Grassroots Wayfinding

It only lasted about five weeks but it got a lot of attention, both locally and internationally. It seems like a really good idea and something that could find some legs around here. It is the brainchild of a graduate student majoring in landscape architecture and in urban planning.

It did not happen here in Lexington.

It, is a grassroots effort to demonstrate to residents the ease of walking to various destinations and has linking to a smart phone app from which they get directions and an estimated walking time. It is a way to incorporate the pedestrian into the wayfinding methods of the city. It was apparently also illegal and stopped by the Planning Director.

"Walk Raleigh" was started by graduate student Matt Tomasulo and some friends as a way to get pedestrians into a more integrated utilization of the City of Raleigh, N. C.  Raleigh has a wayfinding system, as does Lexington, but it as basically geared toward the automobile as is Lexington's. Involving the pedestrian seems to be of lesser concern to most city governments, so many of us walkers have to fend for ourselves. In Raleigh, one has to get permission to put up a sign, and as always with governments, some locations may be disapproved or prohibited outright. That takes the spontaneity right out of it for the masses.

I have written about the wayfinding signs here in Lexington and detailed some of the faults which I, and others, have noticed. The fact that our and other wayfinding systems are geared for the motorist stands out as(to my mind) the greatest fault. Now I ask, what effort should we, as the residents of a very walkable downtown, do to enhance the present wayfinding setup?

Last week, Dhiru Thadani, the prime author of the Downtown Master Plan reiterated, in his remarks to the 2012 Lafayette Seminar, that Lexington has a walkable downtown, and that even beyond the limits of the central business area the walkability continues. I did not hear anyone ask if we needed to do more for our wayfinding system nor did I hear Dr. Blues speak of doing more for anything but the Design Excellence group's work on the development standards for downtown. We seem to be planning for more people on the streets on downtown, yet are leaving with an auto-centric signage system. Perhaps the Master Plan is still coming up a little short. I hope that our new Commissioner of Planning could do a bit more in that regard.

On a side note, I read last week that the Colt trolley arrangement is getting a facelift and finally thinking of using Short St (as I suggested back in 2009)  instead of Vine St. Maybe late is just a little better than never.

Corman Is Still At It

Rumor has it that R. J. Corman is at it again – or should I say still at it. Buying property that is or better yet, trading for it.

The City of Lexington has a couple of properties which are divided by the Town Branch. One of them is the Jail parcel and the other is the Public Works yard parcel. The divided portions are between the creek and the Corman rail line to Frankfort. Combined, they make up nearly 22 acres of land completely isolated from the used portion.

Forty years ago, when the City began developing the public works yard, there was a chance to straighten the creek as was the practice of the day but we chose not to. The City could also have built a bridge across the creek and chose not too, so the land has sat vacant for all these years.

Now, these 22 acres don't seem to be much. There is not much flat land and mostly falls away from the railroad tracks with flood plain which covers maybe 3 of those acres. But what makes this property interesting is that it does lie adjacent to the railroad and connects with the 50+ acres which Corman bought earlier. This, I believe, is why Corman is in talks with the City to swap for something that the City can use.

I'm thinking that Corman's Rupp yard, not being a classification yard, could be shrunk by a bit and the sand/cement trans-loading facility is being moved to the previously mentioned 22 acres. Such a move would allow the large trucks which pick the sand and cement to use the more appropriate roads and streets of the industrial area off Old Frankfort Pike. Since W. T. Congleton Co. touches the eastern end of these 22 acres and has already built an industrial strength bridge across the creek – AND – receives cement shipments, it makes for a nice coincidence. Yeah, right.

So, what would the City do with the land now occupied by the sand trans-loading equipment? This land lies alongside the Town Branch and opposite the proposed Town Branch Trail. It also holds the track that leads up to the newly placed trackbed under Oliver Lewis Way on which Corman has spent much time and effort lately. Should this track be intended for some future passenger usage it stands to reason that the freight usage be moved elsewhere. This would still appear to be railroad usage of the land and not given over to the City. This still leaves some 22 acres of Corman land somewhere which can be traded. Or they could be buying it.

