Choices, Lets Talk About Them

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Power For The People?

Do you remember a few months back when the guys over at ProgressLex were complaining so vehemently about the power poles along Euclid and the new Oliver Lewis Way? Well, I hope that they don't get hold of the concept going around in New Jersey by their electric utility.

http://www.infrastructurist.com/wp-content/uploads/utilitypole.jpg

PSE&G for putting up solar panels on their power poles and tying into the grid as a way to supplement power production. They are aiming at 40 megawatts annually by 2013. And a number of whining NIMBY's in town are really up in arms about it.

Some want to whine about the fact that they are there, others about the fact that they are not on every pole and still others that they were not asked (or told) before the collector panels were put up. The Deputy Mayor in one town came out and said that they were just plain “horrible”. (Something about this sounds familiar.)

I can see the good behind an effort to “untie the sky” and try to get as many of the power lines underground as possible and we did just that under the Urban Renewal project along Main and Vine back in the '70s. Do you see the results of that in the controversy and demise of the CVS store this past year? A forgotten location of an underground power vault can mess up someones whole day.

What does this hold for the future in Lexington, on the placement of solar collectors or wind generators should a private entity wish to invest in them? Will they be allowed on roofs of our larger downtown buildings? Will a private homeowner be allowed a residential sized wind generating unit, either on the roof or in the back yard? Will they become as ubiquitous as the satellite dishes mounted all over town?

To me, the pole mounted collector is not a big problem. I may prefer to see them arranged in a more vertical shape to more conform to the height and scale of the pole. I would also like to see more research into the application of a spray-on paint type of collector which uses nanotechnology. Put that on the pole and blend it into the background. I find this to be a beginning of the design curve not dis-similar to the table top sized VCR's, the projection TV's and the 12' cable dishes in the yard. We need to install the first units and then refine down to the best possible end result. Before the next new system comes along.

Stakeholders vs. Shareholders

Is it just me, or are some of you also aware of the increasing number of street lights that are NOT lit at night. With the winter solstice now past us and a long, cloudy winter ahead, do we need to be driving around town with fewer streetlights to guide our way?

I was out the other night, driving along the older section of New Circle Rd. and realized that just about every other light pole was dark. I can now see why pedestrians take their lives in their hands in trying to cross this road at night. But worse than this is the outages in some of the older neighborhoods where, sometimes, two or three lights in a row are out. Or obscured by tree limbs, both summer and winter.

You do know that we the citizen taxpayers DO pay for these streetlights, whether they are on or not. Streetlights are a service that we are taxed for and KU is paid to provide, yet they are fairly lax in monitoring just what they provide.

Kentucky Utilities does have a page on their website that allows you to report a service outage. They take your name and address, your phone number AND your E-mail address(all are required) , then they want as detailed a description or address as possible of the outage. Yeah, right. I got all that while driving along at 45 MPH and dodging the other drivers on the road. I guess I shouldn't be doing this on an Iphone without pulling over. I wonder if they will call or e-mail me when they get the light repaired.

I see where KU can check to see if your air conditioning unit is overworking and will help you cycle it of during periods of maximum power generation, yet they cannot see the usage drop on their separate streetlight circuits. Maybe streetlight repair is one of those tasks which draws needed manpower from ice storm and other tree trimming tasks along the distribution routes. The utility companies have not fared well lately when it comes to any kind of storm damage repair.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission recently released a report on the responses of the states utilities to two natural disasters, Ike in late 2008 and the ice storm of 2009. To some extent, the utilities were exonerated due to the severity of the ice storm but it is pointed out that much more could be done to clear tree limbs from power lines during the summer months. Our latest December snowstorm in southeastern Kentucky has led the Judge Excutive of Letcher County to take the local utility to the Grand Jury over their handling of clearing the power lines and the restoration of electricity. And how will all of this play into the call for underground placement of utilities and power lines?

