If It Is Coming, We Need To Plan For It

Nearly every major car maker in America and several large technology firms are racing to develop vehicles that can operate with limited-to-no human interaction. Driver-less cars are on the horizon. Some say within 20 years.

If that is the case, then the auto industry will take a dramatic turn from selling to the individual to selling to transportation service providers. As young professionals across the Western world are discovering, it is extremely more convenient to summon a form of transportation than to concern ones self about where and how to store or maintain an expensive automobile. To Millenials, the automobile is not the freedom device it was to their parents and much more costly than their current freedom device, their smart phone/tablet.

With that in mind, I would like to know just how cities like Lexington are beginning to plan for streets full of such driverless autos. 

 

Downtown

I can see one scenario where more and more commuters choose to use an automated form of transit (not the flying cars from the science fiction movies of the '50s) like a driverless car to carry them downtown in the morning and make a return pick up in the evening. They need not bother about a designated parking spot nor the questionable safety of the trek to the garage. How would this affect the look and feel of downtown Lexington?

Many of the comments I have received on this blog have dealt with the need for downtown residents to have their personal, and private, parking. The primary reasons stated are the need for a car to leave downtown for the weekly shopping trip or other amenities not currently found downtown. I feel that the age range for these folks will fall squarely in the Baby Boomer set, still enamored with the freedom of a set of wheels.

Too many times I have read the projections of planners who looked at past trends and fell short of the impact of a cultural or social shift, or the media pundits who forecast rosy urban developments which falter due to local/global economic situations. They are fun to read when they do both with different aspects of several connected elements of society.

I do not think that it is too soon to begin monitoring the possible shifts in parking demand in he suburbs. Reports from this past Black Friday shopping frenzy lead one to believe that the parking fields of many malls and commercial centers fell far from crowded. The use of land-use related parking minimums are being rethought by more communities than Lexington.

Those same parking shifts could tell an even better story for downtown. Without the need for one to store an automobile for up to 8 hours a day, how many of our current surface parking lots would pay for themselves in daily revenue? How many more of these lots can, and should, be put to better use?

From my memory and experience, the local community has not planned for potential uses of demolished buildings, citing the lack of jurisdiction due to it being “private property” yet requiring permission to erect anything in its place. History has shown us that the “stop gap” measure of allowing a temporary parking lot is anything but – temporary.

Suburbs

In the suburbs, life without an auto will present many new challenges. These same people who find commuting to work easier may also wish to use a different sized driverless vehicle to take the family to the park, pool or the movies. Weekly shopping trips may also be accomplished with similar ease. What should not be necessary, in the long run, is the large ocean of parking around even the simplest of shopping developments.

Is someone now looking at what alternative configurations may be possible for the existing commercial areas? The current B-6P zoning classification is considered a “Planned Shopping Center” zone, with its own set of minimum parking requirements. Widespread use of driverless vehicles, increased online shopping (with drone delivery) or even major enhancements to the existing mass transit system can render those requirements obsolete in just a few years. A forward looking community should have a concept of what an alternative could look like.

Staging Areas 

 

At the point that driverless cars become as prevalent as as anticipated above, the sheer number of such vehicles would mean a systematic and strategic set of maintenance and staging facilities. Today's family car gets a somewhat limited amount of daily use, roughly 1-3 hours out of 24. A fleet of driverless vehicles could go from one assignment to another almost 24/7, much like the fire and emergency fleet does currently. They will need the typical refueling and maintenance but at a higher frequency interval. 

 

Does this bode well for the once ubiquitous service stations, now convenience stores? Which zone would be best for such a facility? Following in the footsteps of VHS vs Beta, Apple vs Microsoft and Uber vs Lyft, will there be competing versions of driverless systems out there?

Auto dealers

 

Then there is the whole question of dealing with the usually unsavory task of shopping for a car. Will it be a new car or a used car, will you go for all of the bells and whistles as add-ons, 2-door or four,and will you take the luxury car path? All of these questions may become moot save for the hold outs of the 1% who already have drivers employed. An interesting story from the Tech Insider on the shift in car ownership may be found here.

 

It may not be right around the corner and it may take a while to fully get here, but the whole concept of planning is to look to the future and its possibilities. From what I read, of the 50 largest US cities only 6% of cities’ transportation plans consider the potential effect of driverless technology. Their land-use plans are probably also lagging as far behind as well.

I, and many other Baby Boomers, may not ever buy one or even use one very often but the say that they are coming. Our technology developers are planning for and I don't think that our urban planners are.

I am open for any comments.

What Does The Future Hold For Phoenix Park?

As of the end of November, the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government now owns all of Phoenix Park.

What? Did you just ask me to explain myself?

Phoenix Park is a park which has been there since 1985, first as a temporary park of landscaping and walkways wandering through the back-filled corner property, and then made permanent. The downtown park where we chose to locate our VietNam War memorial alongside a representation of an urban stream. The park where we have placed eternal flame monuments for our fallen peace officers and firefighters. How could we do all of that if we did not own it?

Well, we did own some of it, just not all of it. Now we own all of it.

On April 5, 1985, the State of Kentucky sold the front portion of the area we now know as Phoenix Park to the City. This sale came with a restrictive covenant wherein the LFUCG could only use the property as a public park. The City had for months before been working to make this property presentable for the NCAA Final Four at Rupp Arena that year. Such work had been done on a perpetual easement granted by the State on the remaining property.

So, great, as long as we have an easement things are smooth sailing, right?

Smooth, until the State decides to consider the property surplus. KRS (Kentucky Revised Statutes) 45A.045(4) grants the Secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet the authority to determine that the property is more suitable to the public's interest if utilized in another manner. If so, then the property may be sold.

Utilized in another manner? It has been a cherished park for 30 years now, what other use would part of it be put to? A chain sandwich shop just spent a lot of money opening a storefront onto this park, now what?

Official Order 15-134 from the Secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet has declared the property surplus and directed disposition toward the LFUCG. Great, now it can stay as a park for all of the city to enjoy.

Wait a minute, what is this in the paperwork? Whereas the LFUCG proposes to “utilize the property for a public purpose only, to wit, for the purpose of creating vehicular parking...” Wait a minute, vehicular parking? In Phoenix Park? Where? How?

Remember, this is only the part that the State retained with the easement for the park purposes. But, does the downtown, walkable park really need vehicular parking to operate and maintain it? After 30 years?

Also, the State, in disposing of this property to the LFUCG, included the prior property transferred some 30 years previous “only for the purpose of releasing the restrictive covenant requiring Parcel 14 to be utilized as a public park”. A replacement restrictive covenant requiring Parcel 14 for a public purpose only, including but not limited to vehicular parking. Again with the vehicular parking. Now allowed on all of the Phoenix Park property.

This parking shall be available at all times for use by the general public. Well at least it did not say that it was free parking, just general parking.

