Its Time We Plan For Downtown, Yes?

The Herald-Leader published an editorial back in the middle of February of 1982 commenting initially about the loss of the Meyer's clothing store.  Their conclusion was that "The differential between downtown closings and openings continues to grow."  Things were getting worse rather than better.

Despite the positive claim by Marvin Meyers that he was there and there for good, made only a few years earlier, just a couple of short months after his death the store would be closing.  Is it ironic that Marvin's comments were made on the occasion of their first suburban mall outlet?  Was it simply the suburban commercial expansion which led to the downtown decay?  Hardly.

The editors felt they could lay blame to a number of influences:  The rise of the automobile, the proliferation of suburbs, the changing patterns of work/shopping habits -- even the use of bypass roadways around downtown.  Maybe this was the general feeling of the public but other forces were also at work.

Downtown was becoming a site for bigger and "better" office buildings, in the theory that a denser daytime population would benefit the businesses of downtown.  With each new building came the loss of retailers unable to afford space in them.  The evening and nighttime population densities were totally ignored.  Although there was a known need to add downtown residential little was done to encourage it.

What the editors settled on was the need to preserve that which was the "charm" of Lexington and to build around it.  They felt the "success of a suburban mall in the city" depended on harmonizing with the buildings already in  place.  In today's hindsight, the success of the suburban mall is to make them look more like an urban downtown, complete with a substantial residential component.

Lexington has done very little to "alter" its suburban malls.  One was demolished in favor of a large religious facility that has brought little urban activity on a daily basis.  Another was substantially demolished in favor of a university controlled health care facility, again bringing little urban activity.  Our other mall style retail still struggle to survive without resorting to adding a retail component.  That will leave the soon to be opened Summit at Fritz Farm development to test the theory.

In the 35 years since this editorial was written, only a small number of residential units have been added to downtown despite several plans brought forth.  A very small number had anything to do with renovating spaces above the existing retail or other adaptive reuse of commercial structures.  I am aware that commercial lending rules make it a bit more difficult to finance these endeavors, but the City should be able to provide some assistance.

Downtown Lexington has more than enough underutilized space to forestall the need to demolish more buildings with "charm" in order to expand its residential capacity.  I hope that it is not left to the market forces create a sustainable residential mix for downtown.  I also hope that we can build more mixed use residential with "real" downtown support retail as a ground floor element.

Maybe this round of Comprehensive Plan considerations will include what we need to do to improve our downtown, especially our underutilized parcels, and create more tax revenue generating uses for Lexington.  Let me know what you think..

1 Out Of 4 ?

By some counts the Mayor is now 1 out of 4 for big downtown projects. He has not stopped or greatly altered he CentrePointe block. South Limestone, for all its expense ($7000 a foot?), is working out well. Rupp Arena's redesign has fallen to University's re-emphasis on education if not lack of statewide public interest. The 21c hotel may be his one bright spot.

The Mayor and Council have now declared the Rupp remodel to be in a state of suspended development. That does not mean the the rest of the Arts and Entertainment district, of which Rupp Arena's re-do was initially a minor part, cannot proceed. The 20 acre High St parking lot should be developed and with an emphasis on residential spaces for families.

The property taken for the High St lot was once home to many families. The fact that they were of a lower economic status made it easy to target them for removal or relocation. That much land being used so infrequently is a greater waste than bailing out certain developers. If we desire to expand our downtown's central core, that would be an excellent direction and place to start.

Being that the property is owned by the government, or at least a quasi-government agency, and the desire is to encourage private development whenever possible, the City should “jump-start” the process by lowering the acquisition costs in the downtown area. Developing smaller, individual buildings rather than massive, CentrePointe sized projects and including welcoming street facades to enhance the walkability of the area will work here – as it has in other locations. (Can you say JDI?)

What happens to the seldom mentioned Town Branch Trail and the amphitheater/park to replace the Cox Street lot should take a back seat to reviving our downtown residential scene so that someone is downtown to enjoy those amenities. Driving downtown to walk along a reconstructed stream bed or rebuilt rolling hills just does not do it for me.

So, where are the other glimmers of hope for downtown?

The Main & Vine project may be getting its parking garage (yea?) but it is very quiet down there.

The competing IMAX style theaters show little signs of progress as we near the end of June.

The Kickstarter campaign for a restaurant in the Distillery District grabbed some press.

I am keeping my eye on West Short St. The parking lot beside and between the Village Idiot and Church Street. Some recent property transactions over the last three years which coincide with the creation of LLC's of the new owners lends credence to the rumors of major players inquiring about the space. I need to look more closely for recent survey markings and I will look.

I also hope that the Food Truck days at the newspaper, Cup of Commonwealth and Dad's Favorites will continue the offerings that a goodly number of our young professionals appear to partake.

Not Easy Being Green

Kermit, the frog, may have said it best. “It is not easy being green”, especially in Lexington, Ky.

Take the issue of recycling your household materials. There are a lot of items on the approved list but not everything with the international recycling symbol is acceptable. I know that, for my family, we put out nearly 3 times as much recycling material as we do waste material. I hope that that is pretty much standard.

It takes way more effort to recycle the household electronic stuff than usual. You have to make special trips across town and you have a limited number of times per year per household. Certain items are allowed and others are not (CFL bulbs are not).

Then we have the community drop-off locations for those who do not have individual or adequate residential service. You know, the ones with the blue roll-off boxes with the small black doors, where you place all recyclable materials in the container, without separating. The map below shows the LFUCG managed locations as of this morning.

Last week the map also presented a spot (No. 2) at Sam's Club on New Circle Rd, between Liberty and Winchester Rds. Apparently the site was being either well used or vastly misused as the ground around it became a repository for things that would not fit in the container. Being a nuisance for the property owner, they asked for it to be removed.

One cannot help but notice that it results in a massive hole in the northeast quadrant of the older part of town. Compared to the rest of the community, should we be surprised that it could be so well used? Do we expect the residents there to be the type which will not recycle?

I do understand the type of corporate citizen Sam's Club wishes to be, but this may have been the wrong approach. Perhaps Costco could step in and demonstrate more of their business leadership.