So how might all of this fit into the idea of a "smart grid" for the state of Kentucky? Will a "smart grid" replace the current grid, which we can't seem to make work well enough to please our existing customers? I was told, several years ago, that a major impediment to economic development is an insufficient power grid to go along with our transportation services. Will a "smart grid" be able to handle a complete switch to electric autos?(will our economy be able to do the same?)

The utility companies keep asking us to conserve(and from the people that I have talked to, many of us are) yet the bills keep going up. Services seem to be getting less and response times are taking longer. The last time I had to call for an power outage, the crew arrived from a community 30 miles distant and had no knowledge of the local layout or even where they were. When I called about a questionable water meter reading, I was told to request a "self administered" leak detection kit. If I am doing the work, what are the charging a service call fee for?

It is not the service person, I am sure that it is for the shareholder.

Thoughts On Some Current Controversies

Several things have come to mind today that relate to some current events.

There has been a great controversy about the overhead wires either being shown(or not) in the pretty renderings of the Newtown Pike Extension. Several people have their shorts in a wad about the subject and compare a simple set of poles and wires along the new roadway to the gigantic transmission lines being placed on Euclid and Woodland. I personally have a greater disdain for the wide right of way and lack of urban businesses facing this new "urban" thoroughfare. The setbacks for any buildings along here are NOT what an urban roadway should be.

The mistakes being made on this road are the same that were made with the widening of Vine St forty years ago. Wide travel lanes, buildings set away from the street, facilities for pedestrians, but no reason for them to be there and the traffic lights timed to quickly get the autos past the things that they are not interested in. In other words, a raceway from the Interstate to UK (and I do believe that UK will begin expanding the campus to the west in the near future).

One mistake that they are making anew is the omission of the possibility of a fixed guideway transit mode, and I do mean a streetcar line. From UK to the BCTC campus, then over to Transy and on through downtown to UK again. In any case, with or without a streetcar facility, I don't feel that this project ends in a "complete street" in any sense of the concept.

The placement of the utility line overhead is said to ruin the aesthetics of the road and will ruin the streetscape. A fellow blogger, who is a transit consultant, is currently in Vienna and reports that to the Europeans the overhead wires are just part of the charm. I shall simply state that due to all the other errors in the design, the wires overhead is the least offensive.

On another note, that of growing our food locally and very close to home, I came across this bit of information from Seattle.

The Seattle City Council has relaxed its rules about requiring a permit to place anything in the parking strip. The parking strip is what we call a utility strip, that area of grass between the sidewalk and the curb. They now no longer prohibit growing food in the parking strip and many Seattlelites are jumping at the chance.

Lexington's usual utility strips are a bit narrow for something like this, most are only 5 1/2 feet wide, with the wider ones in the more affluent neighborhoods or along the newer boulevards. It also appears the Seattle does not have a street tree requirement and they are the more sunny area of the front yard. One of the photos in the linked article shows a few rows of corn growing in the strip and right at an intersection. I wonder how they keep that sight triangle clear. Low vegetables in raised beds are one thing but the more vertical or climbing stuff must be a problem.

Not only is Seattle using the streets, but portions of the city parks and creating local farmers markets in neighborhoods, thereby not only growing it locally but selling and eating it locally. I have seen, on two occasions, the kitchen staff of Natasha's walk out to the herbs that they had growing in the street tree planter bed, and cut some of the fresh stuff for the dishes being cooked. You can't get any fresher than that.

Destination 2040: Part 4

Today, we will pick-up with the action statements for Physical Growth. This aspect concerns where we place the elements necessary to implement to actions for Human Needs and should be thought of in relation to the next aspect, Economic Expansion.

For Aspect 2, Physical Growth, the community elements are:

Transportation Alternatives / Monorail
Public Facilities such as Parks, Schools
Land Use Decisions
Infrastructure - Roads / Utilities
Population Growth
Infill and Redevelopment
Planned Urban Growth Areas
Green Building - Sustainability
Preservation of Natural and Built Environments

As we saw previously, the rankings are a little out of kilter. The implementation of infrastructure, public facilities and transportation alternatives is simplified by good land use decisions. To that end I will re-arrange the top four elements in my comments.

