The Raising Of "Chicago Bottoms" - Or So We Hope

I have been watching the area along Corral Street for several years, basically since they tore down the old City Hall and the Clark Street jail. With all the barren surface parking and treeless streetscape, there is little reason for many people to go there. I guess that much of the property on the south side of Corral is just waiting for the Central Christian Church to expand their religious campus.

This part of downtown used to be a hive of activity with the daily hum of city officials , court attendees and the bill payers going to the offices of the local telephone and gas companies on nearby corners. Pedestrian traffic was so heavy that there was a stoplight required at the intersection of Walnut (now MLK) and Barr. Thirty years later, this volume of activity is merely a memory to some of us.

Back when the Council was discussing the food truck issue, many of the “bricks and mortar” restaurants were pushing strongly for Corral St to be a primary location in which to place these trucks. It made no sense to me, as this is such a distant walk from anywhere people downtown currently frequent. What the street needs is something to draw activity to the area other than the regular movement of street people from Phoenix Park to the Lighthouse Ministries or the Catholic Action Center.

One good thing to happen in the area was the recent Louis Armstrong mural, with its bright, vibrant colors. It does strike me that he is looking back over his shoulder toward a section of town hich was called “Chicago Bottoms”. The housing is long gone now but the streets used to be lined with small shotgun shacks and a few rough and tumble bars. Spruce and Second Sts had some particularly deadly bars, about 80 years ago.

Neglect and the addition of downtown support businesses may have cleared the area but it sure wasn't gentrification and displacement by the trendy spots as we have seen elsewhere. Lexington's young professionals tend to shy away from here, but that is about to change.

Over the last five years or so, an LLC by the name of Lexington MLK (since changed to Urban 221 LLC) has bought up a little over 1.6 acres on N Martin Luther King, between Corral and Wickliffe, and looked to be repairing the old Columbia Gas Office. A Robert McMeekin designed structure from the early '30s, it is still in fairly good shape and solidly built. Alas, it appears that they could find no new use for the beautiful corner building.

Plans I saw today show a five story apartment building, with ground floor structured parking and providing 150 residential units. The building envelope sets right on the existing property and right-of-way lines to the extent that it will crowd the street a little more than probably necessary. Though its access is from Corral, I believe that it will front primarily on Martin Luther King but could certainly command the full corner beautifully.

I hear that these unit will be targeted toward the young urban professionals that we call the Millenials. Quite different from the single room occupancy units on the other end of Corral. One good point is the ground floor space available for amenities, but I understand that it may extend only to exercise rooms and a “dog spa”. Hardly something which can bring street front activity during the day when the residents are away working or sustain it into the evening.

All in all, I find the proposal encouraging for the area. Will Sayre School follow along with something on their parking lot? Or will the Central Christian Church fill out the other corner with an urban use which is compatible? I hate to lose a dignified building that we have, but there is much to gain and this area can use it. We have a chance to begin something nice on MLK (there is another LLC acquiring land up the block) so lets start out correctly.

Wondering In A Winter Walking Land

Once again this winter I have taken to looking at the impediments imposed upon the residents of Aylesford and Chevy Chase. This area has been characterized as being one of the most walkable parts of our community. That is true, except when “ole man Winter” comes to stay.

I read a comment on Facebook from a friend, which spoke to her normal daily commute to work in Chevy Chase after a heavy snowfall. The short, five – six block walk featured one, lone, shoveled walkway and that was done by a church. Yes, there were sub-freezing temperatures and a coating of ice but people got out and walked just the same.

I also received a tweet exposing a downtown surface parking lot for having plowed the lot but leaving sidewalks full of snow to traverse for the remainder of the trip to work or shop. By local ordinance, the property owner or their local agent/tenant is responsible for clearing the public sidewalk within 4 hours of the end of snowfall. In Lexington, that is rarely done.

On my daily way home from work I usually pass through the University campus and they have done a admirable job around the main buildings and the like. On some of their lesser properties, not so good but better than the business folks who make their profits on the student residents. For all of the apartment owner who rent to these kids and don't make the sidewalks safe for them to get to class and back, I say shame on you.

And don't think that the regular merchants and property owners along Euclid Ave are exempt from the shame. The embattled Kroger Corporation should take a look at its Chevy Chase location. The parking lot was cleared and paths made toward the front door, but they are responsible all the way to the street and the sidewalk there was untouched. Even though they acknowledged that a large percentage of their customers from the neighborhood approach by foot, Kroger has done nothing to make their property safer for them. As they move the new building closer to the streets, will they continue to ignore the pedestrian along the Marquis portion in particular?

