Welcome to our penultimate matchup of round 1, Louisville, Kentucky vs Lincoln, Nebraska! My experience of both of these can be blamed on (or traced to, depending on your perspective) my partner, who spent three years while we were dating living in one and hails from the other. As such, I've spent quite a bit of time in both these places, but in idiosyncratic parts of them; I'll admit up front that will probably color my analysis, but I'll try not to make it just about those parts of the cities.
Category 1: Visiting Without A Car
a) How can you get to the city?
Now, neither of these cities is going to compare to most of the cities I've considered in this bracket: no train lines to airports, no super-frequent bus lines (though both cities do have bus service to the airport).
Both cities have Amtrak service, but Lincoln has an actual train.
Back when I was visiting, Louisville had Megabus service to Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Cincinnati, and the tourism website thinks it still does, but Megabus doesn't. Lincoln still has service, though, primarily to Omaha.
VERDICT: Louisville 0, Lincoln 1.
b) How do you get around?
Well, without a car you're either walking or you're taking a public bus in both cities.
Lincoln's bus system (StarTran) probably does a better job covering the whole metro area. Most of those buses are infrequent, though, and Louisville metro is enough bigger that TARC still has superior service, especially downtown.
VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 1
c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?
Both cities ramp up their transit options if you're going to the biggest events: Churchill Downs (home of the Kentucky Derby) has regular transit service that gets increased for the Derby/Oaks weekend, and StarTran operates special additional buses for Husker gamedays (at an increased fee).
I will say, however, based on personal experience, that while both cities are walkable downtown, the fact that the University of Nebraska dominates Lincoln's downtown makes it a more walkable tourist destination: it's basically all for college students. Louisville's isn't bad, but it's just that little bit more limited.
VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 2
Category 2: Living Without A Car
a) Can you expect to get to work?
Well, it depends where you work, doesn't it? Both of these cities are very car-centric: one study shows them with both over 90% of households having a car, and basically if you don't live downtown that makes sense.
This is Louisville, and if it weren't for the trees it could be Lincoln too.
Because Lincoln has such a focus of its employment at UNL, though, it is much more likely that if you work in Lincoln you can not have a car (since the bus service and the walkability are both focused on that area).
VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 3
b) Can you live the rest of your life?
Again, very few people do. Lincoln scores higher than Louisville on both WalkScore and BikeScore, partly because of the bike lanes it has built: Louisville has potential for these but hasn't implemented them well. Lincoln's are better and across more of the city.
VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 4
c) How are the basic amenities?
This is the classic example where I'm going to once again declare a tie (don't worry, the stakes and standards for this will go up in later rounds). Both of these cities have places with bad sidewalk infrastructure:
And both of them also have places with absolutely lovely parks:
Those examples are only a few blocks away from each other, but what can you do.
Neither of these cities is a Washington DC for either, but both are doing OK.
VERDICT: Louisville 2, Lincoln 5
Category 3: Miscellaneous
a) Are there people on the street?
Here it really depends on where you are on the street. Louisville has parks with great gathering spaces:
And it has some areas where people do walk from business to business (though note the cars all around too):
b) Where is the city's urbanism going?
Conveniently, both TARC and StarTran make their analyses of their city's current transportation infrastructure public, albeit with differing levels of being up to date. Louisville has focused on getting frequent transit service (hence the better frequency of their service!) while Lincoln has focused more on multimodal solutions (like the biking infrastructure). Overall, however, I have to give this to Lincoln, because they're looking beyond just transit in a more effective way (and losing Megabus certainly didn't help people visit Louisville without a car!).
VERDICT: Louisville 3, Lincoln 6
c) Is it functionally diverse?
Now here we have a showdown of greater segregation (Louisville, with a long history still relevant today) vs lesser overall diversity (Lincoln, which is over 3/4 white). Louisville certainly has problems here, including a long history of judicially mandated busing of school-children to desegregate schools.
You're still much more likely to see a diverse group of people walking down a street in downtown Louisville, though, even if the city is still suffering the effects of segregation.
VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 6
d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?
This is an easy one; Louisville the only place I've ever been met with actual gasps that I didn't use a car to get around.
VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 7
e) How do people react to people living close together?
Here again the centrality of the university pulls for Lincoln. The University of Louisville just isn't as much of a central driver of the city's identity, and thus the density needed for university housing just isn't as significant to the city. That doesn't mean that there isn't density in Louisville, but it does mean that people are less weird about it in Lincoln.
FINAL VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 8
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