Transportation

Save money. Get fit. Build community. Protect the planet.

There has never been a better time to break the expensive, unhealthy, polluting habit of driving alone. Consider these fun, lower-cost, health-promoting, planet-friendly alternatives for getting around. Anyone who regularly bikes, buses, or carpools can register for the free Guaranteed Ride Home program providing 80% of the cost of an emergency taxi ride home up to four times per year!

Bus!

Green Commuting Superhero! Meet Mary Lu Schooler, a money-saving HSC staffer who lives in Oldham Co. but decided to park her car and take the bus!

• Anyone with a UofL ID can ride the entire TARC bus system for free! Simply show the driver your ID as you board. Good on all routes, any time. Learn more here.
  
• TARC can ease your daily commute or relieve the stress of traffic and parking when you have an appointment to get to or an errand to run.
• Don't waste time driving. On a TARC bus, you can study, get work done, text, play computer games, listen to music, chat with friends and neighbors, or just relax.
• Route 2 - direct service between Belknap campus, the airport, and downtown.
• Route 4 - direct service to Belknap campus from downtown and south Louisville (Beechmont, Kenwood, Glengarry, and Louisville Industrial Center).
  
• Route 18 - rapid, frequent shuttle service between Belknap campus and the Health Sciences Center, as well as Shively, Valley Station, Dixie Hwy, and Okolona.
• Route 29 - direct service to Belknap campus along Eastern Pkwy from Oxmoor Center, the Highlands, and Shively.
  
• You can also take your bike on TARC!
• Learn where TARC can take you!

Bike!

• Have fun and get fit bicycling to campus!
• Learn what UofL bike commuters need to know.
• Map a safer route using the online trip planner at Ride The City, or download the new Louisville Bike Map (pdf).
• Register your bike free before bringing it to campus and find bike parking with our interactive UofL Bike Parking Map.
• Bike-Share
  Use your UofL ID to check out a bike, helmet, and lock for free for the day! Bikes are available each day first-come, first-served at:
  • SAC Gym equipment desk (students & employees)
  • Humana Gym (employees & Get Healthy Now members)
  • Residence halls: Community Park, Bettie Johnson Hall & Kurz Hall (residents only)
  • Simply sign a waiver form and return the bike before the end of the day/weekend.
  • Those who check out bikes are responsible for any theft/loss/damage.
  
• Earn-A-Bike Program: Forgo a parking permit for at least two years and earn a $400 bike shop voucher!
  • UofL students, faculty or staff who are willing to waive the right to a UofL parking permit for at least two years are eligible to receive a $400 voucher to an area bike shop!
  • Applications for the program are accepted through the end of the first week of classes each Fall. The deadline to apply for 2013 is August 30th.
  • Vouchers are non-transferable and have no cash value, but can be used to purchase a bike or fix one up and equip it for year-round commuting with helmet, lock, lights, rack, bags, basket, clothing, tools, spare parts, etc.
  • Full details and application here.
  

Walk!

Professor Keith Lyle walks .7 miles from his home to campus. Read his UofL Green Scene: This is your brain on driving

• Why not live close enough to campus to walk? You'll arrive refreshed and smiling instead of fuming over traffic, construction, and parking hassles.
• Learn how walking to campus can benefit the brain, as well as the heart and pocketbook.

Share the Ride!

Live too far away to walk, bike or take the bus? Don't drive alone! Many people near you are also headed to UofL, so consider one of these ways to share the ride with your neighbors. You'll save money, build community, reduce pollution, ease traffic congestion, and reduce parking problems for everyone! Check out the UofL CARpooling webpage for details about getting special carpool parking permits.

1. Zimride UofL Ride-Share/Carpool Matching
   • Zimride is a new, free, secure social media platform for UofL students, faculty and staff to quickly connect those willing to offer rides with those in need of rides.
   • Whether you want to carpool for your daily commute, a few times a week, or just for a one-time trip, Zimride is the easiest way to connect.
   • Quickly set-up a profile (or log in with your Facebook account) for free here.
   • Then post your ride offers/needs and Zimride will help connect you.
   • Drivers may choose to charge passengers or offer free rides.
   • You can also use Zimride to coordinate carpools to events such as conferences, concerts, parties, sporting events, etc.
   • Use the Commute Calendar function to calculate your miles, money, and carbon dioxide emissions saved!
2. Ticket To Ride is a regional service for setting-up Vanpools, Carpools, and even Bikepools with anyone throughout Kentuckiana.
   • Use this handy calculator to see how much you'll save!
3. UofL Car-Share by Enterprise
   • Why bring your car to campus when you can borrow ours? Reserve one of our fuel-efficient vehicles online and pay a low hourly or overnight rate that includes gas and insurance. Read more.
   • Available to all UofL students and employees over 18 with a valid driver's license.
   • Reserve a specific car parked on campus and access it using your membership card.
   • $35 annual membership fee for students (all of which can be applied to usage fees).
   • $10 one-time application fee for employees (set up a personal or professional profile tied to your university credit card)
   • Learn more and sign-up here

Biodiesel Program - UofL Engineering students helped produce renewable biodiesel for the Cardinal Shuttle from campus dining's waste vegetable oil.