Okay, so there is going to be public parking on the Phoenix Park property. How would you arrange it? Will they place some back-in angled spaces along the north side of Water St so that the Panera delivery folks do not have so far to walk to their vehicles? Will it be angled pull-in parking instead? How will this aid the purpose of operating or maintaining the existing park?

There must be more to come.

Lexington Looks To Improve Their Public Spaces --- Again

I cannot hide the fact that I want more walkable spaces in Lexington, even in the area considered the most walkable – downtown. Therefore, I participated in the Gehl Studios Public Space Public Life study done for the Lexington DDA this past summer. I took part in the two initial session where the questions about where the places of most interest are and what Lexingonians want in their public spaces. I not only gave my opinions but also watched as others worked to give theirs and to appropriately show locations on an aerial photo. More than a few had some trouble.

I also attended two similar versions of a presentation on the results of the study and was quite surprised by the way the data was depicted. It took me a few additional days to finally see the final study maps for a detailed perusal.

Favorite places

The initial step in the study was to gather base data and basically confirm some apparently global social desires for public spaces.

The first set of points mapped was to show where the respondents go today and for which of 4 reasons they go. This to highlight the current hot spots of urban activity as it relates to public space. The obvious and usual places jump right out at you: Jefferson Street, Triangle Park, Cheapside Pavilion, Gratz Park and the Court House Plaza. These are what I consider our current “pockets” of urban vitality.

Some others are not so logical either from their location or for the listed reason for going there. The cluster of 11 or so dots in the center of the CentrePointe “hole” indicates that some want to spend more time there – today-. An additional 8 or so indicate that they go to socialize on that block of Vine St without any public attraction apparent there. Similar groupings of markers in the Cox St parking lot for Rupp Arena or the rock strewn lot across from the Thoroughbred Park on Main St raise major question about the usefulness of this as “baseline”data. The points concerning Thoroughbred Park itself could be a whole question to be answered later.

From the responses of what Lexingtonians like to see in public spaces (here and elsewhere) and the mapped “hot-spots” of their favorites, ten key focus areas were identified. Again the obvious ones predominate. Jefferson St, Gratz Park, Short St, Cheapside Pavilion, North Lime (up to 3^rd St) and Thoroughbred Park on the north side of Main St. Triangle Park, Phoenix Park, South Limestone (at campus) and the Transit Center on the south side. As an aside, only three people indicated the Transit Center structure as a “favorite” place and they may have been misplaced.

Movement between our favorite places

The next step was to measure when and how we move between these hot-spot or “pockets” on a typical day. Using volunteers to count solely the pedestrians as they took to the streets on their daily routines, maps were generated showing hourly levels of foot traffic.

The weekday locations of maximum traffic did not surprise me, nor should it anyone else. The Short/Limestone intersection and the Transit Center /Ayres Al connection (or lack thereof) dominated the morning and evening commute time frames. Main and Short Streets from Limestone to beyond Broadway held the top area during the lunchtime hours followed by the university heavy dining choices of South Limestone restaurants. The happy hour foot traffic centered on South Lime, Main/Broadway and Jefferson St in that order.

Pedestrian traffic between any identified “pockets” is minimal to non-existent. Knowing this and seeing that the data confirm it may lead to another study, but that is what I thought would be covered in this one.

The weekend locations again surprise no one. In fact their beginning time frame is the “morning market” when the primary traffic of any kind will be focused on the weekly Lexington Farmers Market event which has held dominance in downtown for many years. The numbers for Thoroughbred Park look to be at their highest at this time and despite the claims of desires to spend more time there, they. barely make the chart. Lunchtime on a Saturday afternoon should typically find most of the activity around the dining places on the west side of Limestone and the campus hangouts of South Lime and the realization that Jefferson St barely moves the needle until after 5pm is interesting.

Again the pedestrian movement between these “pockets” is lacking.

To compare Lexington to other US cities might seem a bit presumptuous but, at its peak even Short ST is on par with other business districts. That it cannot hold that pedestrian count for any sustained amount of time tells a different story. This study does freely admit that we have definite peaks and lulls but says nothing about the relative distances of the compared districts.

Pedestrian conclusions

Some of the most notable conclusion which were drawn from the collected data are:

• 1) that very few people downtown are willing to walk to work.
• 2) that the greatest downtown pedestrian volume is at lunchtime.
• 3) that the pedestrian activity comes in bursts (usually accompanied with sponsored events).
• 4) that without the events, the pedestrians go away.
• 5)that families do not spend non-event time strolling through the downtown.

But the top conclusion was:

that people will stay downtown after work and party, get this, around the Pavilion and usually with an event. 

What is missing from any conclusion is the recognition that pedestrian traffic on Vine Street, other than at the Transit Center is minimal at best. Yet th.is is where the City has spent a lot of money in the recent past

Anybody even remotely cognizant of downtown could come up with this conclusion without hiring a consultant.

Passive public recreation figures.

In terms of what a typical downtown visitor does when one gets to a public space, Gehl Studios measured the ratio of those who lingered to those who passed by. This was labeled as “stickiness” and looks at where they did linger but not totally identifies the why of the lingering.

On a typical weekday one out of every two pedestrians took time to linger in both Gratz and Phoenix parks followed by Thoroughbred Park with one out of three, but the pedestrian numbers for Phoenix dwarfed the other two. Of the 3 sites, I can find little reason to stay at any of them.

North Limestone at 1 out of 4, South Limestone with 1 out of 7 and Jefferson St showing 1 out of 15 all share the same characteristic, the public realm in each is the sidewalk which connects drinking/dining establishments there. I think that the Jefferson St ratio is skewed due to the number of elderly from Connie Griffith Manor out for a walk around the block.

Triangle Park holds one out of every 38 passers by on a typical weekday and one out of 19 on the weekends. Unless there is an event in the park, there is little reason to pause for any length of time. The park neither engages the street nor fully isolates the seeker of passive free time from the sounds of major city traffic. One cannot find respite from the hot summer sun nor the brisk spring and autumn breezes and while the soothing sounds of the tumbling water may bring comfort to the mind it does not mask reality. What becomes quite evident from the numbers is that despite the claims of being “favorite” places, Thoroughbred and Triangle Parks are not very popular. Symbolic and visually striking, but not gathering spots for Lexington.

Four guiding strategies

After the collection of numbers, the visualizations of the actions of our pedestrians versus the expressed desires of interested parties and the discovery of the lack of retention elements of our public saces, the Gehl Studios group put out 4 strategies to guide further work.

To begin with, we need a “people first” urban core. With that I agree. That is not to say we need to remove automobile traffic altogether, but to limit its domination of all forms of urban traffic. Pedestrians should get priority at major intersections and through town vehicular traffic should be discouraged.

