In a couple weeks I’m going to start publishing a new series here on Consuming Louisville called “Ideas for Making Louisville Better.” While that description tells you most of what you need to know the subtitle of this post “Let’s Swing for the Fences” gets to the real heart of the series.

Several months ago I had a conversation with the brilliant young mind behind Broken Sidewalk. We chatted about the concept of car free days and how much we’d love to see them implemented on Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue. We acknowledge that the likelihood of convincing people in Louisville to completely shut down Bardstown Road to car traffic, even for a day, would be nearly impossible but the thought of seeing Bardstown Road filled with pedestrians and bikes from Douglass Loop to Baxter Avenue with no cars in sight was a pretty cool image that kept floating around in my head.

That was the initial inspiration for this series. Then a conversation on Twitter with my smart, passionate librarian friend Cecily about using libraries as mobile offices got me thinking about ways I personally would love to change/improve/augment LFPL. And so the wheels in my brain started turning.

I decided that even if car free days never get implemented on Bardstown Road or the Louisville Free Public Library never embraces my personal plan for making it more accessible and friendly there is still value in sharing those ideas. Even if the big ideas
never get enacted, never really get off the ground there is still value
in putting these ideas out in the world and sharing them with others.
Who knows what and who they will inspire. Who knows what interesting conversations will be spawned and other ideas germinated.

For the first installments of the series I selected and invited a few guest writers. For future installments I’d love to see big ideas from Consuming Louisville readers. So please think of your big ideas for making Louisville better and email them to me. I can’t promise that I can publish every big idea I get but I’d like to publish some. My only requirements are:

- The tone should be positive and proactive (“let’s do this” instead of “this sucks so let’s stop doing it”)

- Be as big and ambitious as you like but be passionate about it and passionate about making Louisville better.

Let’s do this thing, let’s be passionate about our city and doing good in it and making it a better place for all of us.