Fly Less!

Headed to a conference, meeting, or other trip for university business? Flying is the most polluting, carbon-intensive option. It's also the least comfortable with the most security hassles. On a per-passenger-mile basis, flying causes five to ten times more pollution compared to ground-based means of travel. Consider these lower-impact, less sardine-like options:

• Videoconference or Teleconference and avoid the trip all together!
• Carpool! It's free and easy to find/offer rides to events through UofL's online Zimride ride-sharing system!
• Take the Bus!
  - Greyhound offers connections from Louisville (720 W Muhammad Ali Blvd.) to over 3,000 cities throughout North America. Book here.
  - Megabus offers low-cost express service from Louisville (southwest corner of W Liberty St and S 5th St.) to over 120 cities across North America for as low as $1 with free wi-fi, at-seat plug ins, and panoramic windows. Daily southbound departures for Nashville and northbound departures for Indianapolis/Chicago. Book here.
  - Miller Trailways offers fantastic regional service from Louisville (720 W Muhammad Ali Blvd.) to cities and towns throughout Kentucky (including Frankfort & Lexington), Indiana, Tennessee, and Ohio, as well as Campus Connector service with stops at Indiana University, IUPUI, Ball State, Indiana State University, Vincennes University, Valparaiso University and Ohio State University. Book here.
  
• Take the Train!
  Efficient, comfortable Amtrak trains depart from Indianapolis (north/west-bound) and Cincinnati (east-bound), and you can book bus connector service from Louisville directly through Amtrak. Book your train trip here.
  

If you must fly or travel, consider offsetting your carbon emissions through a service such as Carbonfund.org, or TerraPass, the carbon-offset partner for UofL's corporate travel agent, Egencia.

FREE Campus Shuttles

• Anyone can ride these and all TARC routes FREE by presenting a valid UofL ID to the driver.
  
• Belknap-HSC Shuttle: TARC Route 18 provides frequent shuttle service between UofL's two main campuses with just 10-15 minutes between buses! Route 18 also provides direct, frequent service to both UofL campuses from Shively, Valley Station, Dixie Hwy, and Okolona/Preston Hwy.
  

  "I work on HSC and have taken the #18 to get to classes or meetings on Belknap, and it has been a breeze in both directions. I really appreciate having this option available, as previously I had been driving. Since the bus comes so often, I don't even check the schedule anymore." - Diana Pantalos, UofL Metabolic Nutritionist

• Belknap Shuttle Service (#94 Cardinal Shuttle): The #94 CARDINAL SHUTTLE  service provided by TARC and University Parking and Transportation provides service during the following hours of the Spring and Fall semesters:

  Monday - Friday: Begins at 6:40am at Cardinal Stadium and operates approximately every 6-9 minutes with the last trip leaving the SAC at 9:30pm (7:30pm Fridays).

• HSC Campus Shuttle: Provides service to the HSC community from the 620 HSC Garage to the campus Monday-Friday from 6:00am until 10:00pm. HSC Shuttle Map.  HSC Shuttle Schedule. HSC is also served Monday to Saturday by TARC Route 52 - Medical Center Circulator.

• Belknap-Arena Shuttle: Take TARC to the game! TARC operates a shuttle service from Belknap Campus to the KFC Yum! Center for men's and women's basketball games. The shuttle is free to UofL students and employees with UofL ID. The Route 4 shuttle will pick up passengers at the bus shelter at Fourth & Brandeis streets by Louisville Hall and drop them off near the corner of 2nd & Market streets. The return shuttle will pick up passengers at the corner of 5th & Jefferson streets until 11:30pm. Shuttle map. Shuttle schedule. 

How the Cards Get to Campus

• Check out the results of our 2010 UofL Transportation Alternatives survey.