Then a bridging of our north-south divide by not just strengthening our Limestone and Jefferson corridors, but Martin Luther King and Rose/Elm Tree Lane as well. Our focus need not be just on the west side of Limestone. The report says to 'prioritize sidewalk improvements' and that should not be limited to additional paving but more and better retail engagement to whatever pavement that currently exists.

We must also begin to use what we have, our existing resources. It was acknowledged that all of our “great” destination style public spaces are not well connected. That these spaces need to be easily accessible and imbued with something to invite and hold a visitors interest. Attempts at better way-finding signage are being made but we must do more. It is suggested that an increase in diverse and more dramatic programming, with extended hours could be the answer, but there is an expense to that.

Filling in the gaps, those basically dead pedestrian segments, seems to roll all of the other strategies into a culminating objective for downtown. Many of these gaps are extended lengths of monochromatic wall or surface parking lots where retail formerly stood. Main St and Vine St are of particular note in having more of this dead space, even where the former retail spaces remain but the engagement with the sidewalk/pedestrian is missing. No amount of streetscape redesign or rain gardens will solve this.

Next, I think will look at the several “pilot” projects which have been proposed. Until then, let me know what you think.

Are We Planning For Real Change

Apparently seeing one of Google’s experimental, driverless cars driving or parking itself on a San Francisco street, is not all that unusual. So, can you imagine just how the widespread use of driverless autos might affect the city of Lexington? Would you be much different than the residents here in the late 1890s had they been told that horses could soon be a rare sight in city streets? How will you react when you first encounter an example of one?

With so many people working and thinking about this technology will our planners soon have to begin incorporating provisions for it? Most of our city's plans have been prepared as looking about 20 years into the future, yet history (our history) shows that our future is moving well faster than we have ever planned for. My favorite example is the plans to expand our former streetcar system in 1930 and within the decade the whole system was gone. Life moves a bit faster these days.

A common scenario for driverless cars is one where you don’t drive in circles looking for a parking spot because your car drops you off and then parks itself to await your call. From a current local viewpoint this is desirable since it is your car and you want it available when you need it. From the view of one from a more populous area, a taxi or car service can work better, hence the rise of Zipcar and Uber. 

For many in this country, an automobile is a mobile storage devise for their belongings and which takes them places.

Next, let us imagine that we will eschew the use of “personal” autos for the ease of use of driverless car services. The then common dream is that surface parking lots will become park or recreation areas. I find wildly unlikely unless it is a city owned lot and most are not. Parks are a revenue drain and not a revenue generator, therefore the bane of private investors. 

What do you expect to see happen to this property then? Can you squeeze a modern usage building on some of these oddly shaped lots without taking a few “historic” structures?

Shifting our attention to the streets themselves, many say that we will need far fewer traffic signals when both autos and the streets are equipped with sensors and can coordinate between each other. What does that do to the walkability of an area? Can we cross the street safely with out traffic signals if the driverless cars are zipping by nose to tail with each other?

On the one hand, streets can then be narrower if there is no need for on street parking, but narrower streets are a problem to some of our massive delivery vehicles. Until they develop a self unloading delivery vehicle I doubt that we will see a driverless one. Parking lane may disappear but the loading zone will be with us a while longer.

In our suburbs we can begin to eliminate the large expanses of parking at the shopping malls and big-box stores if the trips are made in neighborhood “pool car” which will drop you off and come to get you. (Kind of sounds like a circulatory bus without a driver doesn't it?) To what use will all of that land be put then?

May we also see the loss of the attached multi-car garages with their mostly blank panels or, worse yet, a gaping maw of an opening. Among many Millennials the auto as a status symbol is a foreign concept and it is becoming harder to sell them on it.

Speaking of selling things, how will they sell driverless car and to whom. 

It's no secret that car commercials are, by and large, fiction. Shiny cars roaring along empty city streets devoid of traffic jams. Not a traffic jam (or signal) in sight, just the joy of the open road for the driver. How can you get an exhilarating feeling if you are not driving? Will car commercials disappear like the cigarette one did but for different reasons?

How soon do you think that some kind of drastic change can come about? Above are just a few of the early changes that we could see should we adopt the driverless auto as quickly as we did the “horseless carriage”. Perhaps you have thought of something I left out. Drop me a line and tell me you thoughts.

Perceptions Pervade Planning Public Parking

As I said in my last parking post, “...public perceptions will always trail the reality of most situations”.  It appears that the perceptions of Debbie Long, owner of Dudley’s on Short, did not live up to the reality as it relates to the parking situation in downtown Lexington.

“We found that my guests really adapted easily to our downtown parking,” Long said in the recent Business Lexington article. 

Parking should not be a complicated process, but to many of the suburban mindset downtown parking is never as easy as it is in the shopping malls like Fayette Mall or Hamburg.  There one can park within a few hundred feet of a store's front door, walk for a mile and a half until exhausting the store's selection, go back to the car and move it a half mile and do it all over again, until tired.

Long says it’s not the concept of paying for parking or the short walk to the restaurant that creates a problem for her patrons.  The hard part is the confusion which comes from the inconsistent marking of visitor parking and employee/event or even the resident parking.

I have long been of the persuasion that on-street parking should be for those using it less than an hour at a time.  That probably comes from the historical 1-hour limit on most parking meters.  Surface parking (hopefully tucked in a block interior and a simple entrance) should be for several hours of usage (typically less than 3) and structured parking for all day and residential patrons.  Hence, on-street = highly visible, surface = basically hidden and structured = part of the office/residential complex.

It does appear that progress is being made of arriving at a standard identification symbol for parking facilities and there is a working group of parking operators which meets regularly.  But settling on a logo and some other embellishments does not solve the problem quickly. Gary Means, LexPark Executive Director, admits “The new signage will be phased in as budgets allow” since the group is still discussing how the new signage will be funded.

The other side of the coin in any discussion of downtown parking is; How are we going to continue to accommodate our need for parking?  Planners and developers first look at what and how much parking will be needed, usually by looking at what was required in the past.  It is a standard practice that they have been taught.

Past experiences and trends do not always allow for the good prediction of future events. 

Take a look at the “predictions” of Lexington's 1930 Comprehensive Plan.  Public transportation consisted of a mix of streetcars and auto-buses running routes which covered pretty much all of the city limits.  The Plan called for systematically extending the streetcar lines into the establishing neighborhoods, but due to the Great Depression and some Congressional acts meant to counteract the poor economic times by 1938 the streetcars had all been removed.  I don't think anybody saw it coming.

Take a look at the “predictions” of Lexington's 1947 Comprehensive Plan.  Gearing up for and fighting World War II had brought us out of the Depression, the GI's were coming home and ,with the streetcars gone, everybody had a car these days.  The Plan called for a certain percentage increase in auto ownership by 1970, but we blew through that estimate by the early '50s.  The roads that we planned to build like the By-Pass, now New Circle Rd, were undersized and crowded by the time they opened.  I don't think anybody saw it coming.