Many of the retailers in Chevy Chase shopping center did, eventually, do a decent job of clearing the snow and ice. The same cannot be said of the homeowners in Ashland Park where still there are long stretches of uncleared sidewalks, yet plenty of plowed driveways are plainly seen. I also noticed that ice damaged trees were attended to but not the sidewalks

Why is it that this area, home to many of Lexington's elite(and don't tell them that they are not), feels the need to disregard non-drivers? The doctors, lawyers and even highly placed city officials should know their responsibilities and the consequences of not performing them, and that may be the problem. There are NO consequences enforced.

The fines for not following the required civic duties of homeowners and residents are NOT being assessed. Why do we have them if they are not enforced? Why do they not carry as much weight as our simple vehicle infractions of running a stop sign or failure to yield? Perhaps the Council could spend as much time and effort debating this as the did the handicap parking issue, with a similar result of raising fines to not be collected.

I have only detailed a short 2 or 3 mile stretch of roadway and I am sure that many of you can elaborate on others. Walkable areas like the Southland Dr neighborhoods or parts of the north end all have the same problem. I just think that we should be doing something about it. The groundhog says that we still have 6 weeks of winter, so we are not done yet. And there is always next year still to come.

The Lengths That Some Will Go To...

I am again surprised that some residents of Lexington will go to great effort to complain about what they see as a waste of the taxpayers money - their money.  

Often times it will be those who live is the higher income areas who rail the loudest about this injustice and usually the funds are being expended on works which will benefit a less well of majority.  I mean, how often do we hear about the half full buses (carrying those people) running all over town?  Or the supplemental lunches for at risk children?  I certainly don't hear the low income parent or autoless employee raising a stink.

What caught my attention this time was the recent addition of a low, decorative retaining wall and planter bed immediately adjacent to the curb of Tates Creek Road just before you get to Albany.  I think that it was the "For Sale" signs, with their bright colors, that made me look, but it was the location of the wall that made me come up short.  They are placed right in the path of the soon to be started Tates Creek Sidewalk project.

The Urban County Council has been discussing this project for over 2 years now.  Federal funds have been secured.  A design has been approved.  A contract has been let.  And now someone has spent money to place an additional obstacle for the contractors.  Unbelievable.

This is not  a simple case of not knowing where the property line is or what they may do within the Highway Right of Way.  This is purely a spite installation.  It may appear to be landscaping but the grade change indicates where they should and shouldn't have done any work.

The present owner clearly wishes to prevent anyone from walking in front of his property, be they neighbors or attendees of any of the churches in the area.  Best of all there is a posted bus stop at the far end of the frontage, as seen below.

It is actions like this which reinforce the un-walkable nature of the suburbs.  This block face is certainly not that much different in length than the section of Ashland Ave between High and Main.  The uses in the area are transitioning away from strictly residential.

Change does come hard to many folks, be it the gentrifying of a downtown neighborhood or the evolution of a high volume roadway like Tates Creek Rd., but fighting the change is generally a costly, losing battle.  I would rather the City not be made to incur the sizable majority of that cost.

Facade/Sidewalk Porosity?

I have been asked to consider putting forth my ideas on the state of downtown Lexington's parking. That is taking some research and maybe a little history as to how we got to where we are. I am feeling something in the wind and hope that it is not some “lets solve our problem like name a city did it”, because I always find that we only go about half way and then look for better things. Until then I am continuing to think about urban walkability.

One of the most common complaints about Lexington, and its downtown in particular, is the blandness of the architecture since the 1960s. We do have our share of windowless, rough concrete panels or tinted windows hiding who knows what from the passing public. These building may be right up on the sidewalk but they do not engage the public or any pedestrians – they do not help in creating any sense of street life. Even the ones which set back and have their semi-public plaza spaces are not relieved of guilt.

My main objection to the downtown CVS project was not the location but the design of the face which they chose to show to the street and the public. The Board of Adjustment had already cast their lot against the pharmacy drive thru before it became a controversial subject and that opened the subject of facade design. We need no more dead walls looking out on our streets.

If there is one more thing that we should have learned ,since we began to reverse the trend from bland Brutalist architecture, is that the typical pedestrian needs to also be entertained on their walk. One of the common jokes in my family was that we were taking the kids on a “march through the Sahara” whenever we went on walks – and especially through uninteresting areas. Long stretches of treeless streets were quite stressing for us and them - because there was just nothing mildly entertaining about it.

The mildly entertaining aspect of downtown pedestrian life, historically, was the ever changing facades and display windows of the buildings there. Every 16 to 20 feet, certainly no more than 40, there was an apparent change or difference in the periphery of ones vision. It was these changes and differences which gave the pedestrian reference points as to the distance traveled or an estimation of how much farther it is to go. The blind can still use the sounds and smells which usually accompany these changes for the same reference points. Long stretches of dead walls or open expanses of empty parking leave very few of these points.

