Louisville Historical League presents annual Heritage Awards

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(Courtesy Louisville Historical League)
(Courtesy Louisville Historical League)

Over last weekend, members and supporters of the Louisville Historical League gathered at Locust Grove for their annual meeting. At the event, League leaders recapped recent events and laid out a blueprint for the upcoming year. Don’t miss the next League event coming up on April 23 when Carl Kramer will present a talk titled “River of Time: A History of American Commercial Lines” at the ACL headquarters in Jeffersonville.

At the end of the meeting, eight individuals and groups were honored with the League’s annual Heritage Awards—and we’re proud to report that Broken Sidewalk was among those recognized.

(Broken Sidewalk)
(Broken Sidewalk)

Service as emcee for the afternoon, architect Steve Wiser introduced each recipient and handed out a commemorative framed print of historic Louisville architecture created by LHL board member Wadia Newman.

The League issues Heritage Awards each year, including two special awards—the Samuel W. Thomas Book Award and the Founders’ Award. Below is a listing of this year’s recipients. Congratulations to all!

Charles Arrington, for advocacy of local aviation history.

Don Haag, for Schnitzelburg history.

Branden Klayko, for advocacy and historical writing via Broken Sidewalk.

National Jug Band Jubilee / Kentuckiana Blues Society, for historical headstones.

Jack Koppel, for Louisville cemetery history.

Ken McGuire, for Camp Zachary Taylor history.

John David Myles, recipient of the Samuel W. Thomas Book Award for Historic Architecture of Shelby County, Kentucky, 1792–1915.

Gary Falk, recipient of this year’s Founder’s Award.

Broken Sidewalk editor Branden Klayko also joined the League’s board this year.

The Louisville Knot: An art installation hopes to mend a torn urban fabric

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    (Courtesy ISA)
    (Courtesy ISA)

    Short of demolishing the tangled steel and concrete megalith hovering over Main Street between Ninth and Tenth streets, we’re stuck with the so-called Ninth Street Divide. That rift in the urban fabric is too tangible, too visual—too visceral—to be overcome without a major physical change. But with no funding in hand (the city failed to secure federal TIGER funding for the project) and a new federal government not keen on the transformative TIGER program, it’s sensible to look for temporary interventions that can diminish the divide—or at least create a dramatic space for parties.

    The Louisville Knot will be installed on the south side of Main Street, seen here. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
    The Louisville Knot will be installed on the south side of Main Street, seen here. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)

    That’s essentially what’s behind a public art project sponsored by Metro Louisville, the Louisville Downtown Partnership, and others, to build a temporary installation beneath the overpass spans. Last September, a winning design team including Philadelphia-based Interface Studio Architects (ISA) with Cambridge, MA–based Lam Partners and locals Shine Contracting, Core Design, and Element Design was announced. The team won a national design competition to build the $150,000 project.

    (Courtesy ISA)
    (Courtesy ISA)

    ISA, led by principal Brian Phillips, and its team just revealed their design—The Louisville Knot—that will be built on the south side of the block this summer. Phillips knew from the start that Ninth Street was considered a dividing line here in Louisville. “Let’s say at the very least it’s a marking in the urban fabric that separates east and west Louisville,” he told Broken Sidewalk last fall. “It’s recognized as a change in the urban fabric, and the history and the type of commerce that goes on. The charge of the competition was to…mend that gap.”

    The project site. (Courtesy ISA)
    The Ninth Street Divide. (Courtesy ISA)

    While the unveiling was delayed several months, it appears to be well worth the wait. Phillips said there were a lot of regulatory hoops to jump through involving various city and state agencies that were all required to sign off on the proposal. For instance, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet preferred that the installation, including lighting, not touch the highway structure itself. Others were concerned with maintenance and safety. Phillips said working with such constraints forced the team to be more creative.

    A fabrication mock-up of the Louisville Knot. (Courtesy Core Design)
    A fabrication mock-up of the Louisville Knot. (Courtesy Core Design)

    The Louisville Knot, according to the design team, is a linear piece of street furniture stretching from one side of the Divide to the other. It’s a tangle of custom-fabricated metal pieces that resemble, well, a knot. Each colorful strand of four tubes rises up and down to shape views, create portals, and provide seating. Core Design’s handiwork will house lighting and provide a flexible armature than can accommodate a variety of uses.