It seems that we are always planning for the existing situations or for those of the recent past since that is what we can justify through statistics.  Experience should show that we have very little to look back on and say that we got it right.  Who planned for the use of personal computers, either in the workplace or at home, or predicted the explosion of the use of smart phones so that our community would be ready for them when it happened?

Downtown retailers and developers do listen intently to their existing and potential clients in terms of what the parking needs are expected to be, but how many of them or their predecessors were unprepared for the surprises cited above?  Many cities are looking at TOD (Transportation Oriented Development) but it doesn't come up in any news reports or announcements about our downtown.  Not even the much ballyhooed Rupp Arena redesign or the Town Branch project.  Will Lexington be skipping that part of following the trends in other “world class” cities?

There are some other trends to which we should be paying attention.

Since 2008, the number of miles driven nationally has fallen markedly.  This was first attributed to the onset of the recent economic recession and the housing crisis.  That statistic continues to decline even after we have entered the “recovery” phase and we return to what was normalcy.  People, and young people in particular, are just driving less miles and not always in their own vehicle.  Car-sharing is a recent urban phenomenon to which the suburbanite mind does not relate.

Suburbanites can really grok the idea of a flashy car and the open road.  This must be what sells cars because it is in almost all of the new car ads on TV.  Even the ones showing downtown driving have the subject auto as the only car on the street.  If this were reality, then there is no parking problem.  Crowded roads and urban gridlock is not meshing well with the alleged purposes of buying a new car.

The main reason that suburbanites need an auto in the first place is to get to a job.  Jobs in which wages have generally not kept up with the family needs.  New roads and cheap oil have allowed past home buyers to drive until they qualified for a mortgage.  Now that need for a car is more pronounced than ever but the new roads, the cheap oil and the quality mortgages are fading from most household's view.

More and more of today's new automobile commercials are promoting extras like navigation systems and Wi-Fi hot spots with live streaming of video or Bluetooth communications instead of 4-wheel drive and snappy handling.  These are all aimed at the youth market and that market is remarkably shunning the auto either by choice or economic necessity.

The just released 2013 Car Affordability Study, from Interest.com measures how much the households in our top metro areas should pay for a car that they can afford.  The formula is simple, a down payment of at least 20%; auto financing lasting no longer than four years; and principal, interest and insurance not exceeding 10% of a household’s gross income.  Mike Sante, managing editor of Interest.com, in a statement said "Car costs are one of the most controllable parts of a household's budget." 

The top 25 metro areas were compared by median household income and this formula and then ranked.  How do you think that Lexington fared?  I, for one, was surprised.

Lexington's median income is $48,306, which places us right between the last two communities on the study's list.  It nestles us right between Miami and Tampa.  Of course the “affordable” range of auto in Tampa was $14,516,  that is 52.48% less than the median price of a 2013 vehicle.  The typical two car household of the Lexington suburbs can now safely afford about half of a new car.  That, my friends, is without considering any commuting costs or maintenance.  Our recent college graduates, with their high student loan debt, cannot afford to drive until they qualify to live in the suburbs.

Wages, as a percentage of GDP, have been declining since 1970.  Lexington's population since merger has nearly doubled and what looked to be a large suburban growth was a great migration from the inner city.  Indications are that this migration will reverse itself as it has in other cities.

We also need to hold on to our values when we choose a direction and avoid the traps of other cities. 

In Philadelphia, the administration has spent years talking up the value of lively, walkable streets.  Their Convention Center was purposely built without parking to discourage hordes of motorists from jamming the streets around the building, and to encourage visitors to use transit. Their 1991 Center City Plan prohibits parking next door on the adjacent Arch Street, specifically in the belief that Philadelphia's downtown activity should not be broken up by garages.

In 2010, a developer argued that parking was in short supply in the area and proposed that he build a parking garage, the problem was that his site wasn't zoned for a garage.  Fearing the loss job opportunities, the permitting process was eased, an excellent design team brought in to design and build it.  As of now, and many of you may draw parallels to our CentrePointe project, the Arch Street garage has brought no development, no new shops or restaurants, and no good design.

Inga Saffron, the Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic, put it well, “… design will not save us from what's wrong with garages. The real problem with these utilitarian structures - and we're talking about the free-standing, aboveground kind, located in downtown settings - is that they distort how the city functions.

Saffron goes on, “When you insert a garage on a dense, pedestrian-friendly block, you can't help but dilute the mix by widening the distance between people and their destinations. Meanwhile, new parking encourages people to drive instead of taking transit, which only further increases the demand for more parking. Putting garages underground, below mixed-use buildings, is expensive, but at least it minimizes the harm.”

What does any of this mean in our preparing to plan for our downtown's future?  We are approaching that point in the life of the 2007 Plan where, in past plans, the reality completely obliterates some of the major assumptions of earlier proposals.  Are we about to lose a concept of urban life that we have counted on or is it already gone and we believe it dormant?  Is there something that we should be, or have been, planning for that will appear an oversight? 

We can, as most other cities have, continue to plan for how we think that life will remain in our fair city, or we can plan for how we would like for Lexington to be.  We often promote Lexington as “unique” and it definitely is, actually despite the repeated attempts to transplant ideas from other communities.  Progressive cities will ask “What can we do that no other city has?” while we ask “Why can't we have that in our city?”  Are we willing to join the progressive cities and ask the correct question?

I can understand our downtown developers using the conventional wisdom of looking to the city government to build their structured parking, but government is not building the parking lots of the suburban retail stores.  Cities used to believe that they HAD to do this to aide in downtown revitalization.  Our city is in the process of divesting itself of all its parking garages and getting out of the parking business.  To that I say a big “hooray”.  Now the questions arise, “Should the Parking Authority, the agency now in control of the downtown garages, consider building expensive spaces for a society which may be trending away from requiring them?  Should the Parking Authority take the gamble that a developer will not?

I guess, in the end, it all comes down to perceptions, mostly based on past experiences.  The public believes that available downtown parking is hard to find or inconveniently placed.  The retailers believe that parking should be provided for them.  Developers and landlords believe that they need assistance to serve their clients. So, now I ask you; Do these perceptions trail the reality and will these perceptions change with reality?

p.s. For further thoughts on parking planning go here

A Question About Parking

I believe that it would surprise most folks to know that a machine, developed nearly ninety years ago, was first used to ease the parking situation of the day. The hated parking meter.

There are some in my own family who will not think about venturing downtown simply because they feel that finding a place to park is too big of a chore with which to deal. However simple the task to accomplish, finding a parking spot is much more difficult. Between the traffic on the one way streets and the supposedly endless searching for a close parking space, they would rather go to the mall. I think that they typify the opinion of many in the neighborhoods outside New Circle Rd. and a good many within.