I have begun to understand the concept put forward in Walkable City about the need for porous and deep edges between our public (pedestrian) space and the private (commercial) space. Jeff Speck's definition of porous refers to the number and size of the windows and doors which allow proper lighting and otherwise engage the two spaces in a lively relationship. The idea of depth is simply the degree to which edge allows for the space to blend or blur area of the said relationship of activity. These opportunities can include; awnings, ledges, columns, recessed doorways, etc. All the things that our older stores had in abundance.

Too few doors or windows, such as the backs and sides of commercial buildings, give absolutely no chance for any relationship – lively or otherwise. Likewise the distance setback from the sidewalk, anything in excess of a few small steps, allows no blurring or blending to occur at all. Does it make sense that developments at our sidewalk edges tend to repel the pedestrian these days rather than encourage them?

It seems possible that, from what I have put forward, a formula could be devised and refined with which to rate our commercial streets as to the potential of pedestrian activity. A residential formula may also be created with similar or adjusted values applied. I really want to see how the “stand alone” re-figuring of Rupp Arena would fare in this “urban sidewalk porosity” rating for lack of a better moniker. It would be my hope that this is something which could be included in the Design Excellence Guidelines whenever they are written.

Is It To Be Or Not To Be --- An Urban Market?

Kroger has announced plans to not just renovate the Euclid Ave store, but to replace it with a larger, ”urban lifestyle market”. That was the phrase that Danny Lethco, a real estate manager for Kroger, used repeatedly during a gathering with neighborhood residents and interested parties. Maybe we just need to look at just what is an “urban market”

Though not exactly super markets, these smallish grocery stores strive to provide our cities with fresh food, meat and cooking staples within reasonable walking distance. Corner stores like these became passe after super stores like Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Kroger and Meijer came to suburbia. However there’s been a new push toward walkability and sustainable growth within our cities and we again need accessible food in our urban areas.

This Euclid Ave. store has been called a "university store" and dubbed the "disco" Kroger by Ace magazine since it serves a large number of eclectic students in the overnight hours, but it also serves as an oasis in the food desert of the less well off of the 40508 and 40502 zipcodes. Many of them are faced with carrying their groceries on long public transit rides, buying a car or relying on convenience stores to purchase their necessities. Will they be better served by making this an urban store?

The confined space of a site for an urban style store will demand the right balance of urban design and will present some challenges. These grocery stores have to use a fraction of the space that super stores have, prioritize the goods they will provide and consider parking in an area unable to accommodate a super-parking-lot. With these challenges in mind, many other cities and entrepreneurs have taken the risk and opened such grocery stores. It may be helpful to examine how they did it.

First, I looked at the basic history of the seemingly ever increasing size of suburban grocery stores. After the sprawl explosion of the 1950s and ‘60s, supermarket chains have 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 works as long as new growth is taking place primarily in the suburbs and the cities languish.

Kroger, in its history, is not a stranger to the Chevy Chase area and many will remember when it occupied the space where Shoppers Village Liquor through Josie’s sets today. Well, they even pre-date that if what some of the old-timers told me is true when I was growing up. I have been told that the now gone Ben Franklin five and dime, which stood approximately where the drive entry is to the Ashland Plaza, was built as a Kroger before they moved around the corner.

Kroger also shared the Aylesford/Ashland Park/Chevy Chase shoppers up until the late “60s with the Parkes Bestway (High St where Great Clips is now) and the Colonial Albers (on the Kroger current site) stores and a Minit Mart (now Sew Fine). I almost forgot the small corner grocery where Architectural Kitchens & Bath now occupies. Most all of them had good walk-up traffic until pantry and refrigerator sizes grew, working mothers and time schedules dictated a large weekly shopping trip rather than daily checks of what was fresh.

How others have succeeded

When looking at how others have succeeded, I turned to the Urban Land Institute and took information from their 2011 Fall Meeting's session on “Developing Walkable Urban Groceries in Mixed-Use Environments”.

Chevy Chase is very definitely a walkable, mixed use area, therefore I believe that their recommendations should apply. Chevy Chase is also urban, not quite urban core but firmly, in the minds of most, a downtown area and ripe for infill or redevelopment. Kroger is choosing the redevelopment path.

Parking is absolutely necessary. Nearly all urban-format grocery stores need parking, even in transit rich neighborhoods, and it must be separated from residential parking. Often, grocers require five spaces per 1,000 square feet (93 sq m) of store. In the substantially denser urban locations where significant percentages of customers walk, sufficient parking is still required, although the allotment can be as low as two or three spaces per 1,000 square feet. With the credits allowed for bike racks and the transit stop, I believe that Kroger should have this covered.