In a city that touts itself as forward thinking and urging it residents to “Live Green”, this map nearly shouts that the stratified economic class living on the south and west sides of town are getting the service intended for all. The actions taken by Sam's Club and the City just appear to reinforce that notion.

More on "Black Boxes"

Nearly a year ago I blogged about the upcoming rules for “event data recorders” in automobiles and some of the rousing comments that I had seen. Just last week it was the LA Times's turn to go beating the beehive with a broomstick and with an eerily similar title. The comments that they received (some are given below) are wildly amusing.

Cash-strapped communities and states are looking for new ways of generating revenue to repair and expand the crumbling highway system without appearing to raise taxes. The income from our present federal gas tax structure, set at 18.4 cents per gallon over 20 year ago, will not keep pace with the rate of decay seen in our roads and bridges. Kentucky's gas tax rate is tied to the rate of inflation but even that is falling behind. These states are now looking at a vehicle-miles-traveled or VMT structure to REPLACE the gas tax.

The reaction of the Tea Party is predictable and the American Civil Liberties Union is nearly beside itself raising a variety of privacy issues. Mostly, the complaints are concerning the ability of a government to monitor and track any individual's movements on a 24-7-365 basis. Are they not the same high-tech customers who will wait in line for hours to get the latest smart phone for the wi-fi connectivity and connectedness which lies at the root of this monitoring technology?

In fact, they are the savvy consumer who has found an automobile which get amazing gas mileage and comes equipped with the OnStar or Sync service as an anti-theft device. They are the drivers who utilize the Sirius radio and Pandora streaming music service, linked with Bluetooth. Are they even aware that those packages are what Google employs to determine real-time traffic counts? State DOT”s are not that well connected.

Like many other subjects, Congress cannot agree on whether to proceed in this direction. The Senate had approved a trial project but he House leadership killed it (anybody surprised?) despite two former U.S. Transportation secretaries urging for it. But, without federal guidance it is left to the states to move forward and some are doing so. Oregon, Nevada, Illinois and the states which are members of the I-95 Coalition along the Eastern Seaboard together with New York City are studying how the change may be made.

Are you like one of those residents from Oregon who will opt instead to pay a flat fee based on the average number of miles driven by all state residents rather that a recording device. Not quite fair to the urban dweller who seldom drives but has to pay near what the suburbanite or rural farmer drives.

Maybe you are an app happy Gen Xer who is looking for a device to ease all of your driving woes. Not just keeping track of your miles driven, but in which part of your metro area you traveled. It also finds the closest, cheapest parking meter, pays for it and may have “reserve” it until you can get through the last traffic light. That may save you the price of a gallon of gas.

“The problem (or solution) is that this is very doable with current technology, and could be put in place very quietly. If they need money to fix the roads then raise the gas tax. It isn't that I don't want Big Brother knowing where I go (even if I don't). It's that where I go is none of his damn business.

Such tools do not belong in a free state.” Ronald Baker

This sounds like a very American thing to say, that we do not want any semblance of Big Brother unless it is on network TV. The facts are that such tools have been developed and used by the corporate world for a much more sinister use than government surveillance. The monetary cost of business surveillance far exceeds the individual's supposed additional tax burden.

“Currently, a Prius driver pays less in gas taxes than a Hummer driver over the same mileage. This is exceptionally fair because a lighter Prius does less damage to the road and pollutes less.

Changing to a miles-driven tax system makes so little sense that the tea party and the ACLU are united in opposition. It would raise taxes, cost a lot to develop and create a government database of information about our driving habits.

What is there to like about this?” Terrence R. Dunn

Yes, the Prius driver does pay less and a Tesla driver pays nothing but they both need the roads and bridges to be there regardless of damage or pollution. Mr. Dunn, the system already exists and does not need to be developed.

Corporations to which you already pay tribute have a current database of your driving habits. They already know when you stop at the coffee drive thru on the way to work or the bar on the way home. They are profiting from such information and you are willingly giving it to them.

What the governments would like to know is if you are driving in their jurisdiction or somewhere else. If you live (and buy gas) in Northern Ky. and do 85% of your driving in Cincinnati, then the state of Ohio is unable to anticipate your road usage, or vice versa.

“Ah, so very nice for the entrepreneurs to do the work of the government for it. I have absolutely no desire to have my whereabouts and comings and goings tracked.

If Ryan Morrison, chief executive of the California start-up developing a vehicle black box had thought this through, he would have seen the error in his approach. Trusting the government not to overreach and spy is naive.

Instead of thinking of the money they could be making, CEOs like Morrison should consider the large-scale impacts they could have on their fellow Americans.”

Chris Sarvis

Does anyone see a pattern here? It is always the government that is doing the overreaching or spying. Is there no one who believes that the corporations are not reaching for more than they may be entitled? At a time when the 1 (or 2)% are looking for more money from you packet, so many of the naïve are willing to believe that it is the government which may be in the wrong.

The time is approaching when the Departments of Transportation in many states (some very near Kentucky) will begin to allow some lesser traveled roads to revert to gravel or dirt roads. The funding will not be available to continue maintenance duties in addition to the responsibilities toward our primary traffic routes. Our city's struggles on paving issues grow larger each passing year, so we will all have to find a workable solution.

Is your expectation of privacy in regard to mobility, that which you seem to willingly give to corporations, greater than your expectations for receiving adequate transportation facilities? The answer here may shock many people.

Dirty Streets And What We Should Do About Them

It would be hard not to notice the dramatic uptick in the number and level of new restaurants or bars in the downtown area. I have mentioned so many in posts here over the years. Some of them have failed or closed in the difficult first few months but so many more are thriving and the vitality of downtown is showing it.

Along with the brick and mortar locations we have seen the reluctant acceptance of our mobile vendors in the noontime and overnight hours. I have to admit that at first I was somewhat concerned about the residual mess which can be left behind once they have moved on. In some cases the fault lies with the vendor but mostly I believe that the patrons are most at blame. Generally, if we make a mess of our city, we are reluctant to clean it up and this is not the first time that I have mentioned it.

Making a mess on our streets (or sidewalks) and leaving it for others to clean up apparently comes as second nature to most of us. Why else would there have to be public service announcements on litter control or blowing our grass clipping into the street and subsequently into the storm sewer system. Did we not learn to be good stewards of our planet in church or school?