If anyone has any better ideas or information, I am ready to hear it.

Energy Security Or Food Security, A Choice?

Here is an interesting item from The National, a daily newspaper from Abu Dhabi. 

The Arab states are becoming concerned about food security, since the region imports more than 50% of their food needs. Some of their poorer countries import even higher amounts. While the Gulf states can afford to pay the cost of importation, the others cannot.

America has just begun to really worry about oil security and how we would cope should supplies be really cut off. Could we live within the limitations of what we drill and pump? Can we be energy independent? Some think that we can, but it would be a tremendous change for us all.  And it would include food security too.

Food security exists when a nation, state or region can feed itself with local agriculture and not need the imports of the global market. Food insecurity will begin, for many of us, when the price of oil reaches such a point that transporting food cost more than raising it. For many in America that means reverting to the seasonal occurrences of fresh fruits and many vegetables. Many of our large agri-businesses will have to decentralize and maybe depend on local farmers a little more. The distance between the farm and the table will have to become shorter.

Oil and energy security have become reason for war. Our leaders don't come right out and say so, but we all realize it anyway. We fabricate alternate stated reasons but we don't involve ourselves too much if there is no oil in the picture. How long will it be until our (or somebody else's ) food security is the real reason that we are fighting? Will we fight for fresh fruit shipped in from Argentina or Chile? How about fish from off the coast of Russia? Will we defend our lobsters in the Grand Banks?

I believe that most of us civilized folks will say that food should not be used as a weapon in an economic battle and great famines are rare in this country, but if an oil starved/food rich America can fight for oil then an oil rich/food starved Arab region can fight for food.

Situations are bleak in multiple parts of Africa and portions of Australia are suffering drought conditions as well. Could we be closer to the brink than we realize? Should we plan for better food security as well as energy security? 

My answer is yes but what do you say?

Can We Stop The Quibbling?

While I was crafting last night's entry, the Herald-Leader was breaking the news about the latest CentrePointe designs and opening the door to all the loony comments which they know always ensue. From the wanna-be Frank Lloyd Wright's to the “anything built in the '80s is bad” crowd, they all showed up and it was off to the races.

Some folks think that Dudley is just trying to ruin the city's reputation, others that the Webbs are truly criminal for stealing the wonderful vibrancy of the block's former self. Four years (and one deep recession) into the project, some believe that if they bring enough criticism that they can delay the outcome until they can influence a change of design. Others still long for the memories of a once popular music venue and little else on a downtown block which was mainly vibrant after dark and basically stagnant during the day.

There is also the segment who call for project to be “taken away” from the Webbs and developed by “someone who can see what we need”. This is absolutely fiscally impossible as well as contrary to Kentucky eminent domain law.

When it comes to design the opinions are again all over the charts. Should it be one structure or a series of varied ones? Should it be a boutique hotel or a convention sized one? It even comes down to whether or not an elevated pedway should connect to other buildings. Why does everybody bash the idea of pedways? They are just another way to get around and between buildings.

Nobody forces people to walk via pedway versus the street level, just like nobody forces folks to ride the bus versus driving a car. Pedways have failed in other localities but I would wager that the failure was due to what they connected and not how the connected.

The one sure way to get more street level foot traffic is to put more interesting and attractive storefronts at street level. People need a reason to be doing/going where they do and how they do. Give them that reason and the traffic will increase.

Retail businesses need those same reasons to be where they are, give them the option to be either on a pedway or on the street. One severe critic, Michael Speaks is only giving an opinion when he lashes out at the concept of pedways. If he wants to argue against pedways, then he should introduce some facts into the conversation. Likewise Dudley should show some supporting information for supporting them. The University of Kentucky must realize that they are useful, they keep building them.

The Webbs are usually cited as developers of “failed projects” but only a few are mentioned. I wonder if the Woodlands is considered a failure when it is fully sold out of the condos (and they aren't cheap). The architecture of the building is not the downtown beige that everyone decries and one story that I heard many years back involved a returning alumni for UK's homecoming weekend—He commented to his young family what a great job they had done restoring the structure. It was less than a year old at the time.