Pedestrian entrance. With a split between customers arriving on foot or by car, a key for the design of the store is to get one entrance to face the parking lot and the other to be an attractive pedestrian entrance off the street. A store’s pedestrian entrance is critical in an urban area. It requires a welcoming access point from the sidewalk.. Grocers don’t necessarily want too much exposure and light, as natural sunlight and windows can negatively affect HVAC systems and refrigerated goods. In this case, an artist will tell you that the northern light is more pure light with lower UV effects. Here, Kroger has shunned the sidewalk/street and the lower UV light by catering to the auto traffic.

Not listed by the ULI is the inclusion of a drive-thru pharmacy window for an urban market. Walkable urban neighborhoods tend not to need such amenities. Rite-aid, just a block or so away, has no need of one nor does Wheeler's Pharmacy on Romany Road. Just a few years ago the CVS proposal at the Main and Vine intersection went through a long, torturous struggle because of a drive through window. That project failed.

The location of the proposed drive through on this plan presents some really troublesome thoughts. Firstly, it is hidden at the very back of the structure and under the similarly hidden auto ramp to the rooftop parking. If that was not enough, the loading dock ramp is arranged immediately adjacent to the pharmacy window or at least close enough to present possible traffic hazards. Add to that the traffic movements into or out of the Marquis access point and I see a real possibility of a SNAFU or worse.

Kroger seems to have made one concession to their standard floor plan in that the deli will occupy a portion of the space usually reserved for the produce section. Ostensibly this is to allow the pedestrian entrance to the “relaxing patio” behind the transit stop feature. Of course this transit feature may be omitted since they donated a considerable sum to the “Bank stop” across the street.

On the idea of this “patio” or sidewalk seating, it is unclear if this area will be like the seating at the Beer Trappe, Bourbon n' Toulouse or Charlie Brown's. These cited seating areas work well in the mild weather, but are primarily used by smokers due to the city's ban. Will this really be relaxing if it is all smokers? Will pedestrians want to use this as an entry point to the store if it is filled with smoke?

One of the details pointed out in Jeff Speck's book Walkable Cities is that the frequency and proximity of a building's entries to the sidewalk/street will raise the perception of an area as walkable. I have not heard of anyone devising a rating system or creating an algorithm to chart such perceptions but one cannot be far off. Positioning a building up to the street/sidewalk, or even within 20 feet of it, gives a more cozy feeling to the pedestrian but omitting any entry options of personally relating to it or its occupants turns those feelings to dread.

Our recent snowfall and the current Northeast storm brings up a seasonal complaint of mine. Kroger is, by far, not the only scofflaw in the clearing of the sidewalks which adjoin their property. While it is their duty and responsibility, by being farther removed from the sidewalk there are many who will give them a ”pass” but it really is a liability issue. By moving the building closer to the street, it would seem to make the duty imperative, but if it is the side or back of the building, that duty evaporates from the minds of management since there are no employee access points there. The suburban stores will never expect their customers to be to the rear of their facilities, but in this situation it is where they are forcing them to be.

The larger picture

Just what is the larger picture? At least one of the audience members started off with the big picture agenda questions. “When this store is expanded, will Kroger close the Romany Road store?” Very direct and to the point but also quickly shunted to the side as too far down the road. So, is Kroger not thinking in a long term frame of mind? I doubt that very much.

The very positioning of the proposed building hints that they are looking at the older office buildings along Ashland Ave and the rest of the property on the block, though they stated that they “have no plan to purchase more property” at this time. Granted the PNC bank is unlikely to sell as they would lose their visual street presence opposite the very active Chase bank facility, but with the rise of online banking neither is doing the volume they once did.

Speaking of the Romany road store, is it so under-performing that it need to be combined with another store or eliminated altogether? This store functions as a reliable “third place” in the lives of the neighborhood residents as do the aforementioned Wheeler's and the several restaurants in the area. They have been woven into the social fabric of the families there for several generations. In my mind, the Romany Road store is a better example of an urban grocery than what is proposed on Euclid.

One last point taken from the ULI report is that “Grocery stores transform neighborhoods”. I would take that as both the addition to and the removal from a neighborhood. John Given, who helped develop a Ralph’s grocery store in South Park in downtown Los Angeles, described urban grocery stores as providing an essential element of street life for neighborhoods. The neighborhood grocery store, an urban market or not, it is more important to the everyday life of downtown than Rupp Arena or Keeneland.