There are several city agencies which have enforcement jurisdiction over these events but often they can only document the infraction well after it has occurred. A friend today told me of one instance where they were photographing mud in the street from a construction site. Being that it was on Friday, will it be Monday until something is done?

Mill Street @ Goodfella's

All of this is prolog to something that I have seen more of this summer than I believe I have before. I have numerous photos of situations along our downtown sidewalks where the garbage receptacles either crowd the walkway or are in close proximity to sidewalk cafe diners. In each case a less than acceptable condition, but this year what I am seeing is IN the street.

Maybe it is the above normal rainfall which has occurred this year or failure to fully close the Herbies on the curb but excess moisture is infiltrating the waste collection system, and spilling onto the street itself. Some days, usually after a heavy rainfall, the streets where the garbage truck collects the waste will have a smelly residue of greasy, leached water from the Herbies of our restaurants and even our day cares. 

Below are several typical images.

Market Street just north of Short

Detail of leachate

Morton Alley@ Natasha's

Storm Drain In Morton Alley

This problem is also seen at sites with dumpsters and particularly older dumpsters. In fact, City Hall had a similar situation with its waste removal. Where a dumpster or two used to sit behind the building on Water Street, they have now located one of their own refuse trucks so that when it is full they can just drive it away. It has recently been enclosed in a manner required of any other development in Lexington, as seen here.

Someplace to place a nice mural before long

Before this truck was hidden from view, I can recall seeing a molded tray-like apparatus on the ground under the refuse hopper at the back of the truck. It appeared to be there to catch the drippings of leachate from the truck since they are not watertight.

The city seems to be able to control the problem in its own back yard where it is generally out of view, but falls flat when it comes to the quite public streets and sidewalks of our blossoming downtown. I do not think for one second that this is unique to Lexington or for urban areas in general, so someone must be working on a solution somewhere. To leave this detritus on our streets is not only unsightly and foul smelling but also contrary to the PSA's aimed toward the general population. Given a good rain, all of this stuff will end up in our storm sewers and creeks.

I have had people ask me why the city picks up the downtown garbage at - what appears to them - the height of the evening rush hour.  I also have been caught behind a city truck while trying to leave downtown once or twice.  My answer is that I don't know, but if some of these collection points are very near the established outdoor cafe seating that it just exacerbates the problem on hot summer nights.

So, from where does this problem stem?  Are we throwing away too much uneaten food (always a problem with the restaurant business) and are we mixing it with the rest of the disposables as garbage?  Can more of it be composted without adding extra burden on the kitchen and wait staff?  Is the flaw in the design of the compactor trucks in the city's fleet or the collection methods employed by personnel operating these trucks?  Are there some safe, ecological, sanitizing procedures with which to target such sites when they are identified?

Is this a government issue, a Health Department issue and don't let the EPA find out about this or it will be their issue?  I think that this is a "Lexington has an image problem" issue and we all need to try to do what we can.

Black Boxes For Your Shiney Metal Boxes

Is anyone ready for some startling news out of Washington DC.

Our Federal regulators are making ready some new rules which will require event data recorders - also called "black boxes" - in all new cars and light trucks. Currently 91.6 percent of all U.S. autos have them. Since automakers have been surreptitiously doing this for years - despite privacy concerns – I wonder why all the uproar now.

These devices record driver actions and vehicle response for accident investigation, or that is the stated reason for their use. With the nano-miniaturization these days, they can record well more than the last 10 seconds of active use or the 15 data types of the early models. Some investigators have identified around 80 data points which could be useful.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to release the rules in the next few days making these devices mandatory equipment and record at least 30 data types. There will be no opt-out, but many of the most popular models have had these things since the early ‘90s (about the time that they began OnStar). This information was only divulged in the last 3 months.

"Most people who are operating a motor vehicle have no idea this technology is integrated into their vehicle." said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy group. I will go one better, most people who are operating a motor vehicle have no idea that they are driving a cell phone on wheels.

The fact that the auto can do a self diagnosis and call you with the results would raise many more privacy concerns than the last 10 seconds before an accident. Your auto has the ability to call OnStar (or just about anybody else) with or without alerting you first. The progress being made on driver-less vehicles is depending on this inter-vehicle communication for spacing and collision avoidance. Who knows when else they could talk between themselves. (Grillebook as a social medium, anyone?)

Despite privacy complaints, the government so far hasn't put any limits on how the information can be used. Right now there are no bounds or consequences, either to the government or any commercial venture, legal or not. Cell phone “aps” which will allow you limited operation of your auto remotely may not be as secure as they would have you believe.

Recorder data from some vehicles has already contributed to the traffic safety administration's conclusion to the problem of sticky gas pedals and floor mats that could jam them. They have also shown several high profile celebrities to have been at fault for traffic cases. Data that could be gathered from the other OnStar like systems would show where people shop, work and live, maybe that is currently being done also.

In the Senate’s transportation bill, passed earlier this year, the vehicle’s owner was designated as the owner of the required, recorded data. I wonder how much money one could get for collecting their own data and selling it on the open market. Would you be willing to sell your data for the right price? This provision was removed in a House/Senate conference negotiation, ostensibly for privacy reason but maybe to limit your ability to profit from your information This may be a slippery slope toward big government and Big Brother as noted by Rep. Bill Shuster, (R-Pa) but many of us on that slope are moving fast and picking up speed.

When I first read about this, the online comments ranged from “I'll not buy a new car again” (Well that works for Cuba) to “A powerful magnet will render it useless in no time”. Not buying a new car, in the type of urban development we have now, may be possible if very few communities and certainly not in Lexington. Being limited by the public transit systems in most places will be more unpleasant than having the insurance company know how (not where) you are driving. And speaking of the insurance companies, how do you think that they will react when they know that you have disabled a required “safety” device.

Ironically, the Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers is to the government requiring recorders in all vehicles, yet I doubt that this rises from any privacy concerns. Whenever the government gets involved or legitimizes an effort that you or your industry is doing, then they get to apply arbitrary rules and direct industry standards. Not that the industry could not also make some unsavory, arbitrary rules for their own good. Who do you trust, the government or private industry?

So, the barn door is open and the Genie is almost out of the bottle. How do you feel about this: a government intrusion or apt regulation?