    “The lighting installation will help to mark the place at night, which is maybe its most uninviting time,” Phillips said. “And also a series of what we’ll call elements that extend between the east and west side that connect people in novel ways, whether that’s through views or program.”

    (Courtesy ISA)
    (Courtesy ISA)

    The Louisville Knot occupies a rather slender site on the 900 block of West Main Street. Because of the dangerous lack of a pedestrian crossing at the Interstate 64 onramp, the project was limited to the south side where it would utilize the small Happy Birthday Parking Lot also covered by the ramps. The lot can accommodate large crowds or a couple food trucks depending on what kind of event is going on.

    The Happy Birthday Lot. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
    The Happy Birthday Lot. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)

    The street layout at the Divide “is a weird situation that I don’t think can be fixed by lighting or installation,” Phillips said. “It’s a traffic geometry problem.” He hopes that revitalizing the space could serve as the catalyst needed to get public support for more substantial changes.

    In the spectrum of urban interventions, the Louisville Knot is more than tactical urbanism but less than a concrete long-term solution. Phillips described the project as semi-permanent, or lasting at least several years.

    (Courtesy ISA)
    (Courtesy ISA)

    The goal is that the installation serves as a beacon that attracts people, like moths to a flame, to the dispirited tract. “One of the ideas is that there’s an interaction between the permanent and the temporary,” Phillips said. “That means there could be the invitation for others to bring temporary energy to the installation.” The space will be heavily programmed to draw people in to experience the Knot.

    (Courtesy ISA)
    (Courtesy ISA)

    “The space under the highway, we believe, will become a destination,” Phillips said, “but one of the ideas of the Knot is that it sets the stage potentially for others to help expand some of that energy east and west.”

    (Courtesy ISA)
    (Courtesy ISA)

    One major challenge for the installation is to not just get people underneath the highway, but to spur them westward to explore a familiar yet mysterious urban terrain—and ideally patronize some of the businesses setting up shop west of Ninth Street.

    “We’re very aware and excited about some of the programmatic opportunities beyond the scope of our project,” Phillips said. “This project needs to not only create a destination under the underpass but would point to and help people navigate and become an invitation to things happening east and west, particularly west where there’s less on-street energy right now.”

    While disinvestment combined with poor preservation policies have created a cratered cityscape, there’s still a lot to see and do. Businesses like Over the Nine, Falls City Beer, the Old 502 Winery, Peerless Distillery, Caufield’s Novelty (with Louisville’s other giant bat), and the Flux Gallery are all within blocks of the Louisville Knot.

    The Happy Birthday Lot and the Knot site. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
    The Happy Birthday Lot and the Knot site. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)

    But will people accustomed to the eastern side of the Divide venture farther west? With virtually no one living in the West Main Street corridor today, it’s safe to assume that visitors from the eastern half will predominate from the near and far suburbs. And perhaps simply getting people to the 900 block for a programmed event will be a victory. Activity and better lighting will certainly be a boon for safety of those who pass through daily. Whether the Knot is a destination in and of itself or a stimulus for blocks west will be among the most important observations of the project.

    The city hopes to open the Louisville Knot this summer at which point you can expect plenty of planned activities to launch. What do you think of the Knot? Will it help mend the Ninth Street Divide? Will you be hanging out there after work or on the weekends? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and we’ll see you at the Knot!

    Thinking about skyscrapers at Lexington and Grinstead

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    (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)

    Three towers have been proposed to rise in a woebegone patch of asphalt scattered with several local businesses where three Louisville neighborhoods meet. Jefferson Development Group (JDG), headed by developer Kevin Cogan, is planning apartments, condos, office space, retail, a hotel, and parking on a triangular block bound by Lexington Road, Grinstead Drive, and tiny Etley Avenue. Yet while the proposal is certainly bold and dramatic, a series of public meetings and a proposed development moratorium show there’s some serious opposition to the enormous project.

