drivers merge more easily.
They also recommended that a new ramp be added by the fairgrounds to improve access to the southern portion of campus.
Owsley said that the main goal is safety, but he also hopes the added ramps will improve access to campus.
It was recommended that the project takes place in five phases with each phase representing a section of the interstate. The phase system would enable state officials to determine how much money to allot to the project and how many phases can be completed.
“The next critical step is to get the project in the Six-Year Road Plan,” said Owsley. The plan is an agreed-upon set of transportation and traffic changes.
Once the project is approved and incorporated into the plan, funds can be distributed, designs can be produced and the design plans can be bid out to architects and construction companies. However, Owsley believes it will be at least two years before designs can take shape and be bid out.