93% Say A Plan Does Not Exist

Did you know that there is a company with a specialty in infrastructure strategy and product development on a global scale? No, they are not located in Lexington nor are they planning to move here, but the fact that they exist encourages me. That means that someone is looking out for the built environment of the facilities that connect us or enable us to connect with others.

CG/LA Infrastructure, Inc., which has been around for 25 years and is considered by some to be an industry leader, has just released their latest survey on infrastructure priorities in America. The survey questions were asked of high level executives from all regions and disciplines of the building industry. So, were their conclusions surprising to most folks? Maybe not.

93% believe that the US has no overall infrastructure plan. Wow, that is not news to just about everybody.

Why is it that when we have such huge systems as the Interstate Highways, the national power grid, massive pipeline connections for both oil and natural gas, multi-state water supply lines for our larger cities and even our renewed and growing freight rail network, there is NO overall plan to coordinate them? Do the systems not compliment each other as a whole?

Without a plan there seems to be “…potential for disaster at every turn." as one executive put it. As we have seen in California in the last few weeks, just a small number of minor inconveniences to the petroleum refining system have caused huge headaches for motorists of that state and for many others. A small “glitch” in one system can be magnified through the interdependence of other systems.

57% of respondents encourage public-private partnerships as an important action which can be taken to solve our present situation. 47% favor increasing the gas tax, which has not increased since 1993 and now buys about half of what it did then in infrastructure improvements. (Very politically unpopular) 44% mention the creation of a national infrastructure bank which in this political landscape of gridlock, both in Washington and around the country, may be extremely difficult to do.

In terms of highest or above-average priority for infrastructure investment, it should surprise no one that 79% list our nation’s bridges as needing repair. There is a growing list of sub-standard bridges right here in Fayette County and Central Kentucky. Transportation for America has a map which shows some of the worst. Water and waste-water systems are also high on this list. Our own experience with the EPA Consent Decree stands in the bright spotlight as evidence of this national need. We are not alone in neglecting things which we cannot see yet rely upon so much on a daily basis.

Two-thirds of the respondents mentioned highways as needing more funding, and perhaps they do, but we are already spending massive amounts on soon to be out-dated or obsolete highway projects. If we were to limit our thinking to just this element, could it be that in our desires for high gas mileage and the thrill of driving the open road has left us with clogged roadways and no way of funding improvements? I wonder if those who are able to afford the high mileage auto and live the furthest form their work are the same ones demanding more and better highways.

And how do you think that they felt as to the satisfaction with federal government's role in infrastructure development? 93.5% think that federal government's handling of infrastructure is a job which needs improvement (an understatement?) or just plain poor (abysmal may be a better assessment). Just what is it that we want the federal government to do? Is it government’s job to identify the shortcomings in infrastructure and repair them or should they guide the planning phase of facilities repair? Either way this seems to smack of “big brother” control or influence which our fiercely independent residents would balk at when it comes time to pay the tab. I can hear some of my friends now crying out that private industry can do it cheaper and better than government and yet private industry does not do it because the return on investment is not there.

Shorter approval processes and enabling legislation to allow private sector investment were cited as actions which could be taken to aid the necessary repairs and expansion work. I could assume that faster approval times will indicate a much more lax regulatory environment in which the private sector may reap higher profits yet result in a familiar product. The electric grid and the oil/gas pipelines which need the repair are presently in private hands, are they not. Many of them do not have the best track records in safety and environmental concerns, which may be the way that we got into this shape in the first place.

Government, and especially the Federal government, cannot be solely blamed for the pipeline leaks or the refinery fires and outages. The rail industry, despite its governmental regulations, is again growing and expanding, in major part with private dollars and an improving safety record. The electric grid, as robust as it may seem, is still a delicate lacework which is very much vulnerable to the whims of nature and the evil intentions of terrorists both foreign and domestic.

Remember still that this survey was of the high level executives who are concerned with major elements of life as they know it. What about the portion of citizens who are less than privileged and barely above the government's guidelines of poverty or those who are directly in poverty. What infrastructure is required for them to live a better life and how much do these “high level”executives concern themselves with the systems designed strictly for them?

There was a passing reference to multi-modal systems as associated with freight rail, but no mention of public transportation either locally, regionally or nationally. Should there be a 'potential disaster at any turn' as we have seen predicted above, what back-up (or possibly redundant) system will be available to aid in restoring normalcy? The disruption of oil/gas flow can upset just about all of the Interstate travel and the airlines could not mobilize enough to compensate and travel by rail would be non-existent even though it is the most efficient of the three. The destruction of a few major air control centers will hobble the airline industry, more-so internationally than cross-country, with resultant slowdowns of service.

On the local level, a robust public transportation system would save more than enough fuel to weather an extended slow down. Regional rail systems could suffice for the lack of highway and truck capacity for some freight deliveries. Regional and local farming should sustain the populace until new systems can be put in place. An ultra reliable water supply will prove extremely valuable.

93% of the survey respondents believe that the US has no overall infrastructure plan. I know that we have no real local plan. We have a response plan which may work for he short term, but a plan to rebuild our systems should something happen disastrously or they wear out incrementally, I do not believe exists.

I do believe that one should be developed.

Becoming An "Urban County"

I heard a conversation today where the participants, clearly very pro PDR (that is Lexington's Purchase of Development Rights program) spoke of the council representation for the 12^th district. I believe that the exact words were that “the rural interests of the 12^th district have not been represented since Gloria Martin left office”. That is just the facts of living in a continually urbanizing county and the willing move to raise the minimum lot size for residential use.

Fayette County has twelve council districts which, by charter, are supposed to be nearly equal in population based on the latest Census figures. Even in the early days of merger, that meant including a good portion of the suburban neighborhoods.

Lexington chose to become a very compact city, when in 1958 they imposed a urban growth boundary (USA), actually the very first in the nation. It was designed to bring on orderly, cost efficient development and prevent dispersing services widely throughout the county. Many of its objectives did as designed but some such as our trunk sewer system could have used some better estimates on sizing.

At about the same time the local health department recognized that septic systems in the rural areas would need larger lots in order to function correctly and imposed a 10 acre minimum on all new development outside the growth boundary. This, of course, would bring the overall residential density of the rural area lower over time without other influences coming into play.

