Jim Dahlem updates on the "right sizing" of Brownsboro Road

Jim Dahlem, the President of Dahlem Enterprises, Inc., updates on the happenings at a community meeting concerning the "right sizing" that has been proposed for another section of Brownsboro Road...

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Happy weekend. You're on news radioAD forty wh has Terry Miners here.
Jim Dalum is in the studio withme. He's an area developer, commercial
developers. Good to see you,sir, Good to see you. Thank
for Revna. You were here acouple of days ago, and I invited
you to come back and report ona community meeting that took place at the

(00:21):
Saint Joseph Children's Home last nights.Has to do with the restriping of Brownsboro
Road in this case, and that'sto mirror some of the right sizing is
the phrase some people use for roadsin various parts of Louisville. That's right.
How'd the meeting go? Well,it was interesting. Michael King,

(00:42):
he's the director of Developed Louisville Officeof Advanced Planning and Sustainability. He was
the person who did them, wasthe master of ceremonies, if you will,
and he was he was great.I will give him. I have
to give him a lot of creditbecause he was in a costle out of
about well over one hundred people.Overwhelming majority of the people were against this,

(01:06):
but he did a really great job. So hats off to him.
Whoever it's his boss, I hopeyou're listening. Um, you should give
him a razor hat on the back. So anyway, the bottom line is
is that we were told that thismeeting was for them to listen to our
concerns and maybe make a few tweaksto the plan. And the plan is
to take Brownsboro Road from like Melwood. Is that we're in Melwood, yes,

(01:29):
all the way up to Mockingbird Gardens, almost up to Channel with lane,
but to Mockingbird Gardens. They're stoppingthere because of that school, correct,
Yeah, they think that that mighthelp because you and I discussed this
in the earlier conversation. That isa nightmare mornings and afternoons, parents dropping
off kids and parents picking up kids, and it's just it's a it's just

(01:51):
a bottomneck gridlock situation. That's justand the parents having no choice but to
spill off into the road. Him. Yeah, there's just. But so
the squeeze of four lanes to twolanes with a centered turning lane clearly cuts
capacity. Now, people who areadvocates for this will say, well,
this is creating better safety conditions forpeople, and there are fewer accidents if

(02:12):
you have this or that or whatever. I'm not sure the statistics bear that
up, but that happens to bethe narrative of the day. It's well,
it's a k DoD initiative that's basedon a federal study that they say
reduces car accidents in the city.School they said is to try to reach
a zero accidents, which I don'tthink is possible, but it's an it's
a noble way to try to.Well, they told me fifteen years ago

(02:32):
we would be all autonomous cars fiveyears later, and here it is two
decades later, nearly, and that'snot happening. Right. When autonomous cars
get here, we won't have accidentsanymore. Right, They'll all be able
to stop automatically. Oh, I'msure. I mean that's what that's my
dream. Yeah, if I seean autonomous truck coming at me, I
think I'm going to try to hideor do the other direction. So yeah,

(02:55):
but I won't have a lot offaith in that for a number of
years. But yeah, they statedthat they were in the past five years
two hundred accidents between Ewing Avenue allthe way up to Chenowith Lane, the
fifty four injuries, no fatalities.I do know that if you stretch that
just a little further down toward Krogerfrom Ewing Avenue that I talked to a

(03:15):
guy today. His name is WalterDrees. His father is Alan Drees.
Now Walter works at Pat Steakhouse.He's been there for decades and he's seen
that and driven that area for years. But his dad, Alan Dree,
was on going to church at nineam to count money and from the collections.

(03:36):
And it was about two months afterthey narrowed the road down there and
he trucker got confused. Something happenedand he had a head on collision and
mister Trees passed away. He waskilled. So, you know, I
don't know that that's one anecdotal instant. It's not perfect. It's not perfect,
it's not a perfect plan. Butyeah, the whole thing is about
people adjusting, and a lot ofpeople have trouble adjusting the change period.

(04:00):
Yeah, but this is coming soon. And it's what you learned from the
meeting essentially, is this is inevitablebecause the Kentucky Department of Transportation said so,
well exactly, we were told thatthe contract has already been signed um
that they plan to start h thepaving late July. Or early August,
and they plan to stripe in August, so just in time for school.

(04:23):
Um. So yeah, so that'swhat they're saying right now. And you
know the only thing that can theycan possibly try to stop this from happening.
If you're against it, or ifyou're for it, you could do
this. But if you're against it, Uh, I think calling uh the
secretary Jim Gray, who is theSecretary of transportation in Kentucky. Um,

(04:43):
just make phone calls, let yourlet your voice be heard. Yeah.
Also, I think a goobernatorial canonof former mayor of Lexington. Correct,
Yeah, is numbers five h two, five six, four, ninety five
forty. That's not his cell phonenumber if that came off the website.
So um yeah, uh, soyou and give them, give him a
call and let him know how youfeel. I can tell you the overwhelming
number of people who were there wereagainst it. What are what are their

(05:06):
complaints? What what kinds of complaintswere you hearing? Well us hearing?
Uh? First of all that thatit gets it can be confusing. Number
one. Number two, it's goingto drive traffic into the neighborhoods. Three,
it's going to create a massive trafficjam. And it's a major thoroughfare
in and out of downtown Louisville.So when you when I say a major