Conventional thought of the past 50 years or so has been that it is no problem just to hop in the car and run to the store. You could park at the front door, quickly get in and get out and be home in no time flat. The roads to the store are now wider and carry more cars, the parking lots are bigger as are the stores but it still does not cost you to make the trip. It is always free parking, for you.

The rise of the automobile in America led to more than the freedom of the open road, it led to chaos in the streets of eastern cities which were not designed for them. Cities were built to accommodate rather than integrate cars. According to Kerry Segrave in “Parking Cars in America, 1910-1945”, The idea in force in American law at the start of the 20th century, that thoroughfares were for the movement of traffic—with certain specific exceptions such as the loading and unloading of goods and passengers—gave way fairly quickly to the idea that took root in the popular mind that parking of vehicles on the street was a right and not a privilege. In response, ill-conceived regulations helped cement the concept of free parking as a public good across America, fueling our dependence on automobiles.

Unlimited free parking, without legal restrictions to encourage turnover, soon led to commonplace traffic jams on many city streets, complete with double parking, traffic at a crawl and employees hogging the prime spots all day. I doubt that it helped when turning movements at intersections, with or without traffic control, was added into the equation. Thus the parking meter was devised.

In 1933, Carl C Magee, a Oklahoma newspaper man and entrepreneur, engaged two engineering professors at Oklahoma State University to design and build a control devise. Two years later, Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale had their first working parking meter, the Black Maria. Magee, having been named to Oklahoma City's Chamber of Commerce Traffic Committee, chose the corner of First Street and Robinson Avenue as a starting point and installed a series of meters along a whole block face. The date was July 16, 1935. Lexington would wait ten more years, July 22, 1946 for their first meters and thus proving Mark Twain wrong.

Each devise cost of $23 apiece but were installed gratis with the understanding that their initial capital cost would be repaid by the five-cent hourly rate, after which the city would reap all parking fees.

Ironically, the world's first parking ticket occurred about one month after the Oklahoma installation when the Rev. C.H. North received a citation while he had gone inside a grocery store to get change for the meter. The judge dismissed the case.

Regardless, the parking did its job and business picked up so dramatically in the first week that the other side of the street demanded that they also have meters installed. Word spread quickly and so did the meters. Lexington, when we did get meters (see above), made a gutsy move and installed 700 meters, on a trial basis.

The reported first days collection of parking meter coins amounted to $451.47 and by the end of 1948 revenues totaled $64,708 for the year.

How did this apparent panacea for all of parking's ills go from being loved in the late '30s to being basically despised two decades later? Can the same thing be said for the stoplights too?

As towns became cities and urban centers, more street space was filled with the parked cars rather than moving ones. Unlike our larger east coast communities, most city's leaders didn’t turn to mass transit as a solution to the increased congestion, but found it to be a convenient excuse to remove what efficient commuter tracks and inner-city rail systems that were in place. Lexington's residents who bought in the neighborhoods designed around the streetcar soon found themselves needing an automobile and a place to put it at home. All of this right in the middle of the Great Depression.

The resulting increase in traffic and its need for parking should have enticed any enterprising property owner to build multi-level, covered parking spaces, much like the older livery stables which could be found dotting downtown at the turn of the century. The building of and maintenance of parking garages can be an expensive proposition, which is why many property owners today look to the local government for assistance.

Probably the best reason for the reversal in thought is “... decades of poor meter implementation, inane off-street parking requirements, and [a] technological stasis [which] slowly turned our city streets into a driver’s nightmare.” according to Hunter Oatman-Stanford in a Collector's Weekly article from January of this year. This could be as a simple as overuse of the meters or just poor placement, which when it did not work as expected was supplemented by equally bad implementations of parking requirements. In typical American response to these ill-conceived regulations, drivers soon began to see the concept of free parking as a public good.

I personally believe that government should not be in the parking business. Provide for their employees and customers, like private enterprise, but that is as far as it should go. Instead of NOT providing free parking, how about encouraging FREE public transit..

Donald Shoup, professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, explains that minimum parking requirements “led planners and developers to think that parking is a problem only when there isn’t enough of it.” All across America today's legally required lots are, more often than not, half-empty since they are designed for the maximum peak use. Parking is kind of like dark matter in the universe, we know it’s there, but we don’t have any idea how much there is.” Today parking lots cover more of urban America than any other single-use of space and it is estimated that the U.S. has as many as eight parking spaces per car.

As the suburban lots are underused for typically short length stays and the downtown spaces are overused for typically day long stays, where is the balance point? When will we begin to mandate “right-sized” parking for particular parts of town rather than continuing a “one size fits all” approach? I can see the developing Design Excellence Guidelines having some input in this regard, but they need to be for all of Lexington and not just the B-2 family of zones downtown.

So, what is lacking in the way of downtown parking? The quantity or quality of inexpensive parking? Or just the lack of free parking where you want it? I think that there should be a definite private participation in our structured parking solutions

The right sizing of parking to our development types and locations along with better public transit access should play a more important in the success of downtown retail, entertainment, offices and residency. But public perceptions will always trail the reality of most situations and as more Millinenials adjust their perceptions, I think that we will see the need for downtown parking wane.

Now, if I were in total control of downtown parking; For the visitor, it would be visible, For the local, it would be there but hidden and Public transit would make it superfluous.

“Neighborhood” Options

I kind of wish that I had written this.

There are a handful of ways in which you can tell FILL IN THE BLANK is still just a small town on the cusp of being a big city. Restaurants that close at 9 p.m. and don’t open on Sundays is one. Another is the attitude many FILL IN THE BLANK'S RESIDENTS have toward parking.

Parking has been a constant topic of discussion – and outrage for some – lately. Neighbors seem to spring into action over the idea of a café or bar around the corner, lamenting that they don’t want cars parked on their streets. Others think the City of FILL IN THE BLANK should provide free parking downtown and in destination areas like FILL IN THE LOCATION . I think everyone should just get over it.

FILL IN THE BLANK is a developing city thanks to the unique personalities and businesses that are already here (and have been developing here for decades) and to the encouragement of the state and local government. People like FILL IN THE BLANK for its weather, its local businesses and its quirkiness. People moving to this city are helping improve this city.

I find in this writer a somewhat kindred spirit. Someone who feels about cities in the same way that I do. Reading farther, it just gets better.

She talks about the new and exciting restaurants which have opened and the many recent arrivals who are bringing increased vibrancy to her city's scene. And who can leave out the rise of the creative classes which throng to exciting places.

I think that she really strikes a chord when she says of the attitudes of the established locals;

“I want to enjoy all FILL IN THE BLANK has to offer, but not within walking distance of my house.”

Is this not the attitude we see in the many comments against what some could call the natural evolution of a city? Apparently it is not just our city, because it is happening elsewhere. Many forms of NIMBYism are alive and well all across America.