But other influences did come into play, in the form of “agricultural” subdivisions for those wishing for a place in the country. Ten acre plots springing up all over the county for housing a family looking for basically a status symbol house and little more. Farmland being used for fewer and fewer people and no agricultural production of any kind. Actually a worse type of sprawl than paving it all over and building shopping centers on it. The rural character was lost as well as the loss of density.

The authors of the merger charter desired to live up to the spirit of the Urban Service Area concept by designating one council district, the 12^th, to be as rural as they could make it. Unfortunately, that meant including enough of the urban subdivisions to bring the district population proportionate to 1/12^th of the county. To accomplish that a large part of the long established USA was required to be included.

By now it should be easy to see that, electing a representative in an area which will only grow more urban and expect that representative, being responsive to his constituents, to remain totally rural focused. A council member elected every two years, a district adjusted every ten years and the trend toward increasing urbanization can only mean a loss of rural influence.

It may be this loss of influence that these folks were speaking of which will play a part in the ongoing onslaught toward PDR.

Many people are beginning to feel that, in these days of increasing budgets and falling revenues, PDR is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I have heard it said that PDR is paying property owners for development rights on land that cannot be developed as it is.

This is not to say that a major thoroughbred farm operation or the Horse Park/Keeneland type places is not fully developed, because they obviously are. But should we pay for these “developed” farms to NOT develop? The Council's last few budget battles have brought more and more pressure to bear on the viability of continuing to fund PDR.

Gloria Martin was a championing force behind PDR and the increase to 40 acre minimum lot size as well as the 300 foot setback for rural houses, and failing any rural influence since her departure, PDR may be in real trouble. This year will see a district race in which PDR will probably have a good showdown. The real rural dweller in the race is set on dismantling the existing program and the suburbanite candidate may not be able to fund its continuance.

We are marching on to becoming an urban county.

Deja Vu Anyone?

The city government is now looking at something new for their employees, a fresh fruit and vegetable cart in the lobby of the Government Center.

Building on an idea used by the High St Y, Councilman Steve Kay is circulating a survey of the city's staff in order to gauge their interest. Kay, a "Y" member, apparently has recognized that the idea has merit.

I am unfamiliar with the extent of variety or the quantity of the offerings on this produce cart, but the survey indicates that they will be those items that are “in season”. A selection of locally grown, and hopefully organic produce at reasonable prices could be another part of the new wellness aspect of the revamped health care package being promoted.

The first floor of the Government Center has become a fairly busy place under the Gray administration, what with the Mayors office being moved into the former ballroom. It remains to be seen what will happen during the holiday season which used to include many social functions for the staff.

A primary concern may be for the vegetable cart to occupy a lesser used corner of the lobby, but what if the response is so overwhelming that the offerings, in order to match the purchases, grow to an unmanageable size. I assume that it will be first come - first served, but will they park the delivery truck out back just for storage?

What if it goes beyond the fruits and vegetables? What else can the city offer to sell to its staff (or anyone else for that matter)? Will the first floor turn into an urban market? I recall seeing a photo of the old City offices before they moved to the now departed Municipal Building on Walnut St (now N Martin Luther King). See it here. The old Market house was on the ground floor while the City government ran out of the second floor. It was located on the corner of S. Lime and Vine St (opposite the current Phoenix Building) and built before the eastern portion of Vine st was constructed in the early '20s.

Maybe what was old is new again.

Help Preserve Our Food Freedom

The government is well on its way to taking away another of your fundamental rights. Soon, you may not have the right to enter into a legally binding contract with just anyone for the reasons of your mutual agreement. You may have to get a governmental agency to allow you to do so.

Last month, a Dane County, Wisconsin Circuit Court judge ruled that people in Wisconsin do NOT have the right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd. That is ludicrous on its very face.

Wisconsin has long been known as “America's Dairyland” and so much so that it has been emblazoned on their license plates for years. The locals up there are known as “cheeseheads” because of all the dairy products. But these people are now being told that they have no right to sell the milk that they obtain from all the vast dairy herds in that state. Since corporations are now classified as “people”, even they do not have the basic right to use cow's milk as they see fit.

Throughout history and particularly American history, we have been told that the pioneers went west with their families and their animals to settle the frontier. Cows milk was a very staple of that trek since there were no local grocery there at the time. Little did they know that they were breaking the law of a state yet to exist.

The Court also ruled that having a private contract does not fall outside the the scope of the States' police power and therefore the State can tell you that any contract is “null and void” in its entirety or in part. Does this sound like a State where you would like to live?

Finally, the Court ruled that the DATCP [Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection] . . . had jurisdiction to regulate the Zinniker Plaintiffs' conduct. This appears to be the same direction that the FDA is heading on the national level.

This is not just a Wisconsin problem nor is it solely related to raw milk, this is about food freedom and food security. With poor economic times upon us and likely to get worse we must all now plan for our food safety and security. I think that leaving food safety to the large agri-businesses will make us more susceptible to the massive food recalls which have populated ti news of late. These recalls have only grown larger and more frequent with the consolidations of the mega farms concept and the agricultural lobbying done by a select few corporations.

This is why I now urge you to support HR 1830 currently making its way through the House. I may not agree with all that Ron Paul advocates but this is one that we all need to back. The key points of this bill are:

• We believe that there is a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of our choice including raw milk.
• We believe the federal ban against transporting raw milk for human consumption across state lines is a violation of our rights.
• We should be free to obtain raw milk from sources outside our own states' borders.
• We demand the termination of an unjust law that interferes with the exercise of our legal right to consume raw milk.
• We support passage of HR 1830 into law - a bill that would effectively end the interstate ban.

If you agree with me, please sign the online petition to support HR1830. Go to www.farmtoconsumer.org/hr1830 and then help spread the word. I think that our food future depends on it.

Choices, Lets Talk About Them

Everybody is talking about it. IT is everywhere that you turn. IT is the talk about the rising price of gas, of food, of just about anything that we buy-from household goods to daily utilities. Everything is going up. And there is nothing that we can do about it. We are stuck.