To quote Seth Harry, an architect in Woodbine, Maryland, who has retail expertise “As long as walkable urban places are built from scratch or revitalized, more urban-format stores will follow”. In his view, the design of the store is driven by the urban fabric. Kroger may now realize that they had to rethink the placement of the parking in an urban location but it will still takes an urbanist architect to convince most operators to accept other design refinements.

Furthermore, Kroger's goals here may be diametrically opposed to both the purpose and function of urban markets. They stated that they wanted people to “buy more” when they shopped at the Euclid Kroger, but people who walk, bike, or use transit to arrive are not going to “buy more.” They already buy what they can carry. Kroger is using suburban thinking and trying to place it in an urban environment. That formula will not work.

There is also some question as to whether the very idea of acres of shopping in under one roof is even viable anymore. Malls are failing, or redefining themselves and Walmart type stores are shunned by the wealthier classes who would rather make trips to several boutique-style stores than one giant conglomerate comprised largely of products they don't want. Malls and superstores were originally meant to replace the old-world style village markets, suks and bazaars. For a while this worked, but shoppers today are more sophisticated than ever. They are not interested in fake village markets, they want real village markets – an experience that is simply not going to happen in any superstore or superstore mini-version. Quality, unique products are not usually to be found in such places.

So, an "urban" market?  Is it to be or not be, that is the question.

Missing, But For How Long?

Taking care of getting a Henry Clay statue for downtown could be a simple task if.  If we had a more motivated citizenry.  A citizenry not focused on letting the government do all the fund raising and arranging of the details.  Or maybe a government which could stay on task for more than an administration's four year term.

From what I can tell the other two monuments were funded by single minded groups and focused fund raising, some things that I find in short supply these days.

Or at least I thought so until today.

How many of us remember when they removed the Skuller's clock from Main Street during the streetscape work?  I, like many others I guess, thought that we may have seen the last of this old beauty or that it would end up in the History Museum like so many other relics.

I was there when they removed it and took the photo to the left.  I will be there when they reinstall it.

I heard today that the necessary funds were raised and repair of the timepiece is nearly complete.  Soon I hope to see some movement to prepare the base in the sidewalk and a triumphal ceremony of re-dedication and this side of the block's street work will be done.

The 21c hotel and a bit of facade work on the Odd Fellows Hall building and this block will be primo, well except for the "blue ghost".

Keep your eyes peeled for this exciting event.

“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…”

Are Sidewalks The Road To Improvement?

Downtown has seen a lot of effort and money spent on it in the past few years. So much so, it seems like we should be looking at other areas in which to share the wealth but there is only so much wealth to go around. Still, somebody should be doing something.

Well, there are other neighborhoods which are doing something, whether with the government's help or without it. I feel that the role of government is to do those things that the people cannot or will not do for themselves. Public safety is one thing but building, repairing or clearing sidewalks is quite another.

The Main St,Vine St and South Limestone streetscape improvements clearly demonstrate the worth of making said improvements and now the Southland Dr area folks are working toward sidewalks there. Our history of auto-centric development has allowed many shopping centers built from the '50s up through the '90s to be devoid of any walking facilities of any kind. The original developers are long gone and the sidewalks need to be built, but it should not fall to the government to fund the lions share. Even in the name of public safety.

The sidewalks at your home, both the one in front of your house and the one which leads to your front door, are a focus of the curb appeal which welcome friends and family into your home. They are a big part of a first impression.

Many houses built in the last few decades seem to have walks which only go to the front driveway and appear to shun anyone who may not drive. Visitors who have to park on the street, either because the host  cannot get their autos in the garage or they have invited far more friends than they have space for, by necessity still have to use the driveway. Even the next door neighbor has to use the driveway.

I believe that by not tending to the care and upkeep of the sidewalk on or abutting ones property, one is showing utter disregard to their neighbors and, probably, to society as a whole. It is also not government's job to remind you to maintain the walks for the good of all, or to maintain them in your stead. I think that we can all agree that there are better places to apply their limited funds.

To a similar degree, the sidewalks in neighborhood shopping areas should be a large part of the curb appeal to the shops and restaurants there. Once again it should be a part of the welcoming feeling of approaching a friendly environment. Why else do you think that the office parks, despite their seas of parking, have lavish landscaping around the doorways?

When it comes to the larger “planned” shopping centers like the malls and their counterparts, it looks like the “planning” went right out the window. There may be sidewalks along the approaching roadways but getting to the entryways is strictly through the vehicular area and its many obstacles. Try walking from any of the residential areas around the Fayette Mall or Hamburg to any of their popular stores and see how comfortable you are. You might live close but the Walkscore is atrocious.

Lexington's best location for walking, with a walkscore of 85, is the downtown area. Origins and destinations within a reasonable distance, though not all of the origins are residential in nature and good availability of walking paths to take. But I wonder what the score would be if they took proper surface maintenance and simple daily cleaning/litter control into account.

