What Are They Coming To See?

We have been told too long now that “Company is coming” and that we need to be ready. To that end, we have made big improvements to our roads and other facilities, although I think that we have greatly neglected some of our existing built environment just because we are used to it.

Here is a telling account from one of our overseas (Great Britain) guests.

The appeal is being able to see multiple world class disciplines in one place. Personally, I was going to stay the whole event - travel around KY the days I wasn't that interested, see every discipline and generally enjoy myself and learn about some disciplines I've never been involved in - reining and endurance mainly.

I've been priced out. Ironically now all I'm seeing is the eventing, when I can see that much cheaper at the same level at Badminton and Burghley for a fraction of the cost. I'd love to stay longer and see something else, I will never have the chance to see reining at that level in the UK for example. …

By not making the tickets affordable the WEG organizers have now impacted many more Kentuckians than just those in Lexington. Our “world class” landscape and other local specialties do have an allure but not when we are just out to “soak the visitor”.

He goes on to tell of his experiences and opinions of the WEG decisions.

a) They knew the finances were going to be strained by looking at previous WEGs
b) They knew a long time ago the economy was going to pot and have not reacted, as far as we can see, appropriately.
c) They (I don't believe) really looked at what their visitors would want
d) They've underestimated the power of goodwill. They've treated the volunteer base very poorly, they've misjudged many elements.
d) Incidentally there are also many minor hiccups. Ticket master wouldn't allow me to pay as my card holder address is in the UK. No problem says the literature... in reality on the form you have to fill in your state, from a pre-selected list. Ummm ticketmaster... not everywhere has states.... It wasn't easy to buy for multiple events and choose your seats. hello. I'm travelling half way around the world. I don't want best available, I want to quickly and easily (you know, like the theatre or an airline) choose my seat. Confusion over parking, can I have a car etc, etc, etc all just make it too hard.

Items c) and d) are the ones that speak the loudest to me and despite the latest Herald Leader article on the WEG volunteers, the accounts that I have read elsewhere paint a very sad tale. This from a horse person in Tenn.

I started out wanting to be a volunteer, but the process became increasingly more annoying. First I was told I'd know by March...I actually got my official "we didn't chose you for eventing" notice last week. By then I'd long since bailed. I looked into general volunteering--what a morass of conflicting information and delay. I gave up on that, too, pretty quickly, and bought tickets for my daughter and myself. Now they're saying that general volunteers must agree to at least 6 shifts of 8 hours each, on non-consecutive days--ie, you've got to promise to be available for the whole thing.

Hello? I live 5 hours away. It's two months until showtime. They're just now getting the details together?

I don't have a hotel room yet. I'm waiting until people start cancelling.

And one from Pa.

Are the WEG people completely desperate for general volunteers or something? I signed up a bit ago online, and then got a URL for some kind of survey to fill out about skills and so on, which I haven't returned yet because my mom is having health issues and I'm trying to figure out if I can even possibly go, and now in the last two days I've gotten a DIFFERENT survey thing saying they wanted to give me an assignment, then another email with an actual assignment saying I was supposed to respond in a week if I was going to be able to do it, and today (note, have not responded to ANY of these yet because my mom only had a doctor's appointment today about things and I wanted to see how that went) I got yet another email with a link to online training.

I mean, if it was just 'sign up and here's your assignment and go here to see the training information' then that'd be one thing, but they keep sending the survey emails and asking for a response as if the information is important, or to confirm your interest, and then... sending the next bit anyway.

(Now, if they really wanted to encourage me to volunteer, the NEXT email would be about how they've organized some kind of low-cost housing set up for volunteers or something, because no way can I afford $400/night or whatever the ridiculous price is for a hotel room somewhere in the vicinity.)