Do most of the folks in town think that Regency Center on Nicholasville Rd is a “failure”? Aren't all the shops leased out and active? Will the Kroger store be damaged by the new Trader Joe's when it opens later this year? Is this center relatively close to enough residential for it to be considered a walkable retail location?

I feel that with all the other design questions of neighborhood safety and interconnectedness, of increased dependency on automobiles for mobility and shrinking government revenues with which to remedy these situations and the possibility that we just aren't prepared for a probable economic collapse, we have better topics to endlessly vent about.

Most of the residents of Lexington have three main concerns:

• Don't try to force me out of the subdivisions,
• Don't try to force me out of my car, and
• Don't spend my tax money on things that I will never use.

CentrePointe comes up a “meh” on all of those points.

Lexington Mall, Idle Hour And Other News

I have been keeping an eye on the church construction on the former Lexington Mall site and even before the Herald-Leader article noticed a slow-down in the progress toward enclosing the new building. The demolition company had removed their equipment but uncharacteristicly left large piles of the pulverized concrete material in place. The pace of progress made no sense since we have had such a mild winter season so far. I also was not surprised when I saw the latest revision of their development plan several weeks ago. For a location which apparently had failed to support retail uses and had to be used for a church, the increased size and purpose of the outlots could mean only one thing – the costs were definitely rising.

I don't like the whole concept of what they are doing on that project but there is little that I can do about it now. A large edifice surrounded by a sea of parking and the runoff flowing directly across the street from our back-up water supply. Now we are adding a drive in bank and a drive-thru fast food place, which they hope will do well. This has been a fairly dead commercial stretch lately and just about anything would be an improvement.

Speaking of improvements, the whole Idle Hour Shopping Center has undergone a sprucing up in the past few years and it is not finished yet. @GossipGirl 40502 tweeted me the other day about the activity in the old Walgreen's location and hinted at a new restaurant coming there. Well it is true. The site is being prepared for a place called Papacina's, but it is not going in the old building, it is replacing the old building.

Those of us familiar with the Idle Hour area will usually think of the restaurants which have dotted the place since the mid-60's, both in the mall and the shopping center. Most of them have been the typical dash and grab sites, although Durango's is one of the better sit-down establishments around.

A year or so ago, the property owners began talking of a stand-alone building replacing part of the old Walgreen's and Raising Cane's was tossed about, but the parking and drive-thru details could not be worked out. Now we look to have a solution in hand.

Think of a building like Sal's or Malone's but free standing out in the parking lot. Not my favorite style of building and not what I would like to see in a “walkable” neighborhood. When, oh when will we change our development standards to force the B-1 zone to put the building on the sidewalk and hide the parking in the rear?

Maybe the one effect that the church has had on the area is that more people are looking at the potential along Richmond Rd. inside the Circle.

Becoming An "Urban County"

I heard a conversation today where the participants, clearly very pro PDR (that is Lexington's Purchase of Development Rights program) spoke of the council representation for the 12^th district. I believe that the exact words were that “the rural interests of the 12^th district have not been represented since Gloria Martin left office”. That is just the facts of living in a continually urbanizing county and the willing move to raise the minimum lot size for residential use.

Fayette County has twelve council districts which, by charter, are supposed to be nearly equal in population based on the latest Census figures. Even in the early days of merger, that meant including a good portion of the suburban neighborhoods.

Lexington chose to become a very compact city, when in 1958 they imposed a urban growth boundary (USA), actually the very first in the nation. It was designed to bring on orderly, cost efficient development and prevent dispersing services widely throughout the county. Many of its objectives did as designed but some such as our trunk sewer system could have used some better estimates on sizing.

At about the same time the local health department recognized that septic systems in the rural areas would need larger lots in order to function correctly and imposed a 10 acre minimum on all new development outside the growth boundary. This, of course, would bring the overall residential density of the rural area lower over time without other influences coming into play.

