Recent News To Use

There have been a couple of recent news bits that relate to my posts of the last few days.

One came from a blog on Daily Fuel Economy Tips where they linked to a study report on GPS and the reduction of one's carbon footprint. The study was funded by NAVTEQ, a major producer of software and data for hand held GPS devices. The following comes from their press release:

NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of digital map, traffic and location data for in-vehicle, portable, wireless and enterprise solutions, has revealed further insights from a proprietary research study designed to assess the consumer impact of everyday use of navigation devices. These findings focus specifically on the impact that the addition of real-time traffic has on the driver experience, and point to the use of traffic information as a primary influencer in time savings for the average driver.

The key word here is proprietary research. I have seen way too many studies where the results come out very much on favor toward the products of the funding entity. This also appears to be a targeted study in that the focus is on the addition of real-time traffic information which this provider will supply, for a fee.

Then there is the matter of the participants in the study and the conditions of their commutes. Again from the press release:

The results are from a three pronged study conducted in two metropolitan areas of Germany – Dusseldorf and Munich -- which evaluated drivers without a navigation system, drivers with a navigation system, and drivers with a navigation system that included real-time traffic. Previous studies in this field focused more on “getting lost” scenarios versus the benefits to drivers of navigation system use during the course of their normal driving habits.

Those being studied were European and from modern German cities(having been rebuilt after the Second World War), hardly the equivalent to most American cities. I have no doubt that there are those who find it necessary to use a navigation system to travel in Europe, but for regular commutes I would think that European neighborhoods have a much higher connectivity ratio than America.

The study results reflect more than 2,100 individual trips, more than 20,000 kilometers and almost 500 hours on the road.

This works out to an average 2+ hours a commute trip. If you are traveling more than 2 hours to get to your job and driving, you're doing it wrong. That's like living in Lexington and working in Louisville, Cincinnati or Ashland and making the trip both ways every day. You have got to be nuts.

Now, here comes the kicker. This was a short study. How short I don't know, but the release states "If applied over the course of a year, a driver who does not currently use a navigation device would save themselves 4 days of driving each year if they had a traffic-enabled navigation system." Is saving four days worth of driving spread out over a year's time worth the added expense of a new GPS device AND the monthly cost of the real-time traffic updates " case of emergency". Then these results were extrapolated to fit the American driving experiences and, voila, the results are oddly similar.

The average driver was estimated to reduce their CO2 emissions by 21%, yet they could do much better than that by using the efficient European rail systems. American are not so lucky, but being better informed about alternative traffic route and a better connectivity of roads would go a long way.

The other has been the announcement concerning the 21c Museum Hotel and its connection with the Gray Construction Co. of here in town. Most articles like to make the contrast of the situation with CentrePointe the focal point and make sure that they mention that such a thing could have been accomplished here. I have seen many episodes of what some called grandstanding when the Vice Mayor has chastised the Webb Co for not doing, in his opinion, a better job.

A quick perusal of the Gray website give a display of their projects around the country and most of them seem to me to be just as generic and bland as what their CEO is complaining about. The Gray Construction arm here in Lexington, actually Versailles, has done a few projects but nothing to scream about. And their on-line newsletter has done some nice pieces about new and innovative methods of the "green technologies", yet I have not heard of any local projects in which these methods could be used as a demonstration of the progress available in Lexington.

Jim Gray has received accolades related to planning and construction from prestigious places and cities around the country and the world, yet we hear nothing of how his expertise is being used in his adopted "hometown"(he is originally from Glasgow, Ky.).

Maybe something else will come along tomorrow.

The Life Of Illusion

To a large number of Lexingtonian's, image is everything, from the self-claimed title of "Horse Capitol of the World" to how we perceive our downtown to be. Lexington residents treasure image over actions, illusion over substance and appearance over meaningfulness every day. It shows on a daily basis, from the cars that we drive to the places that we lay our heads to sleep.