The needs and desires of our guests should be paramount to our endeavor and not the quest to separate them from their money. We should be encouraged to show our best southern hospitality

Wikipedia defines this southern hospitality as follows,

Some characteristics of southern hospitality were described as early as 1835, when Jacob Abbott attributed the poor quality of taverns in the south to the lack of need for them, given the willingness of southerners to provide for strangers. Abbott writes: “[T]he hospitality of southerners is so profuse, that taverns are but poorly supported. A traveller, with the garb and the manners of a gentleman, finds a welcome at every door. A stranger is riding on horseback through Virginia or Carolina. It is noon. He sees a plantation, surrounded with trees, a little distance from the road. Without hesitation he rides to the door. The gentleman of the house sees his approach and is ready upon the steps. ”

Abbot further describes how the best stores of the house are at the disposal of visitors. Furthermore, says Abbott: “Conversation flows cheeringly, for the southern gentleman has a particular tact in making a guest happy. After dinner you are urged to pass the afternoon and night, and if you are a gentleman in manners and information, your host will be in reality highly gratified by your so doing."

Such is the character of southern hospitality.

Several cities are viewed as being bastions of Southern hospitality. These include New Orleans; Lafayette; The Upstate of South Carolina known as the Golden Corner; Charleston; Columbia; Nashville; Charlotte; Wilmington; Lexington; Birmingham; Houston; Tulsa; Little Rock; Memphis; Richmond; Annapolis; Jackson, Mississippi; Stillwater, Oklahoma; Savannah, Georgia., Augusta, Georgia and Atlanta, Georgia.

The above list is not inclusive nor in alphabetical order but I would hope that we, the rest of the state of Kentucky not tied up in the WEG mess, will extend the real meaning of “Southern hospitality” and mitigate a lot of the damage that has been caused so far.

Avon and the State Parks system

Several years ago the Federal government began transferring the operations at the Avon Depot to private industrial entities and renamed to facility Bluegrass Station. The majority of the new industrial operations were military in nature and the army kept a small force there for security reasons.

Recently the Lexington-Fayette County Government began offering recreation opportunities by opening the golf course and pool as facilities of the LFUCG Division of Parks & Recreation. On their current web pages, they show the golf but not the pool ( I believe they ceased operating it due to low attendance) in Avon.

Today I learned that the State of Kentucky took title to 211 acres of the former Avon facility at the end of September. This was not in the news, either TV or print. Where was the crack investigative team from the Herald-Leader? "Rita Skeeter" must have been tracking down something about CentrePointe at that time. Anyway, the State will now be responsible for the land and I guess the recreation to done there. I cannot put much stock in the city's parks website right now since the entire LFUCG website is to be revamped and relaunched within the week, the current pages may not be the most correct. That is the reason that I did not link to them.

I will try to keep my eyes open an learn just what the State has in mind for the property and if the LFUCG will contiue to provide services to that portion of the county.

Reconnecting Lexington to the real world

I have, for the past week, been looking at where this country is heading with transit and by this I mean real mass transit, fixed-guideway, rails in the street mass transit. A recently released report from reconnecting America, called Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race has an excellent breakdown of the situation for the country as a whole and I want to consider how that relates to Lexington and the region.

Rising gas prices have prompted many around the country and in Lexington to use transit more and the ridership figures for Lextran reflect this very well. Auto use has actually declined 3% in the second quarter of 2008 while transit ridership increased 5.2% nationally.

One other statistic that has been rising is the number of transit projects authorized. In 1998 Congress passed TEA-21, the six-year funding bill for surface transportation projects and in that bill 221 were for transit. In 2004, Congress passed the SAFETEA-LU, and the transit projects in that bill rose to 331, a roughly 50% increase. Since then at least 64 new projects have been identified in the so called "transit space race" by many of the progressive metropolitan cities of the U.S. Lexington and Central Kentucky are quietly absent from this list. Lexington and its surrounding communities have not mentioned some sort of rail transit to connect them, even though there used to be a very popular interurban system in place.

