LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Pope Street in Clifton Heights will be seeing some changes.
Metro Councilmember Andrew Owen invited District 9 to a community meeting Wednesday to discuss the new pilot program in the works for Pope Street.
"What can we do to try and help our friends on Pope Street?" Owen asked. "Change driver behavior, number one, in other words what route people chose to take. And number two, we might be able to get Pope Street off the Google Maps algorithm."
Public Works said 3,200 drivers take Pope Street every day.
The city council allocated half a million dollars for a traffic calming program in Public Works.
The pilot program for Pope Street, which Owen said has never been implemented in Louisville before, will include a diagonal converter at Pope Street and Arlington Avenue to re-route drives off of Pope.
"Our idea is to have speed humps here and then 'do not enter' signs," said Public Works Transportation Planner Supervisor Nathan Keltch.
Signage and detours, deterrents that businesses along Pope Street hope drivers heed.
"You can see it; there was two treads that came and hit this the other day and almost hit one of our customers," said Hilltop Tavern Manager and Bartender Robert Spillman. "It's been a constant issue. Everybody that lives on this street has had their car messed up at least once."
Something Champagnery employee Raekwon Steele knows all too well.
"A lot of cars just come flying through, man, and they just hit our cars," he said. "I haven't even repaired my window yet because I know it's going to be hit again, man, so pretty often."
While there is no specific timeline right now of how long the pilot program will be in place, Public Works said they will need a minimum of six months for the new traffic patterns to normalize.
Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or X feed.