The Courier Journal headline (Louisville police: It’s too unsafe to stop drivers who run red lights) brings to mind an element of the Green urban transportation plan.
.1. reduce the length of TARC bus routes to within a ring radiating six (+/-) miles from downtown Louisville
.2. establish dedicated lanes for buses and emergency vehicles within that six mile radius/ring
.3. give buses (and emergency vehicles) the right of way at urban intersections
.4. change one way streets to two way streets
.5. program urban traffic signals to blink yellow or red but never green, resulting in much more cautious drivers
.6. establish a downtown bus depot (one city block surrounded by bus stops of every route), creating easy transfer from any route to any other route in a central location (TARC’s Union Station is too far from the central business district)
If LMPD initiates a policy of not stopping drivers who run red lights, the result will be similar to the results of item .5. above – much greater caution by smart drivers. The unpredictability at intersections might even intimidate less-than-smart drivers to drive smart. Metro should embrace all six elements of the Green transportation plan. A side benefit would be a transformation of land use and a boom in urban neighborhood redevelopment.