    I’ve been thinking about the mixed-use project for a while now—it was first announced in 2014. It doesn’t have a name at this point, but we’ll call it Lexington Grande here in keeping with the nomenclature of JDG’s nearby projects. At first I had a few mixed feelings about the development. I appreciated the density and mix of uses just a few miles from Downtown, especially in this central yet out-of-the-way location, but was concerned about so much planned parking (2,300 spaces!). I admired the attention to the street level and sidewalk design but wondered if the overall design would compliment the natural settings that surround it such as Cherokee Park, Cave Hill Cemetery, and the Beargrass Creek Greenway.

    JDG's building as it meets the sidewalk. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)
    JDG’s building as it meets the sidewalk. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)

    The more I thought about Lexington Grande, the more I realized it is completely necessary and especially appropriate at this particular site. But I would urge JDG and their architects, Louisville-based Tucker Booker Donhoff + Partners (TBD+) to take a closer look at a few details that would help the new building integrate with its surroundings and become a cherished landmark and gateway for the city.

    An elevation of the building as it faces Grinstead Drive. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)
    An elevation of the building as it faces Grinstead Drive. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)

    At first glance, Lexington Grande’s three towers—some of the city’s tallest—rising from a large podium base are shocking in their ambition and scale. But once the initial jolt of something new on what’s traditionally been a hodgepodge of low buildings and parking lots in a disconnected, leftover corner of Irish Hill wears off, the underlying premise of the project is clearly the right direction for this location and for the city of Louisville.

    That doesn’t mean I’d rubber stamp the proposal—and I hope serious scrutiny is given to the project as it (eventually) moves through the regulatory process, ending with approval from Metro Council. The 3.3-acre block is currently zoned C-2, which permits the developer to build eight-stories as-of-right, but JDG, through its lawyer, Bill Bardenwerper, is seeking a zoning change to Planned Development District (PDD) that would allow the decidedly taller proposal.

    The project side plan includes plentiful sidewalk-level retail space. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)
    The project side plan includes plentiful sidewalk-level retail space. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)

    An Admirable Mix of Uses

    The general program of the project is impressive. Lexington Grande would begin at the sidewalk with new pedestrian amenities and 50,000-square feet of retail. The developer has already pledged to keep several local businesses currently on the block, including a steakhouse, bike shop, and dry cleaners, and potentially include a small grocery store.

    Above, concealing the parking garage podium, are 730 apartments along a single-loaded corridor. This treatment would be similar to a Courtyard by Marriott, which wraps a parking garage at the corner of Second and Main streets. JDG’s garage would contain a whopping 2,300 parking spaces serving the entire project.

    The apartments would rise up above the garage to define a park-like plaza on its roof, potentially with more retail space. From this plaza, three towers—two for condos and one for a hotel—would climb to heights of 34, 29, and 28 stories respectively. The hotel would contain 240 rooms situated above 120,000-square-feet of office space.

    JDG has estimated the total project cost at more than $200 million.

    The project site is surrounded by parks and green space. (Broken Sidewalk montage)
    The project site is surrounded by parks and green space. (Broken Sidewalk montage)

    The Right Place for Density

    If Lexington Grande were proposed for the middle of Irish Hill, or neighboring Cherokee Triangle or Crescent Hill, it would be easy to oppose its current scale. But it’s not in the center of a neighborhood—it’s isolated from the historic centers and surrounded by green space.

    The project site shown with (left to right) neighborhood boundaries for Irish Hill, Cherokee Triangle, and Crescent Hill. (Google Maps / Broken Sidewalk)
    The project site shown with (left to right) neighborhood boundaries for Irish Hill, Cherokee Triangle, and Crescent Hill. (Google Maps / Broken Sidewalk)

    Irish Hill, somewhat appropriately shaped like a shillelagh, a traditional Irish walking stick and war club, lies predominantly to the west of the project site between Lexington and Baxter Avenue on the other side of the cemetery. The building site is isolated by a narrow and spindly corridor of Lexington Road pressed between the cemetery walls, Beargrass Creek and Interstate 64. Still, this snippet of land remains within the neighborhood bounds. Similarly, Cherokee Triangle and Crescent Hill are far from the site but have spurs that reach out and border the site.

    As it would stand, the project borders green space on most of its perimeter with some commercial space to its north. To the south, an underutilized corner of Cherokee Park containing Willow Pond is cut off from the rest of the park by a golf course and is empty most days. An influx of new people could help bring activity to the space and warrant investment in a shoddy pedestrian environment. West, Cave Hill Cemetery sits cloistered behind its brick wall, and east, a vegetated area shields Interstate 64 from view. To the north sits the entrance to the Beargrass Creek Greenway and a planned landscaped CSO basin by MSD that will serve as another sort of park.

