“Is It Just Me Or…”

We all seem to have those “Is it just me or…” moments.  I had one just the other day during a lunchtime walkabout which I take most sunny days.

This was one in which I took a usual route, west on Vine and then either going out S. Broadway or on beyond the Lexington Center.  This day I strolled through Triangle Park over toward the historic W. Short St.  The park, for all of its renovation work, still has little for the noontime pedestrian to do.

The tour down Vine St continues to surprise me these two years since the streetscape was essentially finished.  The pedestrians are few and the service/delivery vehicles seem to park with abandon on the new, wide pavers which are clearly intended for people.  There are a few “smoker’s posts” near the office tower and they can make walking past a chore for the non-smoker but otherwise there is little happening here.

I made an infrequent stop in the Victorian Square Shoppes and wondered, almost aloud, how some of those places can stay in business.  They do and more power to them, as I say about the claims that we have too much vacant office space, just because I see no activity does not mean that there is none.  Victorian Square is alive, maybe not robust, but alive.

Exiting near the corner of Short and Broadway and looking back toward the Court House is about the time that it hit me.  My “Is it just me or… moment” nearly bowled me over, like the cyclist zipping down the sidewalk.  Short St is the vibrant, pedestrian street that we all would like downtown to be.

How many hours over the past decade, and several Urban County Government administrations, have been spent of discussions and negotiations concerning Vine St and what could be done to improve the freeway-like atmosphere which has attached itself there?  How many consultants submitted options on solutions over the years?  After all that, has there been much noticeable improvement?

There it was, Short Street, stretching from Broadway to Limestone in the noontime hour just bustling with sidewalk activity, street activity and the sounds of downtown life.  What I saw before me was accomplished with minimal government dollars and much investment by the private sector.  It was not perfect but it was quite vibrant.  It has been growing that way for a while now, gradually gaining, but this day it just popped.

Main Street still has its pedestrian activity and a number of café dining on the sidewalks but not like the volume on Short.  The one-way traffic and the width may alter the cozy nature somewhat but I am not sure that it makes that much of a difference.  Main St is quite a bit longer, so that may diffuse its activity, but it also has many more blank walls with which the public must deal.

The public spaces along Main St, both Phoenix Park and the Court House Plaza, see fairly consistent use though some may find the patrons a little less than to their liking.  Elsewhere the comings and goings are a bit more sporadic.

The activity on Short St is not all a bed of roses and some of the thorns do prick at me. 

With all of the restaurant and bar venues currently in place, not all of them are open for the lunch hour, there will naturally be a slew of delivery vehicles. I constantly wonder why the restaurants can take delivery before or after the peak pedestrian times but the bars cannot.  Why does it take three men and three or more vehicles, at least two of which are extended length trailers, which block the mid-block crosswalks near Cheapside.  The soft drink companies and the spirit companies can deliver with smaller trucks on these narrow streets, but beer route drivers are special?

I also dislike the encroachment that some café diners make into the remaining walkway.  Each restaurant is allowed a limited amount of sidewalk and will not police their paying customers who - sometimes – snatch more chairs than usual at a table and spill outside the allowed space.  Common sense should kick in at these times but maybe alcohol is involved.

Lastly, there are the cyclists, the dog owners and those with over-sized strollers which try to negotiate or occupy extremely tight spaces, usually to the detriment of good circulation.  If the committee working on the food truck locations can cite pedestrian obstructions as a concern, then they should be looked at for all of downtown sidewalks.  Cyclists are currently prohibited from downtown sidewalks by ordinance, but it is rarely enforced and just plain ignored by the court system.  Should we get all of our downtown streets as active as Short St has become there will be problems, so we might as well begin solving them now.

Well, that is a lot to think about.  Now, I ask you “Is it just me or…”

The Legacy Trail: Bike Events For Everyone

I did not hear the Mayor's speech at the opening of the Legacy Trail but I saw the YouTube video. He says the the new trail puts Lexington "on the map" and makes us a cycling "destination". I have to wonder after all the other grandiose projections about Lexington's "so-called" accomplishments.