To the casual observer, the phrase "Horse Capitol of the World" would indicate that a large portion of the residents deal with horses. The horse industry is a factor in the local economy, but I would venture to guess that most folks in Lexington have little or no interaction with horses other than a few simple bets or boxing the Exacta a few weeks a year. I dare say that less than 1 in 5 residents have been on a horse more than a handful of times in their lives.

The highlight of many Fall and Winter weekends is the fashionably late arrival to and the slow procession down the aisles of the UK football and basketball games, followed by the early escape prior to halftime and the and of the game. Really this was a much better show when UK was a much more mediocre team. Then there are the after the races/before the game dinners/after the game celebrations at the name clubs and restaurants in Lansdowne or Hamburg. Coach Billy G would hang out there even when he wasn't winning.

And then there are the places that we live and the how we get to where we have to be. The many gated or semi-gated communities(not so much for the security, but for the prestige) and the estate lot developments that peer out with disdain to those lesser subdivisions with their "cheek by jowl" houses and their standard street cross-sections. Some of our more elite neighborhoods have streets so narrow that you can't get two SUV's to pass if there are cars parked on the street, and all the autos may not fit in the garage and driveway. I sometimes cannot believe all the luxury SUV's that traverse our roadways, in addition to the standard SUV's and vans and the plethora of pick-up trucks. The sheer number of 4x4's around and the rarity of them ever being off-road, is staggering.

This is not to say that all Lexington residents can live like this, I certainly can't, but the small percentage that do--have an influence on all of us who don't. The educational and cultural systems constantly reinforce that anyone can attain whatever they can dream of, and if that were true, then the percentage of those having all those "good" things would be increasing.

Those who act in the manner written of above, do so because they can afford it and certainly NOT because it is the right thing to do. They won't ride to work with the masses nor will they blend in with the other on the road if they can prevent it. Rank does have its privileges.

I see from this morning news, that Lexington is rated #6 in the US as a place to raise our kids. So says the publication Children's Health. And on the other hand, Kentucky is listed as #1 in the abuse and neglect of our children. One of these is right and the other is illusion. Which is more likely to be shown in the Visitors and Tourism guides. The recent Affordable Housing Study says that we need to densify and diversify our residential areas, especially within New Circle Rd, yet the landlord around UK who are trying to do so are destroying the neighborhoods(granted they are doing it on the cheap and dirty). Some think that UK should be doing more for the students, but that would remove the free market values and be done in the exact same areas by a de facto arm of the government.

This is but a sampling of the illusory life that is Lexington, Ky.

Our Growing Footprint

I have been a little pre-occupied this past week thinking about things other than this blog. Maybe, tonight I can get back to what is going on here.

I saw over on Steve Austin's Bluegrass reVISIONS that we have five years before our carbon emissions should peak or we have reached the tipping point of our slide into doom. Well maybe not that bad, but we need to adjust our lifestyles to make less of a carbon footprint than we do.

He states that Put simply, this means either that we must rapidly scale up renewables or we must reduce economic activity. I wonder if that could not say that we rapidly scale up AND modify our economic activity so as to achieve the same gain from alternative sources. I am not sure that it has to be an either/or situation.

Steve does ask what this means for Lexington, but he seems to be the only one asking out loud. Since the end of May 2008 the people of Lexington have thought about a lot of thing that they could be doing, but none of them concerned our carbon footprint. Football, basketball, horse racing, whether or not a new energy efficient building should be built downtown, downtown traffic patterns of one-way vs two-way, these all made the list, but not "can I live closer to my job?" or can I find an alternate mode to get to work?". These thoughts maybe made the fleeting moment list and were quickly dismissed as Lexington does not do this kind of thing.

Some thoughts that should have been making the rounds are:

• Do I need the fenced in yard that I hate to take care of every weekend of the summer and fall?
• Do I need to run the HVAC all year round just because the house/apartment is designed to prevent flow through air ventilation?
• If the bus(or other transit mode) came by my house would I take it on a regular basis?
• If the grocery was closer to my house would I need such a big refrigerator to store things , or such a big car to haul them or would I need to buy so much in one trip?
• Would my carbon footprint be smaller if I put more of my own on the ground?