A vibrant, diverse and creative city doesn’t have a single “business district” – that model of city planning, where a large central business district is surrounded by housing developments, is a failed idea that creates car dependency, pockets of crime and overweight people.

Don't you just want to shout this from the top of the Lexington Financial Building (Big Blue, to a lot of us)? This wildly suburban attitude may be just the thing that is keeping us from reaching that next step up the city evolutionary ladder.

Multiple or distributed business districts can, and should be, more than extended shopping corridors along the primary thoroughfares leading onto or out of town and large commercial centers. It is the presence of these distributed business districts which helps to describe real neighborhoods. In order for non-residential uses to consider anything other than the extended corridors or centers, the impact of traffic and parking is always discussed, - no argued.

Increasing levels of traffic are indicators of the vitality of an area but are usually also looked at as markers to the diminished safety of a residential section. I choose to believe that the quietest streets are not always the safest and not all traffic activity is vehicular. A cul-de-sac far from a commercial district can be as lonely as living on the moon.

Parking, on the other hand, really only becomes a major headache when the activity or retail endeavor has to draw clientele from more that a comfortable walking distance. Unfortunately for many people, that comfortable distance is growing shorter every year. Turns out people are not very good at conceiving of the distances they walk with any accuracy, according to Kevin Krizek, a planning and civil engineering professor at the University of Colorado. An evening walk to the corner pub or bistro-like dining is something our suburbanites may never know.

A solution to the traffic and parking questions could, or I think should, be more “neighborhood” options. The more “neighborhood” options in an area, away from major, busy traffic corridors, the greater likelihood of people living within that “comfortable distance” of those multiple options to ditch automobile and walk. Voila, cleaner air, healthier people and a more vibrant neighborhood and city.

Some of us are old enough to remember when there were more of these “neighborhood” options and they were located in a somewhat organic manner. They did seem to just grow there, “naturally”, neither forced nor constrained.

Did the strong survive? Did the survivors adapt? Both are good evolution questions but the real question is: Why have more of them not sprouted in our newer neighborhoods? That would take us back to the topics of traffic and parking. While the older “neighborhood” options got along without one or the other, any new ones will be required to have both. Maybe these could be classified as a GMO strain of local retail, but they have definitely been rejected.

So, does anyone recognize the city about which my kindred spirit writes? It surprised me to see that it is also a State University city with many college students. It is a center of politics and economics and if you would like to read more of her work, Stephanie Myers can tell you all about Getting Around the city of Austin, Texas.

Just One Day Left

Tonight is Wednesday Sept. 19, 2012 and it is two days before this years PARK(ing) day.  I reminded you of this some months ago in the hopes that someone would look into the subject a little farther and maybe organize a local effort.

Well, it may have worked - somewhat.

At first, I thought that I would keep harping on the subject but then found that very few of you will give any response.  Then I just sat back to see if any effort would come forward.  (Crickets)

It was by chance that I followed up on one of the referring links to my blog, that I saw an entry on the Bluegrass PRIDE calendar of their participation in a local (PARK(ing) day event.  That calendar links back to a post from 2011, but it is for this year's event.  I was now on the chase to see who was behind this year's effort.

A simple Google check revealed the the Fayette Alliance was also participating this year and that there was an organizing meeting held in August.  Very quietly held to be truthful.  The Kentucky Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects in partnership with the University of Kentucky Landscape Architecture Program is listed as the lead organizer yet a visit to either of their websites showed no mention of this year's event or even that such an event existed until the end of August.  A co-sponsor, The Lexington Art League, also has no mention of it on their website though they are listing the Gallery Hop and pARTy which they are conducting at Cheapside on the same evening.

It is looking to be a well-kept secret here in Lexington.  Our friends over in Louisville have been tweeting about it for months.  Here, I still hear crickets.

Last year, there were 162 cities participating, many with full government support and over 900 temporary parks set up for the day - the whole day - for which the fed the meter faithfully.  Lexington's event is for the hours of 4 until 8 p.m., just four measly hours.  Many cities had several locations around town but ours will be solely along W. Short Street near Cheapside.

I sincerely hope that this event will gather some attention from the press and particularly from the City.  I would like to see the Parking Authority get behind this, even to the point of involving the design studios of both our universities as well as the landscape architects in training.  I would propose that at least one park(ing) spot be placed in each district and even local voting enabled.

What I don't understand is why we are lagging behind.

Wasted Time In Traffic?

According to a Treasury Department report, we Americans are wasting 1.9 billion gallons of gasoline annually in traffic, mostly in typical highway congestion. That does not include whatever may be wasted just idling while waiting for moments at a time which then stretch into much longer time periods. Just think about what fuel is wasted while waiting for your kids to get out of school. At $3.75 a gallon, that adds up to a lot of dough. Traffic congestion costs drivers more than $100 billion annually in wasted fuel and lost time.

It just seems to be an awful lot of money to be spending to have the freedom to go across town whenever you want to, then find that everyone else has the same idea. They are not going to the same place that you are, but enough are going in the same basic direction or crossing over your path to make it annoying and time consuming. That is the joy of retail begetting retail in ever expanding commercial areas. Is it any wonder that online retail has grown so rapidly?

There was a time when we planned on how long it would take us to get to the other side of town. There were not so many of us then and the other side of town was just not as far away as it is now, yet we feel that we should be able to get there in the same amount of time. If only the roads could carry more traffic or maybe some of those other folks should just stay home.

America invests less in transportation infrastructure than most other countries at just about about 2% of the gross domestic product. Compare that to Europe at 5% and China at 9% of GDP. Congress is bickering about passing a transportation budget while our infrastructure continues to age and erode and the Highway Trust Fund limps along due to an inadequate gas tax or more fuel efficient cars, take your pick.

Still, we can't seem to get out of our cars. This far in the future we were supposed to have the little “Sprockets” like George Jetson had, that would speed us anywhere we wanted to go and then fold up into a briefcase for storage. That, of course, has not happened.

If anything, our cars have become more like a part of the family or and extension of the house in which we let it reside. They are pampered almost as much as our pets, just more expensive.

The average American family spends more than $7,600 annually on transportation — more than it spends on food and twice what it spends on out-of-pocket health care costs. Is it any wonder that we are always looking for that extra mile per gallon or the free parking space? Yet we will drive that extra mile or two to find a food bargain or shop where there is no metered parking.

There are those of us who say that we care about the environment, so we drive a Prius because of the fantastic gas mileage and crow about the reduced carbon footprint. But when we park it in a surface lot, we are really no better that a Hummer or Lincoln Navigator when it comes to an overall environmental footprint. The pollutants that it took/takes to build and maintain the 9' x 18' space and the increased precipitation runoff is going to be the same whether you are driving a motorcycle or a Winnebago.