I have enjoyed cycling here in Fayette County since the late '50s and have always found town very easy to get around by bike. The masses are just now coming to realize what I have known all along. I ride for enjoyment and don't get into racing or bike polo, nor do I go for high-speed jaunts through the countryside. I just plod along and enjoy myself.

But, now that we have arrived (in the Mayor's thoughts) I wonder when we will get all the other stuff that goes along with cycling and the young activists that we have in Central Kentucky. Lexington has lagged behind the rest of the country, or so the pundits say, and we get our ideas from the big cities of the east. I have been re-reading "The History of Pioneer Lexington; 1781-1806" by Charles Staples, who was a neighbor when I was growing up, and much of the merchandise that local shopkeepers brought to sell - came from Philadelphia. Not Boston, not New York, but Philadelphia. Just last week, Philadelphia held their latest rendition of a local "Naked Bike Ride", you know, the protest bike ride where you wear the least that you feel comfortable with and advocate such things as global warming and Peak Oil and traffic congestion.

Most of the world's "NBR" events (some call them "Bare as you Dare" rides) are along city streets and through parks. Some at night but most are now in broad daylight. Now that we have a premier facility for cycling, how far off can a Lexington "Naked Bike Ride" be?

Mrs. Sweeper thinks that I would be "front and center" for one, riding proudly and slowly, but I am not so sure. I saw all the different varieties of age and body shape last Sunday, it could be a scary thing.

Today At The Art Fair

This weekend was the Woodland Art Fair and, as a playful jab, I suggested to Mrs. Sweeper that we should bike in this year. We have walked to the fair when we lived closer and usually find some way to get there, just to see what is available.

Then, while watching the news last night, they gave a report on a new service at this years fair-a secure, monitored bike storage for those who bike to the fair. Mrs Sweeper said "We should ride our bikes in and use that".

Oh boy, now I was now in trouble. I have, in the PAST, done a whole lot of biking. I used to ride to work every day unless the weather was just too bad. There were days when I used to go home for lunch(3 miles each way) or go for a ride in the country on the way home(an extra 20 miles or so). Every weekend I could be found out riding through some portion of the county and a trip to the river was not out of the question. Like I say, that was in the past. At least 25 YEARS in the past.

My two youngest boys have recently decided to take up cycling and I have, just this summer, got my bike back in working order. Last week I and one of my youngest did make it to Woodland Park, along with my eldest who has been biking around town for a while now, and I did pay for it for the next few days. I am basically out of shape.

This morning, after breakfast, the Mrs. and one son(the one who had not made the trip before) struck out to trek to the Art Fair and try to get back in one piece. Half an hour later. a bit winded and a little sore, we found the bike corral and had our bikes taken care of for the next few hours.

This years Fair had been spread out over the park in a much more logical manner than in the past and refreshment were more interspersed on the Clay Ave side of the exhibits. I can't help but compare it to the St James Ct Art Fair in Louisville and still the Woodland Fair come up short but it is growing. Maybe when it spills out onto the surrounding streets on more than one corner we will have arrived.

The one thing that still irks me about the people who attend these type of events is: the fact that they bring their dogs. Their strollers with the kids and the wagons so that the kids can ride around is understandable, but the dogs? Can the dogs appreciate the artisans or the craftsmanship? No!!! Take the dogs to the dog park for a run with companionship, but leave your DAMN dogs at home during such things as an art fair or an outdoor concert(Ecton Park, Thursday Night Live, etc...). If you need to spend more time with your dog, then stay home a little but we don't need them to be underfoot at every event we attend.

We spent two and a half hours at the Fair, went back and collected our bikes, thanked the attendants and slowly made our way back home. Today did prove one thing to all of us, that we could make it to Woodland or Ecton, or even the grocery, but more than that that we needed to do it more often.

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.