Recent Developments

New Bike Racks & Fix-It Stations! The Fix-It Station at the Humanities building will be staffed in Fall 2012 from 11am-1pm on the first and last Tuesdays of each month!.
Interactive UofL Bike Parking Map

• TARC changes affect routes around UofL. On June 9, 2013 TARC made several route changes that mostly improve service to UofL. When the proposed changes were announced, UofL collected student and employee comments about the proposals and submitted them in March. It was generally agreed that the impact on UofL will be a mixed bag, but more positive overall:
  • Revising Route 2 to now go down 3rd St. (instead of Preston) will be a huge benefit to UofL, providing new service directly to Belknap, with direct connections from Belknap (at Eastern Pkwy and along 3rd) to the airport, Old Louisville, and downtown!
  • Removing the Medical Center loop from Route 4 will leave UofL with only one route (18) providing direct connections between Belknap and HSC (though Route 18 is already a more direct, preferable connection for that purpose, unless, perhaps, you’re trying to get from the 4th St. area to HSC) and will reduce the bus options for folks trying to get from one part of HSC to another (though most of those needs are covered by other services, such as Route 52).
  • The changes to Route 18 will result in minor reductions in the frequency of service, but a new direct connection between UofL (both HSC and Belknap) and two major employers, UPS Worlport and Ford Motor Co.
• On May 20th, 2013, after two years of UofL advocating for such investment, Louisville Mayor Fischer released his 2013-14 budget proposal, including $300,000 to fund bike infrastructure connecting Belknap Campus with downtown! The proposal is for 28 miles of new bike lanes, including "$300,000 for restriping roads to allow bike lanes, primarily between the University of Louisville Belknap Campus and downtown." See the Old Louisville Bike Network map here.
  
• In March 2013, UofL made pedestrian safety improvements to the Second Street alley and sidewalk area behind the Speed Museum parking garage by installing traffic-calming bollards and and gate, as well as the first separately designated pedestrian and bicycle/service vehicle lanes on any campus paths or alleys. In accordance with UofL's Bicycle Master Plan, the university will be installing more such improvements on campus corridors to improve pedestrian and cyclists safety.
  
• TARC comes to Belknap to announce improved Fourth Street service (UofL Today, August 27, 2012). Now TARC Route 4 provides even more frequent shuttle service between UofL's two main campuses! Weekdays between 6am and 9pm, buses will arrive every 10 minutes north of Central Avenue and every 20 minutes south of Central. Video.
• Willing to ditch your car? UofL wants to reward you! Check out our new Earn-A-Bike Program: Forgo a parking permit for at least two years and earn a $400 bike shop voucher! Applications accepted through the first week of Fall classes each year. Read story.
  

• In August 2012, the Sustainability Council installed 66 new bike racks (432 bike spaces) at numerous locations around Belknap campus (see our Interactive UofL Bike Parking Map), as well as five Bike Fix-It Stations with basic tools and a pump (at Humanities, SAC/Red Barn Plaza, SAC Floyd St. entrance, University Tower Apartments and HSC Kornhauser plaza).
  - For help with repairs scan the Quick Read (QR) code on the front of the Fixit to view detailed instructions on your smart phone.
  These much-needed improvements were funded through our Climate Action Plan. Learn more.

• Bicycle lanes installed on Cardinal Boulevard between Floyd Street and 3rd Street Fall 2012
• UofL collected and submitted comments on possible changes to and elimination of TARC routes, with success in preserving eastern portion of service on the #29 route.
  In May 2012, the Transit Authority of River City (TARC) proposed changes to or elimination of several of its routes, including nine express routes, effective July 1, 2012. The proposed changes included shortening the #29 route that runs through Belknap Campus on Eastern Parkway so that it would end near Bardstown Road and Cherokee Park rather than at Oxmoor Center on Shelbyville Road. This change will not be made due to a strong response from the public. TARC also proposed a change to the #18 route that serves both Belknap and HSC which would eliminate its selected-trips service to the Camp Taylor area. Unfortunately, this change will take place. UofL submitted a response to TARC explaining how these changes will negatively affect faculty, staff and students who rely on these routes, and from those who use other possibly affected routes. More info here. Details on final changes available here.
• In 2012, as a direct result of UofL's Train-the-Trainers Program, funded by a grant from the Kentucky Bicycle and Bikeway Commission, Get Healthy Now offered Safe Cycling Classes for all UofL employees and participants in the Get Healthy Now program:
  

  Location: Crawford Gym, Room 15
  April 3 - May 8, 2012: Fridays, 11:00 a.m.
  July 6 - August 10, 2012: Wednesdays, 2:00 p.m.
  August 2 - November 6, 2012: Thursdays, 12:00 p.m.
  The class is designed as a guide to various aspects of safety, such as basic equipment maintenance, skills, and rules of the road. The content is based on the League of American Bicyclists' national BikeEd program. This central idea of this class is "Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles." Safe Cycling will help you to become a cyclist who rides with greater safety and confidence. Get Healthy Now encourages participants to ride bicycles for fun, fitness, and transportation, leading to a happier and healthier person, planet, and safer environment for all.
  These new bike safety classes were made possible by funds generated through the purchase of "Share the Road" license plates by Kentucky motorists! Funding from the Paula Nye Memorial Education Grant has allowed UofL to:
  1. Provide American League of Bicyclists Certified Instructors (through a subcontract with Bicycling for Louisville) to conduct free training to educators from university, high school and community organizations in bicycle safety and confident cycling, in order for them to return to their respective institutions to train students and community members; and to provide the educational and curriculum materials needed to train these educators and their future students; and
  2. Create, post, and distribute bicycling maps as an additional means to educate people about safe means of bicycling on UofL campuses (reducing conflicts with pedestrians) and bicycling to campus by accessing bicycle gateways and connecting with Metro bike routes and public transit lines. You can see the results of this project in the UofL inset on new Louisville Bike Map (pdf) released March 2013!