    Density is best placed around such central-yet-depopulated areas and great around parks and active transportation facilities like trails and bike lanes.

    A view of the project from westbound Interstate 64. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)
    A view of the project from westbound Interstate 64. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)

    Transportation Options Abound

    Given Louisville’s automobile-oriented transportation setup, it would seem likely most people living, working, or shopping at Lexington Pointe would have a car in tow. And for them, the site is conveniently located at the intersection of two prominent streets and a short distance from the Grinstead Drive entrance to Interstate 64.

    But there are plentiful transportation options that don’t require a personal vehicle at this site as well. The Beargrass Creek Trail is an excellent bikeway and is planned for extension to the Ohio River. Grinstead has been striped with bike lanes for several years now in both directions and plenty of low traffic residential streets make for pleasant biking to Frankfort Avenue or Bardstown Road. TARC also operates two bus lines passing by the site (Routes 25 and 29) and a half-dozen express routes pass by on 64 without stopping. It seems logical that TARC could adjust its routes given such an increase in activity and density.

    Moreover, the mixed-use nature of the project means overall transportation demand may be reduced. For instance, someone staying at the hotel may be doing business in the office space, or perhaps a person living in the apartments works in the retail or office space in the complex.

    A view of Etley Avenue. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
    A view of Etley Avenue. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)

    So Much Parking

    The parking garage is partially wrapped by apartments. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)
    The parking garage is partially wrapped by apartments. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)

    One of the downsides of the proposal, in my opinion, is the behemoth quantity of parking spaces in its garage: 2,300 spaces. That’s a lot of parking, but at least it’s predominantly hidden behind hundreds of apartments. Still, the existence of parking works as an incentive to drive and the cost of building a structured garage increases the cost of the development and ultimately the cost of apartments, condos, and commercial space.

    Some residents of Irish Hill and surrounding neighborhoods have expressed concern over the project, however. The main concerns are of the typical NIMBY variety—namely that the project would create parking problems and increase traffic. Bardenwerper said a consultant is studying traffic in the area and proposed a stoplight at Etley Avenue, which would have the dual effect of making Grinstead easier to cross on foot.

    The view along Grinstead Drive shows a pitiful pedestrian environment and a low-quality built landscape on the project block. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
    The view along Grinstead Drive shows a pitiful pedestrian environment and a low-quality built landscape on the project block. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)

    In terms of traffic, there’s already a plan—the Lexington Road Corridor Transportation Plan—that’s nearly two years old yet remains unimplemented in typical Louisville fashion. That document calls for a protected bike lane, improved sidewalks, and reconfigured roadbed for the area. Traffic counts compiled by KYTC for this stretch of Lexington show the street already handles less traffic than a similar road diet treatment on Brownsboro Road several years ago. It’s time this plan were implemented.

    The Edge of the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, waterfront. (Katie Killary / Flickr)
    The Edge of the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, waterfront. (Katie Killary / Flickr)

    Design with the Park in Mind

    TBD+’s design doesn’t break any barriers, which is a good and bad thing. To my eye, the generally generic design could fit in a number of cities, but that’s something of the reality of such architecture today (more on that in an upcoming article). At first glance, the trio of towers made me think of another large-scale mixed-use project in my old neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Above is a photo of The Edge on the East Riverfront.

    A before and after view from the Cherokee Park golf course across the pond. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)
    A before and after view from the Cherokee Park golf course across the pond. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)

    JDG’s structure, which appears to be clad predominantly in stone or precast, brick, glass, and metal panels, has some handsome angles, especially from the sidewalk level near the apartments. But it ultimately comes off as somehow too generic and cold for the leafy setting surrounding it.

    The facade wall, while broken up visually with different materials, currently runs a high risk of appearing flat in real life. Setbacks, while they may add cost, would greatly enhance the project’s design and provide larger outdoor spaces for some apartments.