(05:27):
thoroughfare, it's not I seventy one, you know, it's not that,
but it's it's a feed or goodpoint yet. Yeah, and there's a
lot of traffic that flows to downtownwork or whatever events using that corridor,
right, no doubt. And ifwe have a flood, not sorry if
not. When we have a flood, River Road is going to be flooded,
So this is a street that relievesthat. And also if there's an

(05:48):
accident on I seventy one, samething. So you know, those are
the a lot of what we heardat the meeting, and you know,
it's just a it's frustrating because there'sthere was such a lack of note of
vacation on this. And I've mentionedthis earlier in the week when I was
on the air with you. Youknow, I'm in the commercial real estate
business. If I am wanting toredevelop or develop a piece of property,

(06:12):
I have to go through basically whatconstitutes a nohole. You have to go
through notifying neighbors via mail, threetiers out, then you have to have
multiple neighborhood meetings and then you probablyend up at the Planning Commission, and
after the Planning commission er board ofzoning an adjustment, you end up in
front of Metro Council over and overand over again. It can take months
to get this get yourself through andthis situation right here, the state and

(06:36):
city are using our tax dollars toimpact a road that a lot of people
travel on and the neighborhoods and everythingaround. They're using our tax dollars and
they have no standard of notification whatsoever, and I just think that's wrong.
Well they in the government, don'tyou know that? Oh that's right?
Okay, yeah, okay, Wellwait a minute, Frankford Avenue, that

(06:57):
plan was in play and then itdidn't happen. What's the difference. I
think there are a lot of thebusinesses that came out against it, and
because they have no parking along theroad right there, and so they were
saying, where are our customers goingto park? And so as a result,
they tap the brakes on that oractually slammed the brakes on on that.
And I imagine maybe they had todo with the dot, you know,

(07:19):
agreeing with that. I don't know. I'm trying to think of what
I've seen on Browns. I don'tthink there's parking anywhere I can remember until
you get all the way down toclose to Millwood, correct. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I mean Idon't think there's any parking opportunities. So
that's it's a thoroughfare. Yeah,they're a whole rest of the way.

(07:40):
It's a matter of I remember whenthey changed it from four to two lanes
several years ago and what it didcomplicate matters. It has complicated matters,
and then a lot of people,of course, we're just looking for remedies
to help the planet, and theysay, well, this will just be
you'll be out there ten more minutesa day doing this at or whatever.
Well, that's keeping cars on theroad longer. That needs to be taken

(08:01):
into consideration as well. Yeah,that was one of the comments that were
made to me. It was,you know, as you have cars sitting
there idling, Um, we're concernedabout air quality here, aren't we.
Uh some problems. Yeah, there'sthere's an up and down on it,
and that's on the down list rightnow. Just so everybody's aware, Uh,
they are no sidewalks that you askedme. Um, you asked me
last week where there be any sidewalksput in? I'm sorry last Wednesday,

(08:22):
whether it be sidewalks put in theanswers no, um. And also with
regard to the stripes on the side, they said, they're not bike lanes,
but bikers can use them if theywant, but they're not going to
be designated bike lanes. That's justthere to delineate them the curb. Yeah,
well, I mean, you know, it's fine. I'm a bicyclist,
so I you know, I appreciatesharrows and I hope that car drivers

(08:43):
do. And when bike lanes areavailable, great, but they aren't always
just because there's certain areas you're ifI'm on Broadway, if I go down
to show any park and then comeback the other way, there's parts of
it that are bike lane and partsthat aren't, and so you just negotiate
it. But drivers have to berespectful of sharrows where you share the lane
as well, and that's fine.You know, I have no problem with

(09:05):
that. You know, it's it'sit's to me a situation where these aren't
like this said, they aren't bikelanes. They can use them. That's
not a problem. If you wantto bike, great, I think that's
fine. But my big problem isis that when we're narrowing down these feeder
roads into downtown Louisville or going someplaceto somewhere, it's I just think it's

(09:28):
the wrong thing to do. AndI think the majority of people who well,
like I said, when you werehere first time, the engineers at
a certain time did their studies decidedit needed to be a four lane road
to going this way to going thatway, And so now the thinking is,
no, we don't need it tothat. So were the engineers wrong
a long time ago. It's like, no, it's just a new way
of thinking, and there will besomeone coming along later who may adjust it

(09:50):
to some other configuration. It isstriping, it's not widening any of that.
But you know, I think thetrain has left the station on this
one. But and this will behappening late July early August. Yes,
okay, yes, well, Iappreciate you coming back and reporting on the
meeting last night. I'm glad peopleturned out. That's what America makes America

(10:11):
rock, as that people have theiropinions, they're able to state them.
I'm sorry that the government doesn't offeras many opportunities because they can pretty much
do that. I agree. Andby the way, if you're out there
and you're really not paying attention tothis, this might be coming to a
thoroughfare near you soon because they're notdone. They're continuing to look around the

(10:31):
city and look for roadways that theycan do this too. So you know,
if you don't travel this road andyou've kind of kind of tuned out
on this, you might want toput your intent up. Yeah. I
mean again, I'd heard about EasternParkway as well as a consideration. Nobody's
moved on that yet, but man, that's a massive thoroughfare. Yeah,
so we'll see how they all playout. Jim Dalum, appreciate your insights

(10:52):
and thanks for reporting back. Thankyou for having me. You know,
we're coming back in a few onnews radio AD forty whas