But other influences did come into play, in the form of “agricultural” subdivisions for those wishing for a place in the country. Ten acre plots springing up all over the county for housing a family looking for basically a status symbol house and little more. Farmland being used for fewer and fewer people and no agricultural production of any kind. Actually a worse type of sprawl than paving it all over and building shopping centers on it. The rural character was lost as well as the loss of density.

The authors of the merger charter desired to live up to the spirit of the Urban Service Area concept by designating one council district, the 12^th, to be as rural as they could make it. Unfortunately, that meant including enough of the urban subdivisions to bring the district population proportionate to 1/12^th of the county. To accomplish that a large part of the long established USA was required to be included.

By now it should be easy to see that, electing a representative in an area which will only grow more urban and expect that representative, being responsive to his constituents, to remain totally rural focused. A council member elected every two years, a district adjusted every ten years and the trend toward increasing urbanization can only mean a loss of rural influence.

It may be this loss of influence that these folks were speaking of which will play a part in the ongoing onslaught toward PDR.

Many people are beginning to feel that, in these days of increasing budgets and falling revenues, PDR is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I have heard it said that PDR is paying property owners for development rights on land that cannot be developed as it is.

This is not to say that a major thoroughbred farm operation or the Horse Park/Keeneland type places is not fully developed, because they obviously are. But should we pay for these “developed” farms to NOT develop? The Council's last few budget battles have brought more and more pressure to bear on the viability of continuing to fund PDR.

Gloria Martin was a championing force behind PDR and the increase to 40 acre minimum lot size as well as the 300 foot setback for rural houses, and failing any rural influence since her departure, PDR may be in real trouble. This year will see a district race in which PDR will probably have a good showdown. The real rural dweller in the race is set on dismantling the existing program and the suburbanite candidate may not be able to fund its continuance.

We are marching on to becoming an urban county.

Back To Work, Corman Style

Alright, enough of a rest from posting.  I guess that I will get back to seeing what is happening around town.

In checking my stat counters the other day, I began to see several searches concerning the Corman railroad action here in town.  I was already looking into this for myself and well on my way.

R. J. Corman has been on a buying run at the end of last year.  They bought the former CSX  property on both sides of the Alexandria Dr, just south of the existing crossing historically known as Viley.  Old newspaper accounts tell of this being a fairly popular picnic spot back when the railroad was new.  Being about 6 miles out from the center of town, many residents found this a calming Sunday pastime.  The fare was reasonable and the trip was short so a family could make a day of it.

This purchase makes sense if Corman is acquiring all the "Old Road" instead of leasing, as he has been.  The other purchase makes a little less sense.  Immediately adjacent to the former is a 50+ acre plot which had been rezoned I-1 (Industrial- light) and marketed as an industrial park.  Its major problem is that it is mostly flood plain since both Town Branch and Wolf Run meander through until they converge right before the rail crossing.

This is what is causing the inquiries.  

What does R. J. need with 50+ acres of flood plain?  He has about twice that much currently in the Rupp yard, but that has been rail property for over a hundred years.  The price was right, well below the listed price of a few years ago and the Urban County Government took the good land for the new recycling center.  I don't see Corman building a spur to this facility because they don't ship from the existing location right at the yard entrance.

The Corman crews are out there removing the old decrepit buildings and tidying up the stream banks and -in their terms- making the place look nice.  Most of Mr. Corman's property looks nice, real nice, but why does he NEED more "nice" looking land?  One thing that I have noticed, if you linger around Corman property and any of the crew is around - they WILL approach you.  They won't tell you very much but they will ask a lot of questions.

The work on the rail extension into the Rupp parking lot is again progressing with a concrete pad being poured in the excavated trench and rebar is in place for a retaining wall.  Supposedly this is for the dinner train if the proceed with plans to add an occasional run out of Lexington.  I guess it will also be used for the unloading of the Circus train when it comes to town.  This has been in the planning and construction phases for a while and they have spent a lot of money and time there.

So, what is Corman going to do with 50+ basically "unusable" but "nice" looking land.

