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Advocates worry that Louisville’s pursuit of $50 million Smart Cities award is ‘hijacking’ local efforts.

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(Photo: By Michael Clevenger, The CJ)

A coalition of transportation advocates is pressuring the city to be more transparent about its application for a $50 million award to revolutionize roadways.

Louisville Forward, the city’s economic development agency, is preparing to jump in a national competition launched by the U.S. Department of Transportation called the Smart Cities Challenge, which invites cities to use new technologies such as open data, autonomous vehicles and connected cars.

“We think it’s tantamount to a kill light rail challenge,” said attorney Bud Hixson, who represents the Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation.

Jessica Wethington, a spokeswoman with Louisville Forward, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CART lobbied the city in an email Sunday to hold a public meeting about the Smart Cities effort. That request was supported in a separate letter that included about half a dozen other organizations and activists, including former mayoral candidate Jackie Green, the Louisville Bicycle Club, Sustainable South Louisville, and Neighborhood Planning & Preservation Inc.

In response, Jeff O’Brien, deputy director of the city’s advanced planning team, said in a Tuesday email that the city hasn’t made plans to hold any community forums.

“If Louisville is chosen as one of the five finalists, the community will be awarded $100,000 to craft a more detailed proposal,” O’Brien said in the email. “Although the rules for the final grant award have not been released to us,” the city would welcome public input into that proposal for the $50 million award.

Smart Cities has been heralded by some urban planners as an ambitious plan to remake American cities’ transportation infrastructure. About $40 million of the award will come from the federal transportation department and the remaining $10 million will be funded by Vulcan, a Seattle-based philanthropic organization.

CART and other local advocates say the grant doesn’t speak to many of the underlying goals of improving Louisville’s connectivity, such as light rail and public transit.

“It’s hijacking transportation planning in favor of the automobile industry,” Hixson said. “That’s something most scientists and advocates of sustainable transportation say we need to move away from.”

He said CART also wants the city to articulate how Smart Cities will address issues such as climate change, racial segregation, joblessness in low-income areas and access to efficient transportation for the poor.

Local advocates are also asking about the status of an overdue study, Move Louisville, a consultant-aided project set up to determine the community’s long-range transportation plans. That study’s findings were supposed to be released last August.

The city said the Smart Cities application is being based upon many of Move Louisville’s goals, but transportation advocates have said it’s been difficult to get basic information from the city.

“Everything is closed doors,” Green said.

Last September, when the Move Louisville project was about a month overdue, Wethington said it was in the final stages of revisions and that additions to the plan were being made for precision and clarity.

“Because Move (Louisville) is such an important step in our community’s future, we want to make sure the plan is right and that all the projects and policies are in Louisville’s best interests,” Wethington said at the time.

Green said he isn’t surprised that the study has been delayed as the city pursues a grant that goes in the opposite direction of that planning.

“Am I worried? No. Am I angry? Yes,” Green said. “It’s just typical, we still don’t have a vision for a foundational issue, which is transportation.”

Smart Cities applications are due sometime in February.

Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at (502) 582-4475 or [email protected].