ProgressLex

This is a guest post by Greg Guenther. Greg has lived in Aylesford for 15 years, where he is active in the neighborhood association and currently serves as a neighborhood representative on the University Neighborhood Advisory Committee.

At a public meeting at Faith Lutheran Church on August 3, Palmer Engineering presented plans for redesigning intersections at South Hanover Street, High Street, Euclid Avenue and Fontaine Road. Three alternate plans were presented and public feedback, commentary and suggestions were solicited. Features of each proposal include green space, bike lanes and increasing pedestrian accessibility with medians, mid-block crossings and narrower intersections.

None of the plans is perfect; overall, they emphasize what Lexington streets generally lack: a respect and consideration for pedestrians and cyclists. Chevy Chase retailers serve as a hub to some of the more walkable neighborhoods in Lexington; ironically, existing streetscapes intimidate pedestrians with their complex traffic patterns and wide intersections.  To promote walking, the new plans hope to act as footbridges, connecting the Aylesford, Ashland Park, South Ashland Avenue and Chevy Chase neighborhoods to retail locations. Likewise, new bike lanes would connect existing lanes on Euclid and nearby streets.

Any of the three designs would provide immediate impact for retailers. More broadly, however, if it happens, Euclid would be book-ended by a re-designed Chevy Chase intersection on the east and the revamped Limestone streetscape on the west. Development can become a contagion, which could stimulate needed improvements along the corridor. Certainly, this will not mitigate the destruction caused by the power lines on Euclid, but it could buffer and buttress the neighborhood from further deterioration that could result from the inevitable UK and Kroger expansions.

Some will likely argue that these designs benefit pedestrians by constricting traffic at already busy intersections. Perhaps, but if we are ever to have streets that function for walkers and cyclists, their needs must be considered equally with those of vehicles.

We don’t need to rehash the arguments against auto dependency: obesity, social disconnection, unsustainable resource depletion – we just need to walk more. It may seem that Lexingtonians are slow to take up walking, but waiting for people to start walking before developing walkable streetscapes is like waiting for cars to drive across a field before building a road. Walkable streetscapes encourage pedestrian use. The phrases “pedestrian friendly” or “bicycle friendly” relegate walkers and riders to hobbyists, implying that such activity is a leisure pursuit rather than an alternate mode of transportation.

We never use the term “auto friendly” when describing streets and roads, because we demand that roads be functionally designed and maintained for vehicular safety and unimpeded movement. Streets with potholes, narrow lanes, and obstructions evoke the ire of taxpayers and instigate road rage. But pedestrians negotiate such barriers daily, from random obstacles to blatantly dangerous conditions. Good design is the first course of corrective action. If a design impedes a walker or cyclist, reject it.

Before automatically reacting to a pro-pedestrian/cyclist design as one that inherently impedes traffic, or cynically suggesting that public input invariably falls on deaf ears, we should remember that several years ago Euclid was a four-lane road that traffic engineers proposed widening to a five-lane thoroughfare. Energetic public reaction resulted in the current configuration with the center turn lane and two bicycle lanes. The public’s preferred design actually aided, rather than impeded, traffic flow. Crossing Euclid became safer and easier for vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians. Fewer lanes thwarted what traffic engineers call “induced demand,” whereby building wider, multi-lane roads actually attracts more vehicles and increases, rather than reduces, congestion. This is the power of design, and good design can likewise create a positive pedestrian “induced demand.”

While drivers prefer empty roads, walkers and cyclists want “congested” sidewalks and bike lanes.  There’s safety in numbers, and camaraderie too.

About 50, mostly middle-aged, Lexingtonians attended the August 3 public meeting. The project needs funding as well as more public input and attention. A second meeting is tentatively scheduled for September 2 at 5:30 pm (the location has yet to be determined). It would be good to have better representation from cyclist groups and a wider cross section of neighborhood residents. If you are interested in a more walkable, more bikable city, please plan to attend and stay involved as we move toward seeking funding for the improvements.