We are just going to have to get used to it. There doesn't seem to be anyone who can do anything about it. So we get mad about having to pay more at the pump and complain that the oil companies did this to us. By golly, we are Americans and gas should only cost around $1.50 a gallon. I hear that Europeans pay roughly twice as much as that, but I don't care about the Europeans and what they do with their time and money.

Somebody should make the oil companies do more for us – not to us. Somebody should make it easier for us to do what we want in order to get through life. We should be able to live anywhere that we want and be able to go anywhere that we want and anytime that we want. Oh, and it should be cheaper.

Folks that somebody is us. We, the people of the United States. And nobody did this to us, we did it to ourselves.

Our choices of where to live are predicated on the availability of cheap gas. Our abundance of electronic gadgets is built on the availability of cheap power. Our shopping centers full of mostly over packaged, soon to be obsolete goods are there due to cheap imports – which is also due to cheap oil. These are our choices. They weren't forced on us by government planners, they were chosen by us by our own free will.

I can remember $0.35 - $0.45 a gallon gas when a neighborhood kid could make a few bucks mowing grass for under a buck's worth of fuel. When you could walk to the gas station and back home in just a few minutes. I can remember when downtown was just a quick bike ride or bus trip away. Those days are about as far off as a quick bike trip in to town from Hamburg or South Point. Nobody make people live out there and nobody make them drive their autos in to town. Those are choices of free will.

I can remember when subdivision development patterns began to use the cul-de-sac as an enticement to quiet suburban living. Cul-de-sac lots were desirable and they carried a 10 – 20% premium on land cost, but the choice was worth it apparently. We do have so many of them. We now know that these cul-de-sac areas, and similarly less connected street patterns, can increase the per capita cost of fire protection services by over 400%. Other government services may be increased likewise. Again, choices of free will.

I can remember when an auto vacation involved many days, not hours and special trips used trains while very special ones took airplanes. When they built the Interstates, folks did not want to be tied to scheduled departures of the trains but still tolerated it for the airlines. Now that the trains are gone and the airlines require such a hassle of screening, we are left with the long road trip and the high cost of gas. This is a result of the choices that we made.

What other poor choices have we, the people of the Unites States, made that we will look back on with regret? What choices will we make in the future? Will we be willing to re-think our cul-de-sac subdivisions in a reasonable manner? Will we be forced to re-think the distances that we will have to move ourselves to work, play and shop? Will our food come from longer or shorter distances? Will our energy sources become more local, sustainable and renewable?

Are we up to the challenge of these types of choices, or are those days gone too.

Cell Phone Usage In Cars

Americans are about to extend their backlash toward the Obama administration again.

The Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, has recently said that driving while using a cell phone is so dangerous that technology may soon be installed in our cars that will disable said cell phones, while the car is in motion. Not just the driver’s phone but all the phones in the vehicle. Passengers too, will not be able to talk or text while the car is in motion.

I don’t really see this as a major inconvenience and for one would welcome it. I cannot count the times that I have witnessed drivers, with cell phones to their ears, navigating through parking garages or lots or busy street intersections, concentrating on driving and talking but NOT on cyclists or pedestrians. This is usually during either the morning or evening rush hour, not a great time to be driving with just one hand.

Now, here comes the backlash.

Most of the printed comments that I have read are concerned with “what happens during an emergency?”. This is a legitimate question, but what percentage of today’s normal, driving, cell phone use is during an emergency? Had you been in an accident, would you not be stopped? Had you witnessed an accident would you have stopped to render aid? No, most of our normal cell phone use is calling about useless, unnecessary rambling which could have been done prior to starting the automobile, not to mention the texting of teens who may be passengers and sometimes in the same car.

Many equate the driving and talking on our extremely rural western Interstates with the vastly different, urban expressways and intense downtown traffic of our large cities. I may lean toward the relaxing of the regulations in our western rural areas much like we do our speed limits, but care must be used in such matters.

The majority of the comments have been on the regulation of personal freedoms. People feel that they have the ability to drive and talk, or text, read books, apply makeup and a myriad of other things—all without proving that they are able to do so. The police log books (and cemeteries) are filled with examples of the inabilities of drivers to fully control their vehicles while being distracted by something else.

But let us switch for a moment to the subject of the in-car systems of OnStar and the less well known Sync technology.

OnStar, at its very base is just a cell phone built into an automobile. OnStar has been sold as a safety and emergency response system, but it is just a cell phone. Granted, it is connected to all elements of the vehicle, controlling windows, doors and even engines and does NOT have to be activated by the driver. The system may be turned on by the company at any time (and without the driver’s knowledge) for public safety or national security reasons. (Think of it, your supposedly private conversations could be heard and recorded without your cell phone even being on.)

Should your auto be stolen, the company can locate, disable and recover it but that also means that they know (and can record) EVERYWHERE you have been. How many times have you been to the fast food burger hell or the local drug store (or porno palace?), you know, places that you may not like folks to know that you frequent? And who may have access to this information without your consent?

There are even phone apps built to access certain pertinent data about your auto, although many folks will never need or understand it. How easy is it for a nefarious hacker to appropriate this data for his desires? Can he sell it to someone as information gathered by legal means? Are you willing to go along with that intrusion into your life, or do you want “some” government regulation?

I don’t see these systems being disabled by any technology which could be added to either our autos or our cell phones. Thusly, I feel that whatever is unveiled will be able to; a) be location and/or temporal aware so as to override the disabling for emergencies, b) have some sort of override code which could be triggered by the user and verified by 911 agencies, and c) allow those in extremely rural areas to use cell phones depending upon a controlled set of circumstances.

In any event, I find this to be a lesser intrusion to our personal privacy that the TSA searches.

In a quick update, a recent survey found that 63 % of American voters favored a ban on cell phones while driving. I don't think that it is only 36% of our drivers who are the problem.

Lexington's "Spatial Fix"

I finally got to read the article by Richard Florida that I printed out from the March issue of Atlantic Monthly magazine. His idea is about how the crash will reshape America. I feel that this "crash" is but a minor fender bender in what is really heading our way.

