LexRides

[brokebike]

from Kenzie Gleason (via Charlene's post on the list-serv)

*****

An important meeting that many of you may want to attend...The consultants for the downtown streetscape plan will be holding a meeting to present and get feedback on concepts for bike accommodation in the downtown area. We need feedback from a range of cyclists from daily commuters to more casual cyclists. Meeting details are below (sorry for the short notice, but this was just scheduled). Please let me know in advance if you plan to attend.

Monday, March 31, 3:00 PM
7th floor conference room
LFUCG Phoenix Building
101 East Vine Street

Thanks,
Kenzie

[brokebike]

Reminder that this is this afternoon @ 3pm.
Anyone else here planning on going?

[mcrib]

I'd be going but it is right in the middle of class.
_________________
Albert Einstein trembled when he found out time was water. Seeping through the rafters to put out this burning world.

[politicalhero]

I can't go...too many meetings already.

If you have time please, go down and represent us.

[Christopher]

[politicalhero]

wow your response almost felt like it should have include superhero music

[Christopher]

[bryant]

i was at work, anyone care to recap the happenings?

[Christopher]

It was...odd. But not entirely unproductive. Brian "Brokebike" Turner and I were in attendance--the balance of those present were mainly LFUCG folks from various divisions, and the meeting was jointly led by a hired consultant and our bike/ped coordinator, Kenzie.

I've got some notes I'll type up and run by Brian for his input and post a report here. Mainly it was a "visioning" meeting about what bike facilities will look like during and after the transition from one-way to two-way streets in the downtown area.

Brian got a big, unpaginated book of maps and proposals and stuff.

Brian and I aren't as good at finding particular pages in unpaginated books on the fly as most LFUCG employees seem to be.

Afterwards, we drank beer.
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http://www.lexingtonbikeracecalendar.com

[brokebike]

[elzie5000]

At one point, didn't the Isaac administration have people involved in handicapped accessibility planning tour downtown in wheelchairs?

A similar event for these folks would be a good thing.

[brokebike]

[Christopher]

[brokebike]

I posted a link to the Streetscape questionaire form here:
http://catamountgeographics.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=270

[Christopher]

As has been mentioned, Brian and I attended the Streetscapes meeting yesterday at the Phonenix Building. It was billed as an opportunity for public comment on the bicycle facilities options in the new street plan section of, I think, the current LFCUG master plan for downtown development. Somebody's master plan for something, anyway. Not a sinister one, though.

The meeting was led by a landscape architect named Clete Benken from the firm that's been hired to work up various options, KKG Studios.

He distributed the big book o' forms and diagrams and fielded questions. There were various government folks there--in addition to Kenzie Gleason and Keith Lovan, who we've all worked with before, there was Cynthia Deitz, Max Conyers, and a gentleman named Michael J. Webb who seems to coordinating the project overall. Nobody was there from Streets or Parks & Rec that I could tell.

In addition to me and Brian, the other civilians were Mike Galbraith, who's around Wildcat Wheels a lot, and Dave Elbon, who head the BPAC.

Most of the conversation turned on what bike facilities will look like if and when most of the downtown streets are returned to two-way traffic flows. One interesting thing we learned was that it's considered pretty much impossible to ever return Main & Vine to two-way traffic because of concerns from state and federal types. The other major pairs of downtown one-ways (Limestone & Upper, 2nd & Short, Maxwell and High) are more likely to happen, some sooner and some later.

Lexington presents a lot of unique challenges for any streets projects because there's very little regularity in lane width or in anything else along the lengths of most of the "corridors." So finding one option for all streets is impossible, and even find one option for any given street is difficult.

The most intriguing thing that came up was the idea of single, one-way bike lanes on two-way streets, mirroring the current pairings of major one-ways. So, for example, even if Limestone and Upper became two-way, the limited space for bike facilities would be given over to a single bike lane on the northbound side of Limestone and a single bike lane on the southbound lane of Upper, get it?

Another option that got a lot of discussion was the introduction of "sharrows," which is a fairly new concept you can learn about here.

There's only one of these in Kentucky, on the 2nd Street Bridge in Louisville, where a cyclist was killed last year.

There was some spirited discussion about bike lane placement in the presence of proposed off-peak parking lanes on major routes (if you're familiar with the way parking works in Old Louisville you'll know what that means--basically, on-street parking goes away during rush hours), with some people advocating a lane on the traffic side and some on the curb side of any such parking lane.

The main impression I came away with is that things are definitely still in planning and that the decision makers really do seem genuinely interested in hearing from cyclists of all different levels and "types." One way to be heard from is to print out that survey Brian linked above and send it in.

That's about all I can remember right now, but if you've got questions, maybe we can answer 'em or point you to folks who can.
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http://www.lexingtonbikeracecalendar.com