On a city-wide level, has there been any discussion of what we can or should do to encourage people to modify their lifestyles to reduce their carbon footprint? In terms of meaningful discussions, I would have to say NO and in many instances the city leaders actions have done exactly the opposite. The government, on a regular basis, encourages those living in the outer reaches of the urban sprawl to boost the idea of downtown living by adding to the carbon footprint and coming downtown on the off traffic days. The Farmers Market, the weekend festivals throughout the year, the Second Sunday events to promote a cleaner healthier lifestyle, these all add to the overall carbon footprint, not take away from it.

Don't get me wrong, I think that all of these activities are worthwhile, but in places that make ecological sense more than economic sense. I can remember when some of the city's biggest events started out as neighborhood style happenings. The Shakespeare plays were held originally in the grassy field of Bell Court, until it grew too big and moved to Woodland Park. Now it NEEDS the setting of the Arboretum and the associated parking spaces to make a profit. What future does this bode for the new amphitheater in Beaumont Centre? Does this mean that there should be more of these play productions in more neighborhood settings?

I have already posted about the Second Sunday events and the city has responded with monthly escorted bike rides in various sectors of the city, but these all will originate downtown where the participants will have to drive with their bikes, to ride out to the suburbs and return to their cars to take their bikes home. Would it not make more sense to start where the people ARE and go to where some other people ARE and return, then next time start at the previous destination and go the where other people ARE, working your way around the suburban rings of Lexington? There is NO NEED to increase the pollution on an off traffic day all for the name of clean living and exercise.

Has the city encouraged the owners of our downtown buildings to install some type of passive solar collectors on their roofs, or cylindrical wind generators on the upper floors of our high rise structures in an effort to lessen their use of carbon generated electricity. I know that the upper floors of modern building are designed to handle the unseen air movements of the urban climate and that there are several natural wind tunnel like area in the downtown area. Has the city, with its power of granting zoning and development opportunities, sent a clear suggestion of its intent to combat our negative carbon footprint image with some of the proven methods of urban design? Quite the opposite, up until the bursting of the housing bubble, our Urban County Council has continued to send the signal that the current "status quo" will still work in Lexington.

That is about enough for tonight. Maybe we will have more to think about tomorrow.

Lexington's Air Travel Future

Last week, the Brookings Institution issued a report on air travel trends in America. Its general conclusion is that you can expect delays... more delays than you already have. Anybody that travels by commercial air these days will understand this.

The traveling public has grown used to the idea of speed and convenience of air travel since the first flights of the 20th century. The Interstate System came along in the latter half of the century which made it easier to travel those shorter distances, roughly 80-120 miles, in about the same time as scheduled air service and relegating some of the smaller airfields into non-players. Post 9/11 the TSA and other security changes have made air travel an even more time consuming endeavor.

The airline industry has, since deregulation, focused more and more flights into their central hubs and let regional carriers do the bulk of the short haul flights in the US. These centralized hubs have allowed smaller airlines to spring up, but the also have given the control of the air routes to the major companies.

Nearly 99 percent of all U.S. air passengers arrive or depart from one of the 100 largest metropolitan areas, with the vast majority of travel concentrated in 26 metropolitan-wide hubs.

These 100 metropolitan areas do not include Lexington, nor most points south and east until you get closer to Atlanta and the 26 hubs are usually located in the mega-regions that are forming the basis of American life under the present economy. How that economy will change in the coming reset will bear a careful watching.

Half of the country’s flights are routes of less than 500 miles

The really amazing thing here is that these flights only carried 30% of the total airline passengers in the past 12 months. It is highly likely that these flights are being flown from smaller airfields into a central hub and back out to a mid-sized airfield, both of whose communities could be reached by Interstate but being of sufficient distance as to create difficulty in driving in a days time.

Within the 26 domestic hubs, six experienced worse-than-average delays for both arrivals and departures: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, and San Francisco.

