As someone who drives a lot, using backroads and side alleys, it is nice when communities undertake as part of their civic pride and responsibility the proper posting of street names, street types, block numbers, and directional indicators. Of course, the larger the city, the larger the responsibility, and the more likelihood there will be mistakes. Nonetheless, some cities, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Lexington, come to mind, not only properly mark their streets, but the address indicators are just that - addresses - as opposed to Louisville's block numbers. At a major intersection, the sign on the odd numbered side of the street will have, for example, 2413, while across the street diagonally, the sign in the new block on the even side will read 2500. I appreciate the work that goes into such a system of proper marking.

This has been a favorite subject, or rather pet peeve, of mine for a long time. Back in the mid 1980s, a group of us who worked for the old Board of Aldermen of the City of Louisville would meet after Board meetings for a debriefling of sorts of the previously held meeting. These fetes took place in the Coffee Shop at Masterson's, on the corner of Third and Cardinal, back when Cardinal Boulevard was still called Avery Avenue. Staffers, a few aldermen, and a few others convivially discussed "whatever." When my time came, all were pretty certain I'd be pointing out which new street signs had been erected recently with incorrect information. Aldermen such as Tom Denning and Jerry Kleier would try to see to it that the proper folks in the Mayor Jerry Abramson's office were notified so corrections could be made. The most amazing thing was that every two weeks there were a new crop of incorrectly informing signs.

Over the years, one would think the situation would improve. It had become a sort of urban myth that wherever two or more were gathered to discuss chronic problems in the City, thereto would be Jeff with his chronic complaint about the recently erected incorrect street signs. With the advent of email, I took my complaints directly to Mayor Abramson's Director of Works, my good friend Bill Herron (who was the first person from the Beshear campaign to make contact with me after last week's Primary, but that is another story). I repeatedly discussed with Bill, both in person and in emails, the lack of supervision and concern those charged with this duty seemed to have. Later, as Louisville and Jefferson County began full implementation of the 9-1-1 emergency system plan under Mayor Jerry Abramson, and addresses were assigned to every parcel of land (which meant that a few streets long in existence but without proper names had to be assigned names - the section of New Cut Road from the old New Cut Road to the West Manslick Road, as well as the road sometimes called the Blankenbaker Connector in J' Town come to mind), I thought my salvation was at hand because of the strict requirements that every parcel must have a proper number and every street have a proper name. I was wrong.

Over the past few years, I have from time-to-time contacted the Metro Call service, operated out of Mayor Jerry Abramson's office, to inform them about incorrect signage. I've also emailed my friend Councilman Jim King, who forwards my complaints along. I am grateful to King because the few incorrect signs I've sent to him have been corrected, especially those in King's Tenth Council District, unlike those which are forwarded directly to the appropriate parties in the administration of Mayor Jerry Abramson.

Still, up go the incorrect signs, to be obvious disconcern of anyone in the adminstration, never to be corrected. And we now have a variety of sizes and types of signs, for every one of which are examples of incorrect information. Recently, I noticed new signs were being erected on the corner of South Park Road and Minor's Lane, a street the city calls Minor Lane. I was pleased they were going up because the ones that had been there for years had been incorrect for years. But, the new ones simply repeated the errors of the old ones, with block indicators off by 8 blocks on South Park and by 81 blocks on Minor (or Minor's) Lane. Why was I not surprised? In every corner of the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro, incorrect signs are erected, with no oversight whatsoever as to their correctness. Some have streets spelled wrong, such as Bellview for Bellevue. Others call a road a drive and an avenue a parkway. Several call Broadway a street, as in "Broadway Street." Others have a North indicator where there should be a South. Recently some new signage was erected on Blue and White signs in the downtown area. They must have been done by the same people. One calls Guthrie "W. Guthrie," with an unnecessary W where it isn't needed, while streets such as Ormsby, Burnett, and Saint Catherine, which have duplicated block numbers, one in the east and one in the west go without indicators. Even at our most important tourist-type intersection downtown, at 5th and Main, the block number indicates one is one block to the west. Why would Mayor Abramson, who has been mayor for 18 of the last 22 years, continually allow such a problem? Why?