Have you looked, really looked at some of our sidewalk conditions just a block or two off of the revitalized Main and Vine? What about the cross streets which connect them; Limestone, Upper, Market and Broadway which have remained untouched. Many of the sections of pavement are cracked and flaking, or the former tree wells are disintegrating and bulging. Litter and broken glass from beverage bottles are frequent sights.

I have said before that the way we use our public spaces is generally appalling and in some cases the abusers are just human pigs, but really folks don't you think that we can do better? We have a dedicated crew to police the heavily used spaces and it is the ordained responsibility of the downtown property owner/property manager to take care of the rest, but I don't think that they do that good of a job of it.

Government has the obligation to take care of the roadways and keep them in a safe and orderly manner and they have the power to enforce that the sidewalks be held to the same conditions. From where does this obvious disconnect arise? When and where was the ball dropped?

These sidewalks are the focus of our downtown curb appeal and we are allowing them to peel and fade like a bad paint job on our finest houses. When are we going to bring our downtown up to the standard where it should be? If the merchants and property owners will not maintain them, should the government do the job? Maybe yes, but the cost should be borne by those who have refused to do it themselves and not spread across the community as a whole. Or the whole nation by using Federal funds to do the job.

I think that it should be the community's desire to make our entire city into a walkers paradise, where every neighborhood has someplace attainable by walking and safe ways of getting there. It will take effort and commitment, but most likely, a change in attitude.

If it doesn't start with downtown, then the neighborhoods should start it but it need to start somewhere. I have pointed our some beginning places and I know that there are others, if you do also then lets get to work on it. 

The sooner the better.

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?

Street Scenes As We Get Closer To WEG

I have been surprised at the response to the last post, especially the part about the WEG prices. Everyone seems to be talking about the lack of ticket sales and the sudden reduction of some event prices. I still cannot afford to see any of the events, with or without the rest of the family.

I really must thank the guys over at Barefoot and Progressive for their link and the response of their readers. They are not just another Kentucky blog.

Now, on to some of the other things going on in town. First district councilwoman Andrea James has been featured in a video on Kentucky.com looking at the conditions of the downtown sidewalks. Not so much the walking surface but the poorly placed nightly obstructions. I have looked at some of these in the daytime.

Easily the best use of space when the tables are not in use is this place on the corner of South Limestone and West Vine. The new streetscape is a real boon to the walkability of the area and I am sure that it will be better when the whole project is done.


I think my next favorite would be the stretch (above) from The Taste of Thai to Bellini's on Main St. I think that they could be pushed a little closer to the street and I would hope for a bit more coordination from all the restaurants there. At night it is a little tighter but not all that bad.


Mia's(above) also does a good job of storing the furniture during the off hours but the narrowness of the Short St sidewalk does cause problems at night. Just around the corner and up Limestone, a la Lucie's(below) tries hard to not crowd the space too much. If North Limestone were to be done like they did on the south side things could be real sweet.


The part of Short St on the west side of Cheapside also has its good neighbors during the daytime. Most of Cheapside's (below) tables along the street are tight against the building although there could be some widening of the sidewalk in the future. I would certainly hope that Short is considered soon after they turn it into two-way.

We have talked many times about Mill St and, to be sure, it could be turned into a pedestrian mall quite easily. Most of the bar there store their tables and chairs inside during the day and those who do serve lunch outside have very limited seating and still crowd the street. All in all they do the best that they can. The one place that I consistently see as a poor effort toward storing their tables out of the way is on Main St in front of Victorian Square. DeVassa rarely leaves sufficient space for two to walk their door and seems to try to make it more convoluted each time I go by there. Two examples are shown below.




















These tables are usually stacked near the two light poles and not beyond the parking kiosk where there is more room. A relocation of the trash/recycling receptacle would also ease things a bit. A little more thought should go into their arrangement.

I have also noticed a new collection of public art which, though small, I hope grows to include all of downtown. I would like to know what you think.




and

What Will Be Done On Main & Vine St

So, here we are in the middle of the downtown streetscape redo and I don't think that anyone has any ideas for moving ahead once it is finished.

To be fair we have only begun Phase 1 of the Main St project and there are existing restaurants waiting for the work to be completed so that they can benefit from it. The Limestone to Upper St portion will see much activity, but what about that part in front of the Lexington History Museum (aka the Old Court House) and Cheapside Park. That location already has a wide sidewalk and rarely a pedestrian traffic congestion problem. Would the local eateries be able to extend that far from the their kitchens. The History Museum primarily uses the entrance on Short so this would be like their "back door", and the monuments don't make for good company to diners.