The projected growth of our mega-regions would only assure that these delays will only get worse. It is assumed that the current recession has caused the reduction in the number of flights and its resultant improvement of on-time performance statistics. Likewise, it is also assumed that the travelers will return upon the rebound of the economy. Neither of these assumptions should be considered likely given the predicted economic reset and the uncertain length of our current economic status.

I would find it as no surprise that the inventive spirit that evidenced itself after the recession of the 1890s(the automobile and the airplane) would not again come forth and give us new methods of getting things done in the world. A paradigm shift of the magnitude of the pendulum swinging in the other direction is not out of the question.

Lexington does not seem to be prepared for anything other that the pendulum continuing to swing farther in its current direction and yet our momentum has slowed. Where do we go from here?

Second Sunday Is Coming

This Sunday is the second attempt for Lexington to pull off a Second Sunday "event". I have spoken about this before and I won't bother you with it again, but suffice it to say that I don't like how Lexington is going to pull this off.

I was looking at the list of sponsoring agencies and realized that Lextran is not listed in any way. For an event that takes place in a central location and needs parking spaces for patrons so that they can attend, the absence of Lextran as a way to avoid the parking woes really mystifies me. So I asked a planner for the MPO, who deals with Lextran and their future efforts, if they were involved in the past years planning meetings.

I can say that, from the course of the conversation, Lextran is usually brought in as an after thought... if then. I did learn that earlier this the Director of Lextran was call to a hastily arranged meeting of city officials because of a claustrophobia of circumstances surrounding the number of events occurring downtown this weekend. That is about as last minute as you can get.

I have written before about how I believe that Lextran is reactive agency and does not move to get ahead of the need for their services. If Lexington is going to plan for TOD(Transit Oriented Development) then the transportation needs to be planned for before the development gets started, not after. If Lexington is going to be prepared for the "Great Reset" then Lextran has to be involved in the early planning, not to see if they will "go along" with the decisions that someone else has made.

I don't think that Lexington is really going to implement any kind of meaningful mass transit. Nor does their transportation planning extend beyond catering to us on the "lunatic fringe". The LA Times wrote the other day that a larger and larger number of Generation Y'ers are foregoing the auto and getting around town by other means. If they recognize the trend there, then it will not take that long to get here, the quote the things always happen 20 years late in Kentucky may have been true at one time, but I think that it takes less time now.

Lexington has made some big strides in the provision of bike trails and paths in the past few years. thanks to Kenzie Gleason and her BPAC group, but that is just a small piece of the pie. Even the expansion of Second Sunday to a monthly schedule, in the manner in which they intend, with escorted bike rides, once again from the city center, lacks the involvement of the neighborhoods from which the participants will venture forth. I still believe that with 12 council districts and 12 calendar months, a Second Sunday street closure could be held all around Lexington for the next year. Real success would be when it is held in all districts on a monthly basis.

So far Kentucky's Second Sunday history has required a massive PR push and from what I've read, the original in Bogota, Columbia just sort of... ... happened.

Are You Prepared? I Know I'm Not

Today's good read comes from the fine folks at the UK Energy Research Council. The ones in the original UK, the United Kingdom, not the guys at our University who are researching the removal of mountains for the molehill of energy. This council is looking at the depletion of the global oil supply and its effect on the world as we know it.

What does that have to do with us, we are Americans and Americans have always had all the oil they wanted. When we run low we will just go find more, we always have.

The following quotes (in red) are from the executive summary:

Abundant supplies of cheap liquid fuels form the foundation of modern industrial economies and at present the vast majority of these fuels are obtained from ‘conventional’ oil. But a growing number of commentators are forecasting a near-term peak and subsequent terminal decline in the production of conventional oil as a result of the physical depletion of the resource.

These modern global economies will only work if the supply of cheap liquid fuels continues to grow since there will be more of the "global" community desiring to cash in on the "global" economy. From what I see here the first thing that is growing is the number of people realizing that the oil supply is not growing. We are Americans, we created this economy and we can control it.

Many believe that this could lead to substantial economic dislocation...