Can you believe that there are an estimated three nonresidential parking spaces for every car in the United States. Enough to cover about 4,360 square miles or 15.2 times the size of Fayette County. So, does that mean that you have a place for your car at home, at work and at the shopping center? Sure, you let others use it when you aren't there but they had better be out of it when you get there. I mean, you car is in one of them about 95% of the time, and because it doesn't fold up like the Jetsons', it has to go somewhere.

For all of its faults, the parking lot may well be the most regularly used outdoor space in America. Where else do cars and pedestrians peacefully coexist for the most part? Yet I can't help but think that some of these spaces could be used for better outdoor and possibly beneficial environmental types of uses. If we could just let our imagination go, I am sure that we can come up with something

Or, maybe we can just leave the car at home and eliminate the need for most parking lots.

Park(ing) Day Is Coming Up

This year I am getting ahead of this.  

I have written about this annual event before but always after the fact.

Park(ing) Day is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 16, 2011 and that is just over three weeks away.  Park(ing) Day is when you can take over a parking space for the day and turn it into your idea of useful urban space.  More information is available here as well as a downloadable license (pdf). 

I don't know that Lexington has participated in this annual event before but I cannot think that some of you folks will not try it sometime.  We have some very fine parks here in Lexington and many of you will probably agree that there is a large unused park right in the middle of town, but this is your chance to create your very own park for a day.

I would not go for placing one in the Hamburg Pavilion lot or even along Southland Drive.  Chevy Chase shopping center or Meadowthorpe seem like more appropriate candidates.  Downtown would give you the most exposure, but who wants to set up right on Vine St?

So, who wants to set an urban park in a parking slot for a day?  Let me know where yours is and I will try to get as many photos as I can and will post them here.

Get ready, Park(ing) Day is coming.

Again With The Grocery Stores

Grocery stores are in the news again.

The Business Lexington recently broke the news that I have been sitting on for a few days so I guess it is okay to talks about now.  The Kroger store in Chevy Chase has had a parking problem for lo these many years.  About as many years as since the returned to a Chevy Chase location.  As they made the stores bigger, the problem just got bigger too.

The first building that I remember on this property was a Colonial Alber's grocery store and, like Kroger, they sat back off the street with parking in the front.  At that time, the entire block of Lafayette (now Marquis) Ave. was filled with houses and commercial businesses had yet to encroach.  This and a sister store on Southland Dr were their only foray into the Lexington market.  Built in the mid 'fifties, in ten years they were gone.

Masters TV & Appliances had moved from the present Charlie Browns spot and stayed until a Higgin's KRI branch opened.  Neither one lasted very long.  Then came the Piece Goods Shop, a fabric and sewing store, which lasted until the very early '70s.

Kroger, which had had a presence in Chevy Chase since before the war (WWII), had moved to the 500 block of S. Upper St., then decided to return, tore down the old building and (if I recall correctly) brought the building a bit closer to the sidewalk squeezing the parking a little in order to bring in the delivery trucks to the rear.  Over the years, they have had two expansions and have approached their 40,000 sq. ft. limit for the B-1 zone.  Parking and the increase in population/area from which they draw has become a greater and greater mismatch, even after they acquired additional property.

A possible solution, placing the parking on the roof.  Hey, why not, it has been done successfully in Florida.  (I guess that goes along with Florida's own Fark tag.)  My feeling is that the engineering and the space necessary for the ramps up and down is going to be too costly and that it might be better to excavate for all the mechanical, food prep and offices.  That would leave much more of the ground floor for sale area.

I like the idea if it being right up on the sidewalk (10 feet back)and a possible cafe style seating area.  Even a art style bus stop could be designed into the facade.  Bring back the old type display windows and an awning and you have the urban feel of the rest of Chevy Chase.  It does seem strange to be talking about parking solutions in such a walkable neighborhood as this is.

The title does say stores - plural - so what is the other one.

A legal ad in the Wednesday Herald-Leader stated the intention of applying for a couple of liquor licenses for the old Joe's Crab Shack location on Nicholasville Rd. near Regency Center.  Also, within the last few weeks, an amended development plan was approved for a mystery tenant and the 15,000 sq. ft. structure is clearly labeled as a grocery and an attached liquor outlet.

Do we know any small footprint stores which would like to keep its plans quiet for a while?

The name on the legal ad was ......................Trader Joe's.

Why Valet Parking?

The City has just recently finished the re-do of the Main St sidewalks and parking spaces. This is no surprise. Connie Jo Miller has been telling us for the past few months that "the world is coming" and that Lexpark has worked hard to free up the parking spaces in downtown, making them available to all. One of the best parts is the statement about "all parking spaces are FREE after 5:00P.M.

This evening, while walking to my car, I watched the valet parking guys from Bellini's setting up for the supper hour. Waitresses were setting the outside tables and the ladies from Taste of Thai were sweeping and preparing. An auto, bearing Florida plates, pulled into a space on the CentrePointe side of the street, the driver sat idling and the valet raced across the street (No, he did not use the crosswalk or wait for the light) and approached the drivers side.

It seems that Bellini's has an agreement with the City to appropriate three of these "free" parking spaces for their "valet service". It was not yet 5:00 and so the spaces still were on the clock - so to speak.

The valet's supervisor also approached the car and explained that the sign had not been put in place yet, but the spaces were "reserved". (He also did not use the crosswalk.) I guess that the driver was waiting for someone but he did not want to eat at Bellini's or give his car to a stranger. If it was me, I would have asked for the paperwork to prove that it "was" valet parking spaces.

I really do want all the downtown restaurants to do well, but we have just invested a boatload of cash to make our downtown streets extremely inviting and walkable. We have previously invested even more money to build several parking structures, within easy walking distance, and now our downtown diners don't want to use them? I am not even talking about the foreign visitors, they are not here yet, these are our home-grown taxpayers who won't use what they paid for and complain that they are over taxed.

I truly believe that the government should not be in the parking business. Leave that to private enterprise like the livery stables of old, back when we did not have cars and rode carriages and buggies. I also believe that private enterprise should not "freely appropriate" a portion of something that we all have paid for. I hope that there is a yearly fee for the use of these parking spaces. If there is, it should be set by Lexpark but approved by the Council, so that we all know what it is.

Over the last year, the city has given Bellini's and the other downtown establishments some beautiful new dining and relaxing spaces, and I hope that there are more to come. The Mill St proposal comes to mind and the Esplanade. The walkable downtown streets should encourage our patrons to linger a while and walk off a bit of dinner, not hop out of the car - eat - hop in the car and go. That is what drive-ins and drive-thrus are for. You do notice that we don't have any of those downtown, don't you?