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Every once in a while, if you pay attention, an opportunity comes along to make a difference. If you happen to care about preserving and protecting the architecture that helps make Lexington the unique place that it is, here is one of those opportunities.

I recently received a copy of a letter from Anna Hartje in the Mayor’s office. In her letter, Ms. Hartje asks Lexington’s Neighborhood Associations to nominate members to the city’s Historic Preservation Commission. It is the job of the Preservation Commission and its members to promote the preservation of our architectural heritage in general, and more specifically, to promote our local historic districts and landmarks and to enhance preservation education in our community.

By law, several members of the Heritage Commission must be persons nominated by the membership of Neighborhood Associations that represent an historic district.

If you live in an historic district, be sure to place this on the agenda of your next neighborhood association meeting.  If you care about preserving our architectural heritage, why not put your hat in the ring?

If you have any questions, you shouldn’t hesitate to contact Ms. Hartje at 859-258-3100.

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This is a guest post by Ben Askren, a 25-year resident of Lexington and a Systems Architect at Lexmark.

When traveling, I am often fortunate to meet people who know Lexington.  And likely, the first thing they say is how beautiful of a city it is.  Which, quite frankly, I have always found surprising.  Now, before I go any further, I should state clearly that Lexington is a wonderful place to live.  Hands down.  I’ll argue with you if you say otherwise.  But Lexington’s beauty is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of our home.

And why is that?  That has been a difficult question to answer.  After all, Lexington does have many qualities and charms.  When I ask those who say Lexington is a beautiful city “Why?”, of course they talk about the horse farms and Keeneland. And they also talk about the streets lined with mature trees with parks, cottages, bungalows, and architectural diversity. Recently, some have cited parts of downtown as neighborhoods that have been rediscovered and redeveloped.  But other cities have these things. And there are cities that don’t have these things that we still call beautiful. So perhaps, like Justice Potter Stewart, I could never succeed in intelligently defining a beautiful city -  but I know one when I see it.

So back to the question. Why isn’t Lexington a beautiful city? Recently, some of the answer to that question was demonstrated when South Limestone was reopened. When friends and acquaintances were asked what they thought about it, almost all of them said, “It is so wide and open.”  This seemed strange since I had read that it had been narrowed from three lanes to two. So, I went to take a look for myself.  And they were right.

What happened at South Lime was something ordinary and yet remarkable.  South Lime is now “wide and open,” because you can now see it.  Yes, technically you could always see it, but first you had to look through a tangle of wires and poles. Now, free from those tethers, the sky is there without compromise. As well as the city scape. Removing the wires and poles revealed the inherent beauty of the street -as if it emerged from an obscuring layer of dusty cobwebs. Which was remarkable because the city scape, the architecture and the sky were always there. Now they have been dusted off, revealed, … “untied”.

Which leads to the question:  What If we could untie more of our architecture, our trees, our cityscape? What if we could untie our sky? At this spring’s “Now What, Lexington?” unconference, Ben Self gave every participant instructions and just enough structure to create their own sessions. Fresh from my South Lime experience, I got up the nerve and posted a session asking these questions. There, I met David Lafferty, Michael Coblenz, Derek Wingfield, Daniel Rowland, and Graham Pohl – and this was the inception of UntieTheSky.org.

The mission of UntieTheSky.org is to be part of the effort to make Lexington Kentucky the best community in the world for Business and Quality of Life by raising awareness of the negative impacts of overhead lines and visual noise.   Right now this means demonstrating the potential beauty of our city with images of what it could look like without overhead utilities – one intersection at a time. Browse our website and you’ll see what Walton and Winchester, Mill and Short, and Old Vine and Ransom look like “tied” and “untied.”You will also see a number of streets and intersections that are extraordinarily “tied.”

If you would like to get involved, contact myself or Graham Pohl by leaving a comment below – we would like to hear your ideas and insights. Currently, Untie the Sky needs help turning “tied” images into “untied” images. If you have a computer and the time, we will be happy to teach you how to do this at no cost to you.

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