Well, we as the world leaders will just have to help the rest of the world when this dislocation hits them. Besides I've heard that the oil that we know about will last into the middle of this century.

Despite much popular attention, the growing debate on ‘peak oil’ has had relatively little influence on energy and climate policy. Most governments exhibit little concern about oil depletion...

Lexington's government has not made any formal statements about their concerns toward "peak oil". They are quite vocal about preparing for the WEG, or some terrorist possibilities, or a natural disaster like a tornado or earthquake. Are they preparing for a catastrophic increase in fuel prices (or even better) a complete lack of supply of fuel for their emergency vehicles? Does Lexington have a "strategic fuel supply" hidden somewhere? My guess is ... NO.

While the global economic recession has brought oil prices down from their record high of July 2008, the International Energy Agency (IEA) is warning of a near-term ‘supply crunch’ owing to the cancellation and delay of many upstream investment projects. There is a growing consensus that the age of cheap oil is coming to an end.

So, if cheap oil is coming to an end, how are you preparing to face the thought of fuel prices that could be double the $4 a gallon that we saw back in 2008? Alternative fueled cars? Will there be enough alternative fuels available? Ethanol, algae, solar bio-diesel? I don't see very much of those ideas here in Lexington. If gas is that pricey, who gets it first? The police? Fire? Lextran? HSR? Airline travel will be curtailed completely because the military will have the jet fuel.

If you live more than 5 miles from your work place, how will you get to work? Honestly, I live just about 3/4 mile(as the crow flies) from a bus stop, but I am no crow. I have a bicycle and I am not as young as I once was, but I could get to work. Groceries could be a problem but we have tried it just to see if we could do it.

We Americans have suffered before and we got through it, besides this is all just speculation.

...the transition away from conventional oil will have important economic, environmental and security implications which need to be anticipated if the appropriate investments are to be made.

This is fairly plain. Regardless of the eventual "peak" of oil production some transition away form our current fuel sources will have to be planned for. The security implications spoken of will also be tantamount, for if wars are being fought over the present oil fields then they will also erupt over any alternative fuel production capabilities. Will intercity passenger rail travel be available before, during or after this transition period starts?

While the timing of a future peak (or plateau) in conventional oil production has been a focus of debate, what appears equally important is the rate at which production may be expected to decline following the peak and hence the rate at which demand reduction and alternative sources of supply may be required. In addition, there are uncertainties over the extent to which the market may be relied upon to signal oil depletion in a sufficiently timely fashion.

With so many uncertainties to be concerned with, it seem that we should be, at least, looking at some sort of planning changes so as to be more prepared for whatever comes our way. It is becoming more clear each day that the situation cannot keep going as it has for the past 80-100 years. Just as the world had to change from the "horse and buggy days" so too will we have to adjust from the world of an oil based global economy. Given the dearth of innovation being put forth on some sort of alternative fuel or power sources it looks like our creative class has its work cut out for it.

The report's listed conclusions are:

1. The mechanisms leading to a ‘peaking’ of conventional oil production are well understood and provide identifiable constraints on its future supply at both the regional and global level.

2. Despite large uncertainties in the available data, sufficient information is available to allow the status and risk of global oil depletion to be adequately assessed.

3. There is potential for improving consensus on important and long-standing controversies such as the source and magnitude of ‘reserves growth’.

4. Methods for estimating resource size and forecasting future supply have important limitations that need to be acknowledged.

5. Large resources of conventional oil may be available, but these are unlikely to be accessed quickly and may make little difference to the timing of the global peak.

6. The risks presented by global oil depletion deserve much more serious attention by the research and policy communities.

I think that these conclusions are proof enough that Lexington and the State of Kentucky need to begin talking about plans to mitigate the effects to their residents, whether we think that we need them or not. Everything should be on the table; mass transit, land use, urban farming, home occupations, greater density, you name it.

Remember, We are Americans and the rest of the world needs us more than we need them.

What might your thoughts be?

By the way there is a local blog on the "Peak Oil" situation in Lexington. I have a link to it in my blog list to the right side of the page. It is not much but you have to start somewhere.

