Wasted Time In Traffic?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Solution To Traffic Problems

There is an interesting discussion going on over at City-Data about solutions to Lexington’s traffic problems.  The suggestions listed there are hardly unique and run the gamut from possible to outlandish.  While none of these folks making the proposals are professional transportation people, I wonder just how much can be done in this (and the foreseeable economic climate).

The forum folks are like the general public, long on ideas that would tend to benefit their particular need or desire but yet willing to concede the usefulness of concepts based on mutual sacrifice (mass transit).  It just looks like the non-personal vehicular travel modes are best suited for “those people” who feel the need for them.

The impetus for this forum thread stems from one of the typical “young professional” that this community is trying so hard to attract.  One who attended school here, then left for the greener pastures of paying back the student loans but returns for the more stable employment reality of a fairly diversified community.  The hurdle that they have a problem with is the difference in scale between the metropolis that they left and the still evolving, small town which hasn't reached what they would like it to be.

Lexington's traffic problem almost always seems worse than the previous, larger cities woes. The roads are not as wide, the traffic lights are out of sync and the commercial concentrations are just too densely packed. 

A very common theme is that we don't have an Interstate or freeway which can get us into or out of town in a hurry. This is a very Robert Moses form of thinking, slashing a wide freeway through existing neighborhoods, which many major cities are now spending huge amounts of either local or highway funds to remove. Lexington did flirt with such a notion in the 1960s -it even lasted until the '70s- but this New York style building was too out of place in a city which paled in comparison to their suburbs.

Another common area is the perceived need to widen New Circle Rd to the width and speeds of something akin to the Watterson in Louisville.  While they both were built around the same time, they were designed to perform very different functions beyond creating an alternate to driving directly through the downtown areas.  Louisville chose to have the Interstates bisect their community and although I-64 took the river hugging waterfront route, the scar like slice that the ever widening roadways leave on the urban fabric is something that we in Lexington don't need.

Traffic in Lexington is usually not quite as bad as some of us make it out to be and honestly if gas is going to get to over $4 a gallon, many more of us will be using mass transit.  Several years ago a local TV station began reporting the morning traffic status with the aid of a county wide map.  The major streets contained indicators of which areas wee backed up and which were free flowing.  I can remember seeing a congested indication only once or twice it was always free flowing traffic.  Now they only use the same limited number of the city's traffic cameras, which really show very little. My conclusion can only be that there is so little to actually report that would really make a difference.

I am becoming more and more of the opinion that widening roads is unsustainable in the long run.  The expense of construction materials, whether they be concrete or the more popular asphalt, and the cost to properly place them is not going to decline.  Their upkeep and the yearly effort to keep them clear of snow and ice will only grow with time.

The yearly repaving efforts facing the Urban County Council was a topic during their March meeting of the Planning Committee.  At least one council member had asked about the increasingly deplorable conditions on a number of our main thoroughfares.  In a number of cases, the very base of the roads is failing and simply applying a new coat of blacktop does nothing to help.  Thorough milling before paving still will fail in a few years.  What needs to be done is what happened on S. Limestone two years ago – a complete rebuilding.  From where will that money come?

Beyond that, the simple dividing of the repaving pot of money is, again seeming to cause problems.  Splitting the pot 15 ways will not adequately (nor proportionately) pave the streets that really need it.  The current method of paving the lowest (or highest) ranked streets of need has left many highly traveled roads still waiting for relief.  What I think they have not tried is a VMT, or vehicle miles traveled, method of calculating street wear and tear.  The majority of districts 3, 4 & 5 are within New Circle Rd and the main roads there carry all the traffic from all other districts plus those visiting or passing through.

I once conversed with a resident of Madison Co., who thought it quicker and easier to travel through downtown on his way to Lawrenceburg than to take either New Circle or the Interstate.  The conversation began when he said that the traffic lights on Main St. were so ill-timed that it slowed his twice daily commute. My solution was to either live in Anderson Co. or find a job in Madison Co. - it did not go over well.

What we should be taking away from all of this is, what can we foresee for the future of traffic and traffic planning both locally and nationally?  How are we going to build and maintain an aging transportation infrastructure in an era when gasoline consumption is down, fuel efficiency is up, the Baby Boom generation is entering its “drive-less” years and many young consumers that, today, just don't care that much about cars.  I don’t think that anybody saw this coming.

When planning for our future traffic needs, do we look at the recent statistics?  In a major shift from the days of my youth, when have a car was just about everything to a teenager, forty-six percent of drivers ages 18 to 24 said they would choose Internet access over owning a car.   Of potential drivers 19 and younger, only 46.3% held licenses in 2008 compared to 64.4% a decade earlier.  And drivers aged 21 to 30 drove 12 percent fewer miles in 2009 than they did in 1995.  If we are driving less, should we be building so much more?  If we cannot maintain what we have, should we encumber our children with more?

In conclusion I will ask you, the reader, do we have a solution to the traffic problem?  Is there a traffic problem?  Can we solve the problem with land use solutions?  Clearly the solution is not to just throw money at infrastructure and technology.  I don’t think that the “experts” have all the answers, but doing “what experience has taught us” solutions of the past will not work in our present situation.

Is A Boutique Hotel Closer Than We Think?

As I was leaving the EOP presentation on CentrePointe recently, I struck up a conversation with Tom Eblen – actually introduced myself to him – and we spoke of our reactions. We were both fairly positive about the whole thing, yet Tom still feels that a 21c type boutique hotel is more needed than the convention style which is proposed. Maybe we can both get our wishes.

A consistent rumor going around is that there is extreme interest in a boutique hotel and it centers on the Main and Upper intersection. The First National building, the McKim, Meade & White building, has long been marketed but with few nibbles. As of now, the leases are not being renewed and many believe that a sale is in the air. Speculation, including that on my part, is growing that this will be the conversion of a lifetime and we get our 21c type hotel. Right in the middle of all the downtown action.

If anyone has more to share, I have time to listen.

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.