  Green Roofs at Cardinal Towne
  
  The Edge at Liberty Green
  
  
  UofL officials join private developer for HSC-area residence groundbreaking (UofL Today, March 9, 2012)
• The University is continuing its efforts to make living close to campus an attractive option for students, faculty and staff. Fall 2011 saw the opening of new student housing options adjacent to both Belknap campus and Health Sciences Center.
  - The first phase of Cardinal Towne, a new affiliated student housing and retail development, opened in August 2011 on Cardinal Blvd between 3rd and 4th - right across the street from Belknap campus. Cardinal Towne features several green design elements, including accessible vegetated roofs; 170 covered and outdoor bike parking spaces; the ability to monitor energy use in each unit; some ceiling fans and day-lighting; and fully equipped kitchens for student cooking. Watch the video. A second phase will be open August 2012.
  - Also in August 2011, new student housing opened at HSC. The Quad is a UofL-affiliated 27-apartment complex at Hancock Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard, right next door to the Clinical and Translational Research Building. It is one piece of a larger project, known as The Edge at Liberty Green, which will provide mixed-use, mixed-income, environmentally-friendly housing for employees and students within blocks of our Health Sciences Center and within biking distance of Belknap Campus. Development continues on hundreds of units of various green-designed housing types and sizes for both purchase or rent. The Sustainability Council invites everyone in the UofL community to explore this exciting, new option in low-impact, healthy, urban living!
• TARC makes trip planning more convenient for students and employees! TARC has joined the Google Transit partnership program, a network that provides bus routing and bus stop data in more than 400 cities, and has added a link to the Google trip planner to its website. The trip planner allows users to find such information as bus routes, estimated travel times and even walking directions to the nearest TARC stop. UofL students, faculty and staff can always ride TARC for free by showing their UofL ID. “For University of Louisville students, this improvement in accessibility could be the tipping point between buying a parking pass and driving their car to campus or riding the bus.” -The Louisville Cardinal (December 6, 2011) TARC pairs with Google for quicker transit planning
• In 2011, UofL's released its first Bicycle Master Plan! As a part of our campus master planning efforts, UofL has developed comprehensive plans for making our campuses more walkable and bike-friendly and we are working with Metro government and surrounding neighborhoods to improve linkages with citywide bike routes. Our Bicycle Master Plan provides guidance for facilities, signage, surface treatments, and pathways that are designed to encourage bicycling while enhancing the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians on all three of our campuses.
• In line with our Bicycle Master Plan, UofL is worked throughout 2011 with Bike Louisville and area neighborhood groups to create a plan for a safe network of on-street bike facilities to campus. We especially need a northbound route from Cardinal Blvd that provides safe, (s)low-traffic connectivity with our Health Sciences Center and downtown. Despite resistance to the idea from Metro Public Works, we still think this is an ideal test-case for Louisville's first dedicated Bike Boulevard with limited, local-access-only auto traffic (learn about Portland, Oregon's bike boulevards with this great video). The plan for Old Louisville bike corridors developed through this process is available for review here.
• New bike racks were installed in 2010 at priority locations (most covered) on HSC and Shelby campuses. New racks were added to the Red Barn plaza / SAC west entrance in 2011; and in spring 2012, three new large racks were installed at the north entrance to Louisville Hall, and one covered rack at the west entrance to Threlkeld Hall.
• Nearly 300 employees for UofL's vendors/contractors (including Sodexo, the University Club, SSC Service Solutions, and City Café) came under UofL's agreement with TARC in Fall 2011 to allow them free access to the entire bus system.
• In 2010, UofL adopted a No Idling Policy for all vehicles owned by the University of Louisville or its affiliates or operated by any employee or contractor of the university during the course of their job duties at the university. The policy states, "All vehicles should be turned off when not in use or when the driver leaves the vehicle for any length of time. Equipment should not be left idling more than 1 minute and should be turned off unless doing so would hurt its operation." There are a few stated exceptions to this policy. View the full policy here.