Every Day Should Be Walk To School Day

Today was "International Walk to School Day" and this month is "Walk to School Month" and finally both of my little Sweepers can walk to school together. Out the door and into school in ten minutes, fifteen tops. This reminds me of the days of my youth.

I grew up in a different day and time. I started school back when you were expected to walk to school. All of my classmates were doing it so it was not a big thing. I walked across the park and either skirted the ballfield or traipsed right through it, although that was hard to do when the high school band was practicing on those crisp fall mornings. Walking across with a sister who was two years older and later with one two years younger, we were joined by other families of kids on the block. Passing by the old auditorium and crossing the Kentucky/High/Maxwell intersection, then down by the firehouse and the crossing guard. A piece of cake for any elementary school child of the mid 20th century. And I even went home for lunch...alone.

Middle school was a 1 mile bike ride away through Chevy Chase and high school was a five minute walk, cross Main St and enter the front door. At that point I lived closer that those who drove to school could park. To me, every day for 13 years of public education was walk to school day and for the time that I attended the University, I walked there also.

These days some districts have discouraged walking and biking to school and some have outright banned it. The placement of some of our more recent schools have also made it harder for those who live nearby since they are built near intersections of major, multi-laned highways and not centrally located to the residential areas. Only one of Lexington's five high schools is directly on a major road, though the private one are mostly on highly traveled roadways.

Any parent who these days wishes to allow their child to walk to school, or even several blocks to a bus stop may be considered to be a negligent parent by some and a candidate for "child abuser" by others. Is it any wonder that our children don't have any clue as to where they are or how they got there when we shuttle them around everywhere they go. My oldest son was nearly 16 before he would venture more than six blocks on a bike by himself and would ask me "Where should I go?". There is no way that I could trust him out there with a car like that. That is the real child abuse.

The EPA has begun to monitor the air quality around selected schools nationwide and primarily in depressed areas yet all schools should probably be monitored, especially during the morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up periods. The suspected pollutants should be auto exhaust rather than the industrial type. There has already been evidence of harmful effects on pregnant women living near generators of auto exhaust, so how much more harm are we doing to our children?

On a side note, I saw a Twitter entry for the Mayor's Chief of Staff the other day in which she urged everyone to participate in the Second Sunday "event" this weekend and directed those interested to the Government's web site for parking locations. I would have hoped for more of an appeal to use public transportation than to use the private vehicle. Why was Lextran not included in the planning of this "event"?

Who Are You Going To Trust?

It is going to come down to "Who do you trust?"

While checking out my usual reading sources online, I found two headlines that are just miles apart yet both of these "trends" are coming from the west coast. On the one hand is a report from the San Jose area which claims that the nations' seniors will be relocating into more livable, walkable communities in the years ahead.

"We're going to find that there's more demand for urban and town-center housing" for seniors, said John McIlwain, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute. "The demand will outpace the supply, which means that will drive up value."

Changing economic times have more architects and developers rethinking designs for retirement housing. Out: isolated, gated senior living communities. In: cities and suburban town centers.

Many senior communities were built with land-grabbing amenities like golf courses, tennis courts and swimming pools, so they had to be built far from the city center. Residents drive miles to the grocery store, movie theater or hospital.

Today, developers and designers want to create more communities in areas where amenities, services and infrastructure already exist. "Walkability" is a key element in urban and town-center housing developments.

This is what I've been waiting to see happen for the past year or so. A community where one can grow up, get married and settle down, raise your own kids, then watch your grand-kids grow up. It can be done, it has been done for centuries, in places all over this globe. These are not the styles of development that we are seeing being built in Lexington today, though other are beginning to see the light.

In Lyndhurst, Ohio, designers want to convert a golf course into independent living housing and continuing care facilities that blend into the surrounding neighborhood. The community will feature townhouses, apartments and houses, next to a hotel and a short walk to shops, offices and a public plaza. A completion date has not been set.

Hodgson, the architect, said, "People want to go back to this kind of neighborhood setting because it's a comfortable community."

