Smart Growth Conference Kicks Off Monday
“Bridging Boundaries – Building Great Communities” Runs Monday Through Wednesday
September 2006 – The “Bridging Boundaries – Building Great Communities” Regional
Smart Growth Conference hosted by the Ohio River Bridges Project begins Monday at
the Downtown Louisville Marriott. The three-day event gives attendees the opportunity
to interact with leaders from across the country and participate in the evolving
study of Smart Growth. Three nationally recognized experts and over 30 local and
regional speakers are scheduled to present and discuss a wide variety of topics
related to urban and transportation planning, land use and historic and environmental
preservation.
“The study of Smart Growth helps us all build better communities for years to come,”
said Peter Fritz, emcee of the conference and designer with Community Transportation
Solutions, the general engineering consultant for the Ohio River Bridges Project.
“From improving land use patterns and traffic flow, to the aesthetic design of roadways
and streetscapes and the way we handle historic properties and environmental concerns,
all of these facets need to be planned to produce effective and efficient communities.
Smart Growth is a philosophy that brings all these various elements together to
produce the kind of communities we would all proudly call home.”
Topics of study and discussion will include historic preservation and planning,
land use and transportation planning, economic development and context-sensitive
solutions among others. The conference will feature three nationally-recognized
experts and over 30 regional speakers on Smart Growth issues, as well as tours of
area historic districts.
“Perhaps the most important aspect of this conference is its reach,” Fritz said.
“The people in attendance will take these emerging approaches to growth and utilize
them in their communities. We have participants from Indiana, Ohio and areas of
Kentucky outside of the Louisville metropolitan area. We even have participants
from as far away as Washington, D.C. The end result will be an impact felt well
beyond Louisville and Southern Indiana.”
Monday’s events include walking/trolley tours of the Butchertown and Phoenix Hill
Historic Districts near downtown Louisville and the Old Jeffersonville Historic
District in Indiana, along with a driving tour of the Country Estates of River Road
Historic District in Eastern Jefferson County, Kentucky. Tuesday’s featured speakers
will be Randall Arendt, an internationally recognized author, lecturer and site
designer specializing in conserving interconnected networks of open space through
conservation subdivision, and Donovan Rypkema, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate
and economic development consultant specializing in services to public and non-profit
sector clients. Walter Kulash, a veteran of traffic and transit planning projects
specializing in “livable traffic” design, will speak on Wednesday.
The conference includes a Tuesday dinner cruise that will allow guests to see the
Ohio River Bridges Project's Downtown and East End Bridge sites from the river.
More information about the Smart Growth Conference is available on the Ohio River
Bridges Project website at
http://www.kyinbridges.com/historic-environmental/smart-growth-conference/.
The Smart Growth Conference is sponsored by the Ohio River Bridges Project to offer
educational opportunities and promote discussion on issues relating to regional
growth and transportation as part of commitments made in the Section106 Memorandum
of Agreement executed as part of the Record of Decision for the project in 2003.
The Ohio River Bridges Project addresses the long-term, cross-river transportation
needs in the Louisville-Southern Indiana region. In 2003, the Federal Highway Administration,
Indiana Department of Transportation and Kentucky Transportation Cabinet agreed
that the only feasible way to meet cross-river transportation needs was to construct
two new bridges and rebuild the Kennedy Interchange. Of a variety of options studied,
the alternative selected would best achieve the transportation needs with the least
amount of impact on environmental resources and the communities.
The Bridges Project is currently in the design phase with construction tentatively
scheduled to be complete by 2020. For more information, visit the project Web site,
at www.kyinbridges.com.