The section from Cheapside to Mill would make a nice transition into a talked about pedestrian mall but I don't see anything like that being prepared for. And the Marketplace block (aka the Festival Market that some call a fiasco) really did drop the ball from the beginning by not having any ground-floor, street entrance food type retail. Sawyer's and the others on around the corner up Broadway show that it can be done, but is there any move toward that thought now?

On the South side of the street, moving in the same direction, is of course the CentrePointe block and I know that many of you will say that this will never get built, but the original plans called for almost a mirror of the uses across the street. If anything does get built on the block i would guess that we would not let an opportunity like this pass.

The section from Hugo's to the Fifth Third Building has very little potential in its current state and leaves a lot to be desired just like the following block. This block, with the World Trade Center, parking garage and the hotel, has little or no probability of increased sidewalk usage but switching the ground floor office to retail or eatery uses will do wonders for the possibilities.

The Vine St project will tend to soften the speedway image of the existing street, but the daily foot traffic along these four blocks will have to increase greatly in order to make it worthwhile.

Working back toward limestone from Broadway, the first block has only two possible street front retail locations, the hotel bar/streetcafe and the vacant office at Mill St. Actually the entire Mill St frontage is prime for some sort of street-based food or retail, what with the overhangs and all, and that would tie nicely with the aforementioned pedestrian mall. The Kinkead Tower building has no public -friendly space along the whole of its Vine St frontage and unless something is done the idea of widening the sidewalk there is a waste of time and money.

The next block has been a disaster since it was redone during the Urban Renewal era years ago. The PNC Building (originally built as the Citizens Union Bank aka the "Gold Bank") started out with a nice plaza area along Vine St, with several shady trees and benches to go along with the sheltered space over the ground floor entrance. These amenities were removed when they began to be used as intended so that now that space is just dead public space. Increasing such a "dead space" without some anticipated new use invites ridicule. The only thing worse could be its near mirror "dead space" across the street at the Vine St face of the Fifth Third tower and its adjacent parking garage. Luckily the small office building on the corner of Upper and the access way to the rear of McCarthy's could allow the bars patrons to have some sidewalk cafe possibilities in the future.

Finally, the CentrePointe block's Vine St side and the south side of the street leave just the restaurant at the corner of Limestone as a bright spot of downtown activity. That is a whole lot of area to cover and a lot of money spent to have nobody speaking of how they would like to use the space.

Can I hear some suggestions?

Two Chances to Enjoy Downtown

There are a number of events coming up that I wish to bring to your attention. They are (1) World PARK(ing) Day and (2) Lexington's 2nd Second Sunday.

On Saturday the 18th of September the world will celebrate PARK(ing) Day. PARK(ing) Day is the name of an annual, one-day global event during which individuals and groups transform parking spaces, parking lots (and other areas of the landscape built to store stationary motor vehicles), into places for people to congregate, socialize and play, to the exclusion of motor vehicles. The original concept is by by Rebar, a San Francisco art and design collective. This is a chance for all of you to grab you favorite parking space and make it into your little piece of recreation space.

There are a few rules to abide by, mostly just you can't use your PARK(ing) space for commercial purposes without permission, and many folks have usually made a quiet seating area with temporary landscaping(sod, potted bushes, small trees, etc...).

I have not seen that anyone in Lexington has done a PARK(ing) space before, so if our young creative class of activists(i.e. those protesting CentrePointe so much) is so creative, then maybe they can come up with a group of real interesting spaces. I hope so.

The other event comes in October, and as the name suggests is on the second Sunday of the month, this year it falls on the 11th. I posted about this last year and gave some very definite proposals about my likes and dislikes of this event. The more I think about it, the more I believe that it should be handled less like a community festival and more like a "grass roots" happening.

What began last year is a local emulation of the program that started in Bogota, Colombia. Their program has grown so large that they close approximately 70 miles of roadway EVERY Sunday, and they do it without any government run activities. They just let the people take back the streets. Lexington's successful event last year caught the eye of State officials and many other communities around the Commonwealth, so much so that they have now coordinated this years event to occur in 99 of Kentucky's 120 counties. I has now become a measurable boasting point to compare with other states. Letting people have free run of their streets and get healthy at the same time should not be a feather in some politicians cap.

The ongoing events in Colombia prove that it is not a numbers game for political gain and, although it is allowed, the government is not required to arrange activities for the participants. I am not calling for a free-for-all to take place and some sort of police presence is needed but yoga classes on the court house lawn(not in the street at all) or even focusing on activity downtown is the unnecessary part.