An explanation that I have heard is: a location for a spur and a paint shed.  Do I believe that?  Not really.

Why would you locate a paint shed nearly 3 miles from all other maintenance structures in town?  With all the usable, level land adjacent to the tracks, also right next to the Town Branch Creek, can we risk a spill into this water body? Is 5 or so acres out of 50+ a good investment?  No, to all of the above.

There is a plan in the works for this piece of property.  I don't know what it is but I have a few ideas and I will continue to seek it out.  For now, you know what I do.

Alreco, Without The EPA

Last week brought news of a few more jobs for the Kentucky labor force and maybe got a step or two on the EPA regulations concerning toxic waste materials.

On December 13 the State of Kentucky announced that an Australian company, MHM Metals, would be opening a new plant in Western Kentucky. Normally that wouldn't mean much to me, except that this company processes aluminum waste by-products, and we have some aluminum plants in Ky. MHM has a proprietary process to remove all the toxic waste from the leftovers of recycling aluminum cans.

The top three reasons for location in Ky were listed as:

• 115-acre industrial landholding in Russellville, Kentucky
• Existing buildings on site and property zoning to benefit time frame
• 350,000 tons per annum of salt slag and black dross (the waste product) within an economic radius and rail availability with a high-quality rail operator may further extend this economic distance

Most of us know that R. J. Corman, a high-quality rail operator, runs a train every other day from Berea to Russellville, hauling aluminum ingots from the recycler to the can factory. Anywhere from 20 to 30 cars in a train. What I did not know is that there are two other aluminum producers in Paris (Central Motor Wheel of America) and (Kentucky Smelting Technology, Inc ), both of which have to melt their materials to cast them. There is a third smelting plant in Shelbyville (Ohio Valley Aluminum) which is conveniently right on the rail line and about halfway along the line. Corman's Memphis line division is similarly situated among several aluminum smelters too.

With so many current aluminum plants around and a history of either landfilling or stockpiling this excess material, there should be much work for the new Alreco facility and the three railroads of the region.

All of this without a peep from the EPA or any mention of their “job killing” regulations.

PS, I have not heard Mr McConnell's name spoken in context with this either.

Can Raw Milk Save Local Farming?

Last week I wrote about the pre-filed bill for the legalization of raw milk which made me research the dairy doings in Kentucky. Looking back at the Community Farm Alliance site archives from July of last year, I somewhat remember the news that our state's dairy farms are continuing a fairly steady decline in number.

Back in 1975 there were 22,000 “operations with dairy cows” which may not mean that they were actual dairies but probably that the milk was sold as part of the farm operations. This year, we are at 892 farms that the state considers dairies or have dairy cows. That was 58 less than last year and it will most likely fall again this year. Of that total under 30 have herds of over 500 head and may be called industrial dairies, all the rest appear to be smaller type farmers and the real producers of local milk.

The idea that Kentucky farms can produce all the milk to be consumed is understandable but the fact that we import some of our retail milk from as far away as New Mexico starts to baffle the mind. Milk that has been shipped that far can easily lose any of the nutrients that may be left after pasteurization and will probably need some supplements added. Doesn't the cost of shipping a product that far enter in to the retail price?

The State tells us to “drink more milk” and the dairy industry keeps saying that “Milk is the real thing” but our dairy farms are literally drying up and blowing away. Past legislative actions to benefit dairies have stalled due to the fear that the fees collected to pay for government loans or grants would have come from surcharges to the retail milk price. We cannot do more for our farmers by removing barriers to business, we have to find ways bill both the farmer AND the consumer for manipulating the free market.

The July article states that a farmer who is able to sell raw milk could ask a premium of about $4 dollars a half gallon but does not state why. Since raw milk sales are not legal, that sales difference is lost to the local farming community. Raw milk sales will not increase the availability or supply of milk but it may allow more farmers to add to the products that they now have. Just another way to add to the farm operations bottom line.