Then on the other hand, there are those who suggest that our aging, retiring baby boomers will be living in more rural or exurban type settings. An article from the Portland, Oregon area details the lifestyle of some retiring executive and the desire to get out into the countryside for some real living.

"Any direction out of here -- north, south, east, west -- is absolutely gorgeous mountain country with fabulous streams and lakes," Dick Fisk says. "It's close to everything, and we're not under the kids' feet."

They represent a migration that turns conventional wisdom on its head. Urban planners have until now proceeded on the assumption that retiring baby boomers will downsize to a high-rise and spend their days lapping lattes and taking the streetcar to the art museum.

This reality may, of course, exist for a sector of the baby boomer generation but I'm not sure that there are all that many upper management types who will follow the same or similar path, or for how long they will stay on that path. This may be a delayed mid-life crisis finally realized or a life's dream finally coming to life.

...new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture says baby boomers will head to the country in big numbers, in the Northwest changing the face of rural Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

So, here we have two differing scenarios. They are moving to the cities and more livable, walkable communities. They are moving to the country for the fresh air and the amenities of the good life. We have the differing viewpoints of respected agencies, one a liberal think tank and the other a Federal Cabinet agency.

My first inclination is to go with the Urban Land Institute(ULI) and their assessment, because I believe that revamping or reinventing our suburbs is a necessary step to making our cities more livable. The ULI may have tendencies toward development companies but those corporations do supply jobs and employment. I would rather the FDA stick to quarantining the quality and wholesomeness of our food supply and not quantifying the lifestyles of anybody who want to live on the land. The FDA is controlled by the large agri-business corporations and not the general population. Monsanto and Cargill are not out for the benefit of the consumer or the farmer, so I am not convinced that their assessment of the population trends of America are on target.

You will have to read both articles, do some other research and ask yourself "Who do you trust?"

Roadways And Traffic Delays

Lexington's traffic is a mess. At least that is what quite a few twitterbugs are saying.

There are a lot of roadway projects being done along a lot of main thoroughfares and all at the same time. But is that at all different from any other city our size. And the comments run the gamut, from this road is a bottleneck to this road widening is a pain... now I'll never be able to get to work. Part of the problem is that so many of Lexington's residents only know of one way to get from where they are to where they want to be. Very few people want to find alternate routes to their most popular destinations. That and nobody want anyone from outside the neighborhood driving through my neighborhood.

The ends of the new Bolivar St(aka.Newtown Pike Extension) being built at W. Main St. and Versailles Rd. respectively are expected to be disrupted for the month of October only. Manchester St/Old Frankfort Pike from Cox to Forbes Rd could be upset for longer if they get their TIF approved. Old Frankfort and Alexandria will be a mess until the first of next year, but the completion will make a grand entrance to the urban area.

And then there is the South Limestone rebuilding project. Rebuilding the antiquated sewer systems(to satisfy the EPA), putting the utilities underground(we are asking for it everywhere else), new consistent, coordinated sidewalks(the college-town concept) and rain gardens in the right of way are an added bonus. This is a much smaller version of the project that made Main and Vine one-way streets back in the early '70s and honestly, I don't remember this much hue and cry about having our two busiest roads upset for so long. Sidewalks downtown were impassable for weeks on end and there were more people and businesses operating there in these days.

I have seen a call for better traffic control(manual control) at the S. Lime/Avenue of Campions intersection during the mid-day congestion period, but from what I've seen(on at least two occasions) there needs to be a curtailment of commercial deliveries during such times. Both the timing of the deliveries and the size of delivery vehicles has a lot to do with the backlog in circulation in this area. Forcing large delivery vehicles into tight urban spaces is not dis-similar to forcing a suburban development model on the downtown street scheme, it is just out of place.

Is there a better way to do all of this roadwork? Maybe. Should we put it off until a better time? Definitely not, it has been put off for too long now. Can we make adjustments to all of our schedules and just try to get through this? By all means. This reminds me of a trip that I took to New England, some 25 years ago, all the road were being repaired between almost all the tourist spots. When I asked why, I was told that tourist season was also road repair season as it was the only time that they could get the material and the ground was not frozen.

