By Matt Adkins
One major campus street will soon have a new look if all goes as planned.
Eastern Parkway, located on the south side of the University of Louisville’s Belknap campus is slated for renovation. State and local officials plan to narrow the section of the thoroughfare between Third Street and the I-65 interchange to two lanes.
“This is an important project for the University of Louisville and its student body,” said Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher. “Addressing traffic and safety concerns on campus is just one of the positive things we can do to help a university grow and succeed.”
Fletcher said a reduction of lanes, designated pedestrian crossings and wider sidewalks “are just a few of the elements of this project that will improve safety for pedestrians and better manage traffic flow.”
In August, U of L President Dr. James Ramsey was presented with a $2 million check from Fletcher for the effort. “The Eastern Parkway project grew out of our Beautification Task Force that we created shortly after I became president,” said Ramsey.
Ramsey was also successful in getting an extra $1 million from former Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton to begin landscaping and other work mostly around Fourth Street and Cardinal Boulevard. As part of the $1 million earned, the university decided on what they could do with Eastern Parkway.
Since the road is four lanes, there have been some issues regarding pedestrians. “We were made aware by a number of people that there had been safety issues for some time because of the lack of a cross walk at Third Street and Eastern Parkway. We undertook a study with the state and various recommendations were provided to us for alternatives,” said Ramsey.
Some statistics show that there are at least 17,500 vehicles driving every day on Eastern Parkway. There are also approximately 250 students that cross the street on weekday mornings according to Governor Fletcher. The potential improvements will be designed to make the area easier for pedestrians to travel since the area is busy with traffic.
Besides having only two lanes when the project is done, Eastern Parkway is expected to have new features to make the road more user friendly, some of the which will include wider sidewalks, improved pedestrian signals, and landscaped buffers, which will allow for any future ideas to include bicycle lanes.
The project itself will cost more than $2 million according to Ramsey. The university will have a matching requirement of $200,000. “This project will consume our resources for the immediate future. We would like to continue our paint up, clean up, and fix up effort. We have tried to use non-academic fund sources for these efforts in the past.”
Despite Eastern Parkway there are other parts of campus that will possibly undergo changes as well in the future. “We have a major project that we would like to undertake on Third Street in front of Grawemeyer Hall to more closely integrate the campus with the Stansbury Park, which is between Third and Fourth Streets. We’re developing a master plan on this project and will then seek funding. In the future we will also seek transportation funds to do more work on Cardinal Blvd., Fourth Street, and other areas,” Ramsey said.
