Transportation
Louisville's main airport is the centrally located Louisville International Airport, whose IATA Airport Code (SDF) reflects its former name of Standiford Field. The airport is also home to the UPS Worldport global air hub. UPS operates its largest package-handling hub at Louisville International Airport and bases its UPS Airlines division there. Over 3.5 million passengers and over 3 billion pounds (1,400,000 t) of cargo pass through the airport each year. Louisville International Airport is also the 4th busiest airport in the United States when in cargo passage, and it is the 11th busiest in cargo passage in the world. The historic but smaller Bowman Field is used mainly for general aviation.
The McAlpine Locks and Dam is located on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, near the downtown area. The locks were constructed to allow shipping past the Falls of the Ohio. In 2001 over 55 million tons of commodities passed through the locks. A new lock is currently being constructed to replace two of the auxiliary locks, with a projected completion date of 2008.
Public transportation consists mainly of buses run by the Transit Authority of River City (TARC). The city buses serve all parts of downtown Louisville and Jefferson County, as well as Kentucky suburbs in Oldham County, Bullitt County, and the Indiana suburbs of Jeffersonville, Clarksville and New Albany. A light rail system has been studied and proposed for the city, but no plan was in development as of 2007.
Louisville has inner and outer interstate beltways, I-264 and I-265 respectively. Interstates I-64, I-65 pass through Louisville, and I-71 has its western terminus in Louisville. Since all three of these highways intersect at virtually the same location on the east side of downtown, this spot has become known as "Spaghetti Junction". Two bridges carry I-64 and I-65 over the Ohio River, and a third automobile bridge carries non-interstate traffic. Plans for two more bridges to connect Louisville to Indiana, along with a reconfiguration of Spaghetti Junction, have been under consideration for years and some exploratory construction began in 2007. One bridge will be located downtown for relief of I-65 traffic. The other will connect the Indiana and Kentucky I-265's (via KY-841).
Louisville has historically been a major center for railway traffic. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad was once headquartered here, before it was purchased by CSX Transportation. Today the city is served by two major freight railroads, CSX (with a major classification yard in the southern part of the metro area) and Norfolk Southern. Five major main lines connect Louisville to the rest of the region. Two regional railroads, the Paducah and Louisville Railway and the Louisville and Indiana Railroad, also serve the city. With the discontinuance of the short-lived Kentucky Cardinal in 2003, Amtrak passenger trains no longer serve Louisville; it is thus the fifth-largest city in the country with no passenger rail service.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