If the annual economic impact of a single milk cow is $4,500.00, then the impact of 10-15 head dairy herds in small communities spread over state will do more that a handful of industrial feedlot dairies, yet it is the big boys who influence regulations and laws. Why shouldn't the 99% of the farmers be “Ky Proud” and not just the 1% of industrial farmers who can buy the designation?

I will end in echoing the comments of the July article which says:

We need a way to allow farmers to dairy on a family-sized scale while rewarding them for responsible herd and land management.  This means paying dairy farmers a fair price for what they produce–something that hasn’t happened for decades.

Raw Milk Could Become Legal In Kentucky

In my interest concerning the availability of good local foods and my passion toward raw milk, I have learned that one of the pre-filed bill for the next legislative session is about the legal sales of raw milk. I know that not everybody shares my love of raw milk but I and my family have come to believe that drinking it has kept us healthier and for those lovers of local foods, it just makes sense.

Local foods is a mantra which has been taken up by many, as is sustainable farming and food security on the local level. That may be what is behind this bill in tis initial form.

The bill, 12RS BR 294, is labeled as “AN ACT relating to milk.” and amends KRS 217C.030 which deals with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, the part of state government that has control over the production and sale of milk. I have no idea why this is not dealt with in an agricultural department but it is not.

The bill is simple enough, it just adds a new section talking about the legal sales of raw milk and its “permitted" producers. It sounds like something that I have been hoping for for some time now. But, there are always one of those around, anytime you have a simple allowance of something, government bureaucracy will find some way to foul the initial intent.

The first place that convolution can begin to rear its ugly head is the definition of “permitted” producer.

The normal producer of raw milk is, of course, the cow and I don't think that they need a permit but the dairy where the cow lives and the dairyman who milks her probably will. A dairyman is normally also called a farmer and farmers have been the backbone of American agriculture since colonial days. Farmers have supplied their families and the local villages with milk since Medieval times if not before. I believe that it is only since the middle of the last century, when large industrial dairies began to “produce” dairy products and relegated the farmer to the role of “supplier” that permitting became an issue.

The local farmer today, really wishes to grow and sell a good product and allowing an inferior product to leave the farm or potentially harm the consumer is the last situation that they want. Industrial farmers just need to move as much inventory as they can, because it is all about filling the contract and not feeding your friends and neighbors.

Under this new bill, any permitted producer may legally sell raw milk to the end consumer as long as it is at the farm where it is produced. That sounds good but I doubt that many of the industrial dairies would like for the average shopper to see the conditions in which the cows live. It is sometimes vastly different from the bucolic images shown of happy cows and verdant pastures. Some cows never see the light of day or green fields.

On the other hand, the permitting requirements placed upon the local farmer(dairyman) may be so onerous that attempting to comply would entail a full time staff of dozens. This is far from the concept of a small time farm family that conquered the wilderness of America.. Farmers with small or medium sized herds may not be able to meet these currently unwritten regulations.

Given the history of the inspectors of the Cabinet of Health and Family Services and their past demonstrated dislike of the dairymen with cowshare programs, the possible new regulations could surely create problems for the small dairyman.

The proposed new law also requires that all packaging be labeled in such a way that could subtly imply, through wording and “warnings”, that raw milk is inferior to the usual commercial offerings. It has been the experience of those of us who like raw milk, that we need to search out that which we feel is superior and will go the extra mile to get it. Of those I know in the cowshare “families”, we trust our dairymen and realize some of the inherent risk in the bottling process, yet others trust the government inspection system and its highly publicized and all too frequent failures.

Lastly, the bill reiterates that the raw milk may only be sold or sampled on the farm which produced it which puts the smaller sized dairymen at a significant disadvantage compared to industrial dairies and their convenient sales and delivery systems.

There is much to like in this proposed law. It brings to light the increased desire to consume raw milk and the rise in the re-localization of our basic foods. It show a desire on the part of a legislator to legalize what should be freely available, similar to the farmers market expansion we are currently watching happen. It helps bring Kentucky closer to the regulations of other enlightened states concerning local foods. It does many good things but it also falls somewhat short.

There is much to be done which will make this bill better.