I know that we will get through this and I will say to those coming from the south end of town. Figure out a better path to Rupp Arena( and a back up plan) now, while you still have time, because nobody wants to miss tip-off this season.

A Trip To St James Ct.

Friday, Mrs. Sweeper and I made our annual trip to Louisville for the St James Art Show in historic Old Louisville. This trip is one that we make as our time to get away from work, kids and Lexington for the day and just have some time to ourselves(and a few thousand other art lovers).

I watched the weather reports all week hoping for a good forecast and when I awoke Friday morning thought that the day just could be a bust. The radar showed that the rain had cleared the Louisville area so we set out for a cool, dreary day and by the time we arrived in town the sun was bright in the clearing sky.


I have prided myself for years on my knowledge of Lexington, but Louisville has always caused me confusion. I get disoriented very easily in that city. I once drove an older blind friend to Louisville to visit his mother in a nursing home, and though blind, he directed me through areas that I would compare to Hamburg and a back route to downtown. Over the years I have been able to get to St James Ct. from several different directions and get out again.

One thing that did catch my attention this year, is that the timing of the traffic signals in downtown Louisville appear to be on much shorter cycles than Lexington. I know that the average cycle for red lights here is around 70 seconds, but the cycle in Louisville seems to be nearly half of that. Barely seems to be enough time to look around to get ones bearings, does speed up traffic movement though.

I quickly found a place to park some two block walk from the show and we soon were beginning our traipse around the tents of exhibitors. We started at the north end of the booths on Third St and worked our way to and around the corner at Magnolia to the food court at just about noontime. Mrs. Sweeper and I are both fond of gyros and decided to get some and a drink, the first disappointment of the day.

They took Mrs. Sweeper's order first and when I added that I wanted the identical, the girl behind the counter requested another lemonade and figured the total, $12, not bad for fair food. It quickly became obvious that she had not heard the second gyro order and I had to ask again, for another $8. Now, I know that these food booth people are there to make money and it is not simple to set these things up in the field, but I think that this is a little exorbitant. I also think that if they had had a price list prominently visible, I would not have ordered at those prices.

Next the second disappointment. With gyros in one hand and a drink in the other, amidst a gently moving throng, we realized that there was NOWHERE to sit. Central Park beckoned from just behind the food tents, but there was no marked access to the park. We managed to squeeze between two booths, into the park and... nothing but a few taken benches and the muddy, recently rained on ground. This has all the ingredients for a messy disaster in my book; plates full of food(some sticky), a jostling crowd(with kids), and pricey, delicate artwork. Could not the City of Louisville have supplied a number of picnic tables in an area of the park? I know that Lexington has for just about any festival event in town.

These problems behind us, we then began the circuit of the St James Ct. portion, down the west side of St James, Belgravia to Sixth and back, St James to Hill St then back to Belgravia's eastern half, back to St James for the east side. The serpentine route through the median arrangement of booths brought us back to the park edge and it was closing in on 5:00 P.M. We still had the Fourth St. vendors and the southern end of Third St. to go before we wanted to leave.

We saw some beautiful pieces of art and saw some of the newer works of those artists that we like. We bought a few things and looked for pieces that had the right color or shape or style for those few problem areas at home. Some of the prices were just out of our league, but we enjoy going to see whats new and it is our little get-away.

We had intended to stop on the way out of town for dinner at a little place on Bardstown Rd. but like I said before, I get all turned around in Louisville and I don't have a good map(or GPS) in my car. Mrs Sweeper is geographically impaired, which is why she has me, but I was of no use yesterday and we had to get back home before it got too late. Cracker Barrel had to fill in for the Mediterranean food that we had desired.

All in all it was a good trip. We love being in the older parts of downtowns, no matter which city, and the beautiful old houses and buildings are a joy. There were some high points and some low points and Louisville still confuses me.

But there is always next year.