Actions suggested for Land Use Decisions begin with identifying a group of “permanent stakeholders”. Is there not a group currently identified, called the population of Lexington and Central Kentucky? The participants listed lean heavily toward the rural preservation side of any land use question, so, how does this limit the conflict in these said decisions?

The next two actions may be reversed as I see that a total review of the zoning ordinances and regulations should take place before any revisions would take place. Both of these are needed and it is probably a good time to set this in motion again. The last re-write of the ordinances was done in the late 80’s and the one done before that was mid-60’s, so every twenty years or so is not a bad average.

Our fourth action statement about Land Use is a move toward using less land for residential development, which is almost a given since maintaining the Urban Service Area boundary as a limit to growth is a treasured goal. This smaller, more vertical housing type is perfect for mixed-use and/or TOD projects.

A move away form the current restrictive system of parcel-by-parcel zoning into a more general sweeping rezoning of property may have greater legal implications and in some instances a perceived taking by some landowners. Five years may be a very short time-span in which to complete this action, considering the possible legal ramifications.

The last Land Use action entails expanding to a regional approach in all planning decisions and some respects, small baby steps have been taken. These small steps should continue until we can pick up the ball and run full force. The history of animosity between Fayette and our surrounding counties needs to be acknowledged and each party make amends to foster a useful regional planning agency.

The Transportation and Public Facilities actions should be taken in cooperation with each other, as the public facilities need to be connected by the transportation facilities. The first three transportation actions are a logical extension of the current mode of operations. More park and ride lots are a short-term solution, at least until the transit system can begin to reach within a quarter mile of the residents. The park and ride lots can evolve in to stops for the light rail/streetcar system. Light rail, in the context of this report, does not seem to be a regional system but more of a streetcar style transportation mode. The expansion of services to regional communities and the regional agreements (and not just those concerning Versailles and Winchester) should go hand in hand. The expansion should not stop at the first ring of surrounding communities, but they should help connect us into the rest of the Kentucky Triangle.

The enhancements to the regional parkway and Interstate system may be obsolete by the time they are paid for, so any return on investment should be carefully considered. Likewise the use of HOV lanes, as these solutions have had various levels of success in other locations.

How did we let the discussion of cycling and our trails system get so far down the list of actions to be taken (8 out of 9). This should be much further up the list.

The work with out state legislature, should not be about more funding (that sound like tax increases), but a re-prioritizing of the existing funding structure. The new Federal administration appears to want to start the pendulum in the other direction in terms of its funding of transportation in the latest stimulus proposal. We and the state should jump on that band wagon.

The advanced planning for predictable public infrastructure/facilities should, as noted above, be done in conjunction with the transportation elements being set forth. Facilities should not dictate where transportation linkages go, but should be planned along side the linkages. Any park/trail funding should be similar to the transportation funding and be re-prioritized from within existing funding.

The other three actions under the Public Facility Capacity list are ones which may be combined in some way. A large amphitheater and a new major civic arena may (or should) be considered together, likewise the requested brownfield redevelopment on Old Frankfort Pike have the amphitheater. In any case they all should be planned along a transit/streetcar/light rail route.

All infrastructure be it public or private should be adequately maintained. That is the reason that we have a Code Enforcement division, to keep everything up to code. We should and do allow for flexibility in the design of creative solutions, but we should not jump at any and all different designs just because they are different. We should not only promote, but require underground utilities in the urban core area. It should be required in all redevelopment of anything within a two mile radius of Main and Limestone and we should enlist the cooperation of UK in the accomplishment of this action.

The implementation of all the transportation facilities, public facilities and infrastructure utilities need to completed within the framework and predicated on the good land use decisions with we started this entry.