There are now so many transit projects proposed that it is estimated that the total investment required would be equal to the entire SAFETEA-LU bill, highway and transit combined. A staggering $248 billion and that is just the new stuff. In order to modernize the existing systems to the new 21st century standards, billions more will be needed. Congressman DeFazio of Oregon has stated that "We're loving our transit systems to death". Well, I can say that in Lexington, on the leadership level, we are NOT. Lexington's Council and the "movers and shakers" don't take a hands off approach to transit, they seem to hold it well beyond arms length. Now I'm not talking about buses, what I mean is a real honest-to-goodness streetcar system.

Nobody in Lexington wants to say a word about one of those. Cities like Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, Indianapolis, Columbus and a good deal of the cities visited on CommerceLexington trips have talked about, mentioned, proposed and planned these kinds of systems. Many are funding their systems as we talk (or not talk) about ours. With all the complaining about high fuel prices(although they have fallen lately they will go back up) not one person in leadership position has called for a streetcar system to be reinstated. With all the talk of dependence on foreign oil no one speaks of an electric powered streetcar system. When the Planning Commission was told that their latest Comprehensive Plan lacked any mention of real solutions for traffic or transportation for the masses of the future, they ignored the comment and went on their merry way.

Nationally only a small portion of transits 20% of the $248 billion of SAFETEA-LU is spent on fixed-guideway systems, the majority is spent on buses and maintenance. At this current level of funding, all of the currently proposed projects would take 77 years to complete. Lexington, by not acknowledging that they have a need, have put themselves well beyond that time frame.

The report goes on to compare the U.S. to the rest of the world in terms of transit and how we trail India, England, China, Western Europe and even Canada. Denver and Houston have recently won support for entire transit systems from their voters. Actually, voters approved 70% of the transit measures on the ballots from 2000 to 2005. Lexington approved a Lextran taxing measure, but that just leaves us with diesel powered fuel guzzlers and not an efficient one at that. When first class U.S. cities are lacking in transit systems and the needed funding and Lexington is so far behind them, how can Lexington dream of being considered a "world class" city?

Lexington has invited the world to come visit in 2010 for the World Equestrian Games. A world where they understand transit systems and the need to get around the country without a personal vehicle and still be there on time. A world which realizes the distances from Louisville and Cincinnati are but a short train ride. A world who, given the current state of the global economy, may decide to stay home when they find out the transportation situation in Kentucky. We can only pray that this is not one of Lexington's very expensive decisions to become a global city.

Two recent polls, one by the National Association of Realtor and the AARP, have revealed that 23% of Americans believe that road building is a good way to combat congestion, 75% believe public transportation and better land use decisions would be better. The AARP found that many over 50 years of age want to drive less but don't have any alternative.

A lot of what happens in the transit in the next few years will depend on the election this fall. The next President and Congress will decide the fates of transportation and transit for the future generations of Americans. Congress recently passed and last week President Bush signed the Rail Safety bill which increases AMTRAK's funding to twice what they have been receiving. The next Congress could do even better for intercity rail. Reconnect America's CEO has called for a "transit building program not unlike the Interstate Highway building program". I would liken it more to a WPA type program, to build whats needed for America and create jobs for those who need them.

On the local level, we need to begin to identify the transit needs of the community for when, not if, fuel prices get out of reach for those who live too far from their work. Relying on that same fuel for transit will not solve the problem, only prolong the inevitable end. City leaders need to look to the future and other cities, and maybe, just a little bit into the past for the solutions for Lexington's transit problems.

And yes, the problems are there even if you don't see them yet.

Introduction

This is the first of what I hope will be a long list is posts about Lexington, Ky.and some of the things that I have gleaned from the decades of exploring the streets as a youngster, public servant and amateur photographer. I like to keep my ears tuned to the happenings of the streets and the possibilities for the future. I will be a streetsweeper, taking everything in, tossing the garbage, recycling what I can and picking out the jewels for display to all who care to listen.

If you have questions, just ask away. How did this happen? Who did this? When did that do that? They are all fair game and if I don't know I will endeavor to find out. I am willing to share all the gleaning of the streets with all who wish to learn. Maybe I will also learn something.