In the next few weeks, crowds will throng around downtown(or so we are told) and the CentrePointe block and some will remember what Connie Jo told them about free parking spaces and most of them will be using the sidewalks for their intended purpose, walking. At some point(hopefully in the not to distant future) some sort of construction WILL occur on the block and the curb lane parking spaces WILL disappear (temporarily?) Will Bellini's cry foul them, or not?

Proposal For The Fourth Of July

The more hear from folks about last weeks celebration of the Fourth of July and the good job that they did in arranging the venues, the more I believe that most of Lexington think like Mrs. Sweeper. They are under the assumption that there is no good place to park and many stay home.

Mrs Sweeper's desire to catch the trolley and ride in is a good idea even if it is impossible. But why is it impossible in this day and age? The Fourth of July only comes once a year regardless of when you celebrate it and everybody should be encouraged to attend, therefore the city and all of its satellite agencies should do their part. I think that Lextran is one agency that should step to the forefront and provide shuttle service from the neighborhoods at a reduced cost for that one day.

I do realize that Saturday is a normal workday for many folks and it may be a hardship on Lextran and their overtime scheduling, but how often does the Fourth fall on a Sunday and celebrated on the Third? Perhaps if more people were encouraged(and enabled) to get downtown there would be less reason for the suburban retail to be open and thus more folks wanting to get downtown.

This may be something to think about before next year.

Thoughts On Driverless Cars

Back in March, my favorite tool, Randal O'Toole had apiece in the Wall Street Journal about taking the driver out of the car. By that he did not mean getting people out of their cars but just not letting them drive. Randal has long had an aversion to government or planner control of what he considers "personal freedoms", such as where we live and work or how we get between them. In his WSJ article, he clearly buys in to the belief that we can, by use of technology, create a system to allow passengers(i.e. not the drivers) to zip across the country to their destinations.

Driverless cars have so far remained the stuff of science fiction... they are finally close to reality... Making them completely driverless will involve little more than a software upgrade.

Most "coast to coast" travel is done by air nowadays so I doubt that Randal is speaking only of "coast to coast" travel and mainly focusing on commuting and regional travel. The commuting public is usually the group that ends up in gridlock situations. This brings up the question of when will such a system be required on even the majority of personal autos and who will enforce that requirement. My bet is that it will be government planners.

There are currently on the market several makes of autos that can self park and/or notify the driver of dangerous situations but these come with hefty price tags. Low end cars are what dominate the market these days (we are still in a recession). O'Toole mentions some experimental autos that make use of the enhanced global positioning system and how such technology would be used to allow autos to travel mere inches apart at cruising speed or higher(ala NASCAR). Have you seen the mess that makes with just one little bobble or a mechanical failure? And doesn't the government control the GPS satellites?

What would it do to the marketing of automobiles? Today they appeal to the "thrill of the open road" and the "joy of driving", if you remove the driver then all you are buying is a shiny metal box on wheels. Each one little different that the other, where is the status symbol in that? One would not be allowed to perform differently than another(that would defeat the purpose) but it could control the cost. Uh oh, there is the word again, control, Randal doesn't like that word.

Then there is the question of the speed limit or the cruising speed of normal traffic. Would you be able to switch the technology on and off depending on conditions? Would you need it on lightly used roadways? What if you wanted to take a more leisurely pace, to take in the scenery instead of whipping by at high speed? Higher throughput for the morning and evening rush hours would make for shorter commute times but does nothing for the destination storage problem nor the singularity of use insanity of auto ownership.

If we were to make this a reality AND peak oil proves to be correct, with what would we fuel these autos? Electric vehicles get up to 40 miles on an 8 hour charge, and while this may change, that is hardly sufficient for the longer, standard commute of many Central Kentuckians or the commutes of larger urban areas. This would require the non-use of the vehicle for the entire working day while it recharges, not to mention that parking lots and garages are not set up for such a thing. These things would have to be planned for, especially in government owned and operated garages. Parking spaces in shopping centers is a whole other story, can we guess how that would end?

I have no doubt that Randal's scenario could be accomplished but not without a major paradigm shift and a lot of planning. It is a lot more than a "simple software upgrade" and not without a lot of other variables being just so. If private industry is going to drive(so to speak) this driverless auto scenario, then they are coming to the table very slowly and if the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the Toyota (et. al.) recalls are any indication, then I don't want their type of technology.

The Case For Urban Grocery's

The New Urban News has an article posted about the rise in downtown urban grocers. Something that is happening mostly in the larger cities and places that understand the meaning of density. Washington DC has ten in the building or planning stage currently. Lexington has at least one in the wishing stage.

Urban-format grocery stores are built mostly in transit-served, walkable neighborhoods — often where new urban development is taking place according to one of architects involved with three of the DC stores. I guess that leaves Lexington out in the cold, as we have a dearth of walkable transit served neighborhoods. The closest that we would come is the Kroger on Romany(it lacks the transit) or the Kroger on Euclid(it needs to be up on the sidewalk and lose some of the parking).

Urban-format stores are also characterized by having the parking being reduced and placed below or above the store — or in the interior of the block. Lexington has nothing remotely like this scenario, nor does there appear to be a chance to have one. Such stores usually have street facing retail flanking either or both sides to give activity and avoid a blank wall to the pedestrians or passing traffic.

At least one entrance to an urban-format store must open to a quality urban environment. and usually there are two. One will face the active street scene and the other will lead to the parking. Suburban style developments will have all entrances leading to parking and be some distance from the street. One again, Lexington seems to be sorely lacking in this type of retail.

Until recently, supermarket chains focused primarily on the suburbs. The business model involved rolling out the same store with parking in front, again and again. When supermarkets did build in cities, they plunked down the same suburban box whenever possible. This approach worked as long as new growth was taking place primarily in the suburbs and the cities languished.

New Urban News

Safeway is one of North America’s largest supermarket chains with more than 1,700 stores is changing their urban strategy. “We are definitely focusing on stores in our urban core and will not be building stores in urban areas that are growth dependent,” says Craig Muckle. Kroger, a much larger chain and currently adding fuel centers and Marketplace big-box locations in Lexington, cannot be oblivious to this emerging situation but they don't show any evidence of jumping on the band wagon. On the other hand, Whole Foods pioneered this movement in the mid 1990s, just as there was the beginnings of a resurgence in downtown living.

Since an urban-format grocery is generally placed in a higher income area and walkable/transit enabled neighborhoods our Lexington residents will need to rearrange their priorities and actually move downtown before the stores will consider building there. The mindset of the shopper at an urban-format store is different, people often shop daily at urban stores instead of weekly, and purchase less food per visit. Less food per visit + a walkable neighborhood = less parking required per store. Also, fresher more wholesome food and less storage space in the kitchen or pantry.

So, our question now is, can our Lexington residents request, demand or encourage:

• more walkable neighborhoods,
• more transit-oriented development,
• more downtown density,
• less of what has been proven to be unsustainable and
• progressive design for our city
  

I guess that we will see.