This year's closure (I still prefer to call it opening) of Main, Mill, Short and DeWeese is again concentrated in the downtown area. A location to which a majority of participants will have to drive for a four hour period. True there should be plenty of parking, but if the idea is to get people OUT of their cars then this project FAILS. The carbon footprint of the event negates any alleged benefits of the exercise undertaken, as it would include all of the organizers and volunteers as well as interested participants, of whom 80% or better will drive and park for the afternoon.

That brings up another point, four hours of a Sunday afternoon. Why not take all afternoon, or the full 24 hour period from 6:p.m. Saturday night to 6:p.m. Sunday? Involve the whole community for the entire time. Can you imagine an outdoor church service on the courthouse lawn in sight of the homeless of Phoenix Park? Or the morning strollers meandering by the accumulated trash of the previous nights revelers? Each segment of the city's population using the street for their own purposes, just without car and trucks.

Once again, I like the idea of Second Sunday. I like the idea of letting the people take back the streets. I don't like the sanitized version being foisted upon the people to let them feel good while being bad.

What transportation people don't know

I had a fairly animated discussion with a transportation planner today which was a natural extension of the post from yesterday. In my passion about the streetcar topic, I could not help but again ask why the Automated Guideway Transit, (AGT) as they call it, was to be an above ground system and not at street level with the pedestrians. The answer I got was just as passionate, he likes the idea of separating the pedestrians from the vehicular traffic, to eliminate conflicts.

Now, what I can't understand is where this mentality meshes with the recent and currently underway planning efforts in the Downtown Master Plan (Draft), the Lexington Streetscape Master Plan, the Complete Streets efforts of the bicycle/pedestrian plan. Each of these plans or planning efforts have urged the enhancement and expansion of the street level pedestrian experience.

This planning fellow tells me that he "loves" the skywalk system here in Lexington, such that it is, and uses it often to get to a restaurant for lunch, especially in inclement weather. He says that he sees many others using it along with him. I did point out that he has to walk about two blocks just to access the skywalk system, climb stairs and meander another two blocks through office buildings and hallways, desend stairs and enter the dining facility. To get back just reverse the process. He readily admitted that the system was incomplete, apparently expecting additions to it in the future. Nothing has been added in the last 10-15 years and the current bridges are starting to deteriorate. It also seemed to amaze him that other cities had started to dismantle their skywalk systems.

He did try to explain this AGT system in further detail, that this was a "test"phase, if you will, and that later phases would extend for the rest of the people. Now, I pointed out yesterday that they are looking at likely 3 phases currently and they all involved university students/faculty from campus to campus or downtown to campus. How can one measure if it is a success if it does not include everyone?

I was astounded to learn that some of our local transportation personnel are unaware of happenings in cities of the region. Items like the streetcar initiative in Cincinnati, and the aforementioned skywalk removals.

I guess that these ideas go hand in hand with the general public, like the thought that any railroad is ripe to be either removed or commandeered for the purposes of the local government, i.e. the local good. Railroads in this country are already in place and the ones in this area are steadily working to improve service. And the industry, as a whole, is not asking for a Federal bailout.

Sidewalks in the news

The latest furor in the fourth and fifth council districts, is the movement to put sidewalks along the divided four lane section of Tates Creek Rd. The State Transportation Cabinet, in their infinite wisdom, omitted them when the built the section that runs from just south of Lakewood out to New Circle. About the only thing that they did do is build the road. No landscaping, no streetlights, no sidewalks, just the road.

I traveled that road at least twice a day for about 8 years, usually by bike and sometimes by bus or on foot. The lack of a sidewalk or bike path was annoying, but do-able. It taught me to not be afraid to ride at speed with the traffic and to despise the idiot, juvenile, redneck, teenage drivers. A sidewalk an d lights would have made the trips a whole lot easier.

Now, thirty years later, the residents along Tates Creek are resisting any attempt to change the status quo, although there is clearly a need for the sidewalks. The Fifth District Councilman is all for the installation and the Fourth District Councilman sees no reason to proceed. You can see for yourself in the photo below, the path that continues from the sidewalks end.



The residents of Tates Creek Rd. are of the upper income bracket and the houses sit well back from the roadway, generally with a gentle rise of the lawn to the house. It makes no sense to me, but they claim to be concerned about storm drainage from the sidewalk getting into the basements of their houses. It's a neat trick for water to flow uphill over such a distance.

I believe that their main objection is really about the need for them to clear the sidewalk of snow in the winter. Given the number of citations written for the rest of the urban area, this fear is probably unfounded.

Lexington is not alone in it's problems with sidewalks, a fellow blogger in Charlotte N.C. has written over the last week or so about the situation there. You can read about it here, here and here.

I don't equate our Fourth District Councilman with their County Commissioner but I can see some similarities in their actions.