The first parts dealt with the financial markets and a brief history of earlier recessions/depressions and the shifting landscapes that their major centers endured. It is what he says about the rest of the country which concerns me. His comments on the resiliency of New York City are based on the diversity AND density of its population and he cites the argument of Jane Jacobs that jostling of many different professions and different types of people, all in a dense environment, is an essential spur to innovation—to the creation of things that are truly new. So, could that mean that for our innovative, creative young people to be sucessful, we need to increase the density of our downtown population? Just how well will that mesh with our preservation of the historic properties and districts?

He goes on to explain what will happen to the cities that used to be the manufacturing centers, how with the decline of manufacturing in the U.S. or even the relocation to the southern states, our aging "Rust Belt" cities are trying, unsuccessfully, to reinvent themselves. Then there are the "Sun Belt" cities that had little going for them save their cheap land, easy credit and service sector jobs which got caught in the housing bubble and sub-prime loan fiasco. I am not sure Lexington has dodged this bullet completely yet.

His solution for cities, is for a new "spatial fix" for after the crash. His definition of spatial fix is:

The physical character of the economy—the way land is used, the location of homes and businesses, the physical infrastructure that ties everything together—shapes consumption, production, and innovation.

And he states the suburbanization was the fix for the industrial age. Industrialization brought on mass production, which brought on prosperity and mass consumption. Prosperity and Federal policies brought on more home ownership, which when subsidized by the highway construction and Interstates, led to a suburban lifestyle. No more depression era penny pinching, this was the era of expanding credit and an ever increasing need for home ownership. With that need came the newer, riskier financing strategies and an ever expanding supply of housing choices, it was just that these choices were standardized and farther away from the city centers.

Housing and transportation costs now make up a substantial portion of all household budgets. Local governments are obligated to provide services to the farther flung residences without an adequate return in tax revenue (i.e. these places don't pay for themselves) and as people in the areas of highest foreclosure rates have found out, home ownership is not all it is cracked up to be.

Home ownership, lately has also made our populace just a little less mobile than it was. There was a day when, if the job opportunity presented itself, Dad could pack up the family and go. Now they will have to sell the house, worry about Mom finding a job, will the kids fit in to the new schools and will the new house cost more than it does here. Now that opportunity must a substantial one.

There are several things that Lexington can do and Florida has laid them out in his concluding paragraphs.

In part, we need to ensure that key cities and regions continue to circulate people, goods, and ideas quickly and efficiently.

and

Today, we need to begin making smarter use of both our urban spaces and the suburban rings that surround them—packing in more people, more affordably, while at the same time improving their quality of life. That means liberal zoning and building codes within cities to allow more residential development, more mixed-use development in suburbs and cities alike, the in-filling of suburban cores near rail links, new investment in rail, and congestion pricing for travel on our roads. Not everyone wants to live in city centers, and the suburbs are not about to disappear. But we can do a much better job of connecting suburbs to cities and to each other, and allowing regions to grow bigger and denser without losing their velocity.

A denser, more diverse, more mobile Lexington will invite more ideas and allow for more innovation through more interaction with a greater cross-section of our population in closer quarters than we now see. We will also need a greater effort to re-localize our manufacturing and food production because this is just the beginning.

How Do You Let Folks Know About Downtown?

As I was leaving work this past Friday, I was confronted with a back-up of traffic on Limestone as it headed north toward Main St. Ahead of me I could see the flashing red and blue lights of a number of police cars and the Limestone traffic being detoured onto Main St, therefore I figured that there must be a problem at the Courthouse Plaza. Crossing Main, I saw the mobile command post and an event vendors tent being set-up along with not a few hay bales beside the road. I asked a couple of officers about the stree closure and was told "There is going to be a bike race".

A downtown, evening bike race. Lexington's own mini tour d' Lexington time trial. THis was something that I would have been all over about 30 years ago. But where was the promotion for it? Who was promoting it? What time was it going to start? And why could they not let the auto traffic get out of downtown before they closed the streets?

That last question was the toughie. The officers didn't know and one said that someone higher above him had set the closure time. Friday afternoon rush hour traffic is usually gone by 5:30 and the summer evening dinner traffic doesn't pick up for a while, so why the rush to close the streets?

Better yet, did any one of those afternoon traffic alert reports mention that the streets downtown would have lane closures? Did Officer Don say anything about it that morning OR afternoon? Lexington's Traffic Engineering Division does not grant these things on short notice so I doubt that this could not have been publicized. So, where was the Herald Leader and their cycling writer Tom Eblen? Was he out staking out Dudley's house?

I looked for a published report of the results of the race and for two days have come up lacking. I fear that this will be the way things are handled for the Spotlight Lexington events and the Re-medaling ceremonies of the WEG downtown. This, following so closely on the heels of the South Limestone streetscape debacle leaves a bit to be desired from the Office of Government Communications in the realm of transparency to the public.

I would have liked to stay downtown and watch the race(if only I had known about it) and hope that there will be others in the future. I also hope that it is handled differently at that time.

Flying to the State Job

Last week I posted a tidbit about our Finance Commissioner and the question of whether she would stay or go. Well, it seems that this is not the dream job in her mind. Today she resigned and left for a position with the Legislative Research Commission.

The driverless car

The other day, our favorite transit hater, Randal O'Toole brought up the subject of "the driverless car" in which he points out that research on the matter has apparently stalled. I guess that the boom in "mega" SUVs and the hybrid movement took up too much of the research dollars. Maybe it was the need to have the Federal Government become part of the implementation process.

There was one successful demonstration of an automated highway system in 1997 and since then the efforts have focused on more intelligent vehicles, not roadways. The designers are making the autos capable of recognizing passive road markings and talking to each other. This should allow them to "socialize" and then "run in packs" so as to relieve roadway congestion. Or, at least that is the theory.

I am not so sure that I want my car talking to others. I don't want my car talking to anybody without me knowing what is being said, but then I have a sneaking suspicion that most autos made today have the circuitry installed for a cell phone. That's right, those cars that charge premiums for Onstar, already have the circuitry and only have to uncover the little blue button. They can sell it all they want on safety, and it has been used for that, but when the car can tell someone( that infamous someone) where you are, what you are saying and with whom you are associating without your knowledge, I kind of worry a little.

