a hand placing a sticky note on a community engagement activity

Creating a Complete Street for the Louisville Community

City of Louisville Broadway Master Plan

Client

Louisville Metro Government

Location

Louisville, KY

Expertise

Transportation, Civil Engineering & Landscape Architecture

Services

Design, Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Transportation and Modal Planning, Urban Planning and Design

Accolades

2023 ASLA Kentucky Honor Award in Planning and Analysis  

Contact Us

Louisville, Kentucky’s six-mile Broadway corridor is bookended by residential neighborhoods with parks and businesses in between. Louisville Metro Government not only wanted to help people move more safety and efficiently through the city, but also wanted to elevate quality of life for residents, so they called on Gresham Smith to reimagine the roadway. Breaking the project down into three phases, our team identified opportunities to create a forward-looking multi-modal corridor that meets the needs of all citizens and serves as a catalyst for economic development.

6
mile corridor
10
boarder neighborhoods
3
project phases
a map of Louisville identifying the project sites and current conditions

Understanding Current Conditions

The first phase of the project, which is currently underway, focuses on collecting and analyzing data and engaging with the public to understand the current state of the Broadway corridor. Using a custom application, the Gresham Smith team has already collected more than 2,500 unique data points from the project site, including metrics related to accessibility, vacant properties, transit stops and lighting.

Ballot boxes for input project opinions

Developing Design Options

During the second phase of the project Gresham Smith developed a variety of design strategies to address the corridor’s needs. Each design solution are specific to the surrounding context and community, as well as responsive to current trends in transportation and land use. The project team considered design features such as dedicated lanes for transit, smart transit stops based on real-time information, ecological design that improves air quality and reduces the heat island effect, and public art installations that create a sense of place.

A drone shot of the Broadway corridor in Louisville
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One Final Vision

During the third and final phase of the master planning process, Gresham Smith delivered a final vision for the Broadway corridor. The design is grounded in the community priorities identified during phase one and will recommend short-term, mid-term and long-term improvements. The finished master plan’s cutting-edge design strategies enabled the City of Louisville to compete on a national stage for federal funding to implement the improvement projects, including a $5 million grant from The RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) program.