Bike Kentucky

Jones & Jones, a Seattle-based architectural and design firm, will be paid $300,000 to design the Southwest Trail Corridor (the largest part of the recently named “Louisville Loop”) which extends from Bardstown Road through Jefferson Memorial Forest on to Farnsley Moremen.

More importantly, from a mountain-bikers perspective, is that they will also develop a master plan for the 6,200 acre Jefferson Memorial Forest. The plan shall include recommendations for improvements, such as campgrounds and parking and an internal trail system.

Please help educate Jones & Jones on the purposely misleading statements and poor treatment afforded local mountain bikers by Metro Parks, in order to bring about a meaningful and positive change for 2008.

On April 11, 2006, Metro Parks Director, Michael J. Heitz, intentionally mislead Louisville Metro Council members and our mayor by claiming the following:

“Metro Parks recognizes that this (mountain biking) is a legitimate sport, which is why we’ve expanded it into four parks over the last decade.”

False! Wouldn’t it have been nice had our mayor hired someone with credibility and integrity to run parks?

In the mid 90’s we had access to part of the trail system in Jefferson Memorial Forest, and were simply booted out without any public discussion.

In the mid 90’s we were also booted out of Iroquois Park, once again, without any public discussion.

In the above two examples, Metro Parks and Olmsted Conservancy falsely claimed that mountain bikes did more damage to the trails then horses (once again, parks relying on falsehoods to support indefensible Elitist Trail policies).

Furthermore, our access to both Cherokee & Otter Creek go back well over one decade!

We were very nearly booted out of Waverly Park when a Frisbee Golf was being developed on parks property (fortunately the development was halted just before construction began).

Our Parks Director doesn’t have a monopoly on dishonesty within Metro Parks, just look at the work of Parks Director of Propaganda (who at the same time was meeting with a group of naïve pro-Metro Parks mountain bikers) when asked to complete a portion of the city’s Bike Friendly application.

Subject: RE: Bicycle Friendly Community Application
Don, I am sorry but Jason (Cissell) never provided me with any of the information. I contacted him as well as Metro Parks several times and never received any form of a response. I left my phone and email but got nothing. Maybe he thinks one of his people responded but they never did. The only information I received on those questions was from you. Thank you once again for your responses Don and let me know if you need anything else. Have a great day!

Planning Department
Transit Authority of River City

Not only did parks fail to cooperate with another city agency in Metro Louisville’s push to attain “Bike Friendly” status, they forced the League of American Bicyclist’s to actually revise their Bike Friendly application process, due to their non-mention of mountain biking during the city’s Bike Summit of February 2005.

Now’s the time to start your advocacy efforts if you want to bring about meaningful and positive changes for 2008.

Please contact Jones & Jones in order to open up our public trails to mountain biking.

Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects, Ltd.
105 South Main St., Suite 300
Seattle, Washington, 98104

Tel. 206-624-5702
Fax 206-624-5923
info@jonesandjones.com