Twelve years ago when they started, 9/11 had not occurred, Homeland Security did not exist and they assured everyone that only they would let the information out to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. At one point, you had to allow them to release the information, now if you report a car stolen, the police call for the information and track the car. (The car thief does not push the blue button)

I once thought that the greatest danger of this system was from the business community. Buying the information of where you shopped, at what time of day, cross-tabulating with the merchant for what you bought and then targeting you with specialized video billboards when you were in the proximity of your usual haunts. Now the biggest villain may be the Government, not commerce.

O'Toole postulates that of the two technologies, the automated highway may be the easier and cheaper.

I suspect the first paradigm has a lower cost and higher benefits, partly because (again, just a suspicion) the benefits of driverless cars may be greatest if they are not integrated with driver-operated cars. But the first paradigm has the biggest chicken-and-egg problem. Other people think the second paradigm makes the most sense, partly because the cost of computer processing power is falling rapidly. The second paradigm does not have as big a chicken-and-egg problem, but state laws that require drivers to be fully in control of their cars at all times would need to be changed and, I suspect, highway owners might need to better maintain signage, stripes, etc.

In both of these cases, The Antiplanner has mentioned that the Government must have some level of involvement and that meas that Government planners will get their hands on it. And according to O'Toole, the planners have screwed up just about everything that they have touched.

Take for example two of the greatest advances in transportation in America, the transcontinental railroad and the Interstate Highway System. The railroad was devised and completed without government funding(lots of free land, but no Federal subsidy) and fulfilled the idea of "Manifest destiny" to most Americans. It wasn't until about the start of the 20th century that the government started to exert some sort of control.

Interstate Highways are another story. President Eisenhower brought back the idea of high speed, divided highways from Germany, as a way to travel between cities. It was the planners at the state and local levels who messed up the game and drove them straight in to the hearts of cities, ripping out great swaths of established neighborhoods, and in cases like Louisville and Cincinnati, separating the downtowns from their historical lifebloods , the rivers. Thankfully, Lexington kept I-64/I-75 on the periphery. And all of it financed(subsidized) by the federal government taxpayers.

What did I just hear? A loud cry of "Wait, We pay for what we get". Well, apparently not enough. The national infrastructure has received a failing grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

American Society of Civil Engineers says under-funding has caused the nation's infrastructure to crumble - and stimulus won't do enough.

We cannot maintain what we have and still we want to build more. More lanes to carry more single occupancy vehicles heading to same mass storage spaces instead of mass occupancy vehicles heading to no storage space at all.

The solution is not to have more of the same option to similar problems but to have more options to the one problem. Mr. O'Toole is heading in the wrong direction.

Downtown proponents want "Vibrant"

Main Entry: vi·brant
Pronunciation: \-brənt\
Function: adjective
Date: 1616

1 a (1): oscillating or pulsating rapidly (2): pulsating with life, vigor, or activity

The Urban County Council was told today that the people want downtown to be "vibrant" in order to retain the "young professionals" that we have leaving the city in droves. Or at least that is what I got from the article in the Herald Leader, written by our own "Rita Skeeter" Beverly Fortune. Lexington needs to do more to bring in a wide array of cultural activities, which are characterized by festivals (more disorganized uses in the public spaces), bar, restaurants and other unnamed activities designed to separate you from your money. The proponents seem to require the governments help in generating the activity in the downtown area that they cannot create, even though they have spent $200 million of their own money trying.

Downtown does need to have more activity at night than it does now, but adding large numbers of music clubs and nothing else in a certain area for night time vigor will only create a dead zone during the day. We saw that with the CentrePointe block for the past few years. Another way of getting night time activity is downtown residential and we have built a substantial number of new condos in the last few years, but they are not affordable, nor are they sized for the urban family (three bedrooms or more).

Lexington does need to have more use of its public open space, but that does not mean structured activities each and every weekend with a festival or parade of some sort, just allow the people to assemble to do what the wish (within reason) and give the citizens back the streets. When the crowds attain critical mass the retail will follow.

The article did have some suggestions for bringing "vibrancy" to downtown. One of those was revamping the sign ordinance and allowing overhanging signs again. Maybe the flashing, pulsating kind that characterized the '30's -'50's . Or maybe, a sign review committee to permit signage. One supporter suggested "taking our foot off the brake", but from my reading the ordinance for downtown zones, they pretty much allow for most of these uses already.

The chairman of the Downtown Entertainment Task Force said, people want to see aggressive recruiting of "entrepreneurial activities downtown.", yet such aggressive action takes time and money, and as we saw over the weekend the Airport has come under scrutiny for their "aggressive recruiting" by their manager. Lexington would have to hire a recruiter, give them a budget of public funds, identify the specific needs and go after someone to fill the need. That sounds like a full staff to me. One more government department in times of shrinking revenue.

Government should do what the people cannot do for themselves, not will not do for themselves. Let the people create the vibrant downtown that the people want and let government stand back and smile and nod approvingly.

Use of Government Vehicles

It has come to light that the director of the Fayette County Detention Center has been driving a government car to his home in Louisville for over four years. That is four years of around 160 miles a day in a behemoth of a gas guzzler, the spacious eight cylinder Ford Crown Victoria, alone by himself. Is it no wonder that Lexington has a huge carbon footprint with this kind of thing going on.

Lexington, at one time had the states largest fleet of hybrid vehicles for use as pool cars. This fleet has been decimated by council action after the management audit done by Management Partners Inc. and delivered in February 2008. Yet nowhere in this report does the company give their assessment of the use of a vehicle by the jailer and the excessive amount of miles driven. By a conservative guess, assuming 80 miles from Lexington to Louisville each way, five times a week and 48 weeks a year, I come up with 38,000 miles a year. Times four years and you get 152,000 miles driven at less than optimum gas mileage, approx. 21-25 mpg. So far the jailer has charged an astounding $15,000 for gas and feels that this is warranted while the rest of Public Safety is looking at layoffs and reduced staffing.

As for the rest of the city staff and their needs to get around town, in order their duties, there are not any pool cars. Hybrid pool cars that averaged somewhere near 45 mpg. Staff members that make roughly 1/3 the salary of a director must use their personal car and provide their own gas. The next thing to go will be the parking for government workers and its availability. This all came from the recommendations of Management Partners and if this is the depth of their study there is definitely something missing.

I certainly do not relieve the former administration of the responsibility of making the problem, but I do not feel the the current administration has solved the situation in the best manner.