    Rendering of the project as it forms a point at the intersection of Lexington and Grinstead. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)
    Rendering of the project as it forms a point at the intersection of Lexington and Grinstead. (Courtesy JDG / TBD+)

    Moving east toward the office component, the design takes a distinctly more commercial tone with a glass facade. That’s unfortunate as offices don’t need to look corporate, especially next to so much park and green space. Here at the prow of the wedge-shaped block, Lexington Pointe exposes its parking garage in a manner completely inappropriate for a prominent intersection facing one of Louisville’s most noted parks.

    Part of the garage is exposed outright and a false facade attempts to conceal another portion. A building site like this one has no “back” and the structure must present a finished and complete facade on all sides. Exposed parking garages won’t cut it. This section must be redesigned to better respond to its context.

    Renderings of the project, however, are still described as preliminary and subject to change.

    A view of Lexington Road looking towards the project side on the right. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
    A view of Lexington Road looking towards the project side on the right. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)

    A Long Road Ahead

    Don’t expect construction crews on the site any time soon. Lexington Pointe has a long way to go, including meetings before the Planning Commission and ultimately approval of Metro Council. I would generally like to see the project approved, and I’m optimistic that JDG will take it upon themselves to address a couple small design details. Or that the Planning Commission will require it. This development has the real potential to be a gateway to not just the Highlands, but to Downtown and the rest of the city beyond.

    There will also be plenty of NIMBY opposition along the way that could threaten to derail or substantially alter the project for the worse. The arguments so far against the development include the towers’ impact on Cherokee Park, potential increases in traffic, sewer issues, noise problems, and perceived lowered property values, among others. The height of the three towers has reportedly been the most common complaint. Some opponents indicated they might initiate lawsuits against the project. Some of these complaints are being studied by the developer, but others have no merit.

    Despite opposition from some, there has been support for the project as well, so there is by no means a consensus that it won’t fit on the site or at the isolated confluence of neighborhoods. I count myself among its supporters.

    Aerial view of JDG's planned 107-acre sprawling complex on the edge of the county. (Google Maps)
    Aerial view of JDG’s planned 107-acre sprawling complex on the edge of the county. (Google Maps)

    Concerns Should be Placed Elsewhere

    While the Lexington Pointe project has garnered more vocal outcry, another JDG development in far eastern Jefferson County deserves a critical eye and to be called what it is: exurban sprawl.

    Located in the car-centric suburbs near the county line at Factory Lane and Old Henry Road, the 107-acre project is like the Lexington and Grinstead project had no spine and collapsed all over former farmland.

    Schematic rendering of the proposed apartments. (Courtesy JDG)
    Schematic rendering of the proposed apartments. (Courtesy JDG)

    According to the Courier-Journal, the project calls for 160,000-square-feet of commercial space, 112,000-square-foot health club, a car dealership, a 203-unit senior living home, about 30,000-square-feet of retail space, some 1,800 apartments, and a whopping 4,000 parking spaces. The project is estimated at $200 million.

    That’s a lot of density way out on the edge of town. This is the kind of density that creates traffic without the benefit of walkability or urban vitality. There’s no transit that reaches the project. Each use is segregates into its own little corner, far away from other uses and disconnected from neighboring developments. Massive parking lots cover former farmland and commercial buildings are spaced far apart. It’s exactly the opposite of what Louisville should be allowing to be built, yet it’s the norm for most projects in the county.

    Perhaps that’s why Planning & Design Services found the project conforms to Louisville’s comprehensive plan. And perhaps that’s why Planning Commission Vice Chair Marilyn Lewis called the development a “well thought out plan.” Rezoning for the site was cleared by the commission and passed by Metro Council in February. It’s clear that our comprehensive plan’s ideals of Neighborhood Form Districts and Suburban Workplace Form Districts are failing us and creating more and more auto-centric sprawl.

    The sprawling project's site plan. (Courtesy JDG / Metro Lou)
    The sprawling project’s site plan. (Courtesy JDG / Metro Lou)

    I hope that JDG’s Irish Hill project moves forward. I believe it would create an exciting mid-point node between several neighborhoods, provide a visual gateway to Louisville, and promote density in a way that can realistically reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The proposal is on the right track and with the right attention to detail on the part of the developer and architect, Lexington Pointe could be a real showpiece.

    The developer has had some difficulty building in urban parts of Louisville, and it’s clear so far that JDG and its lawyer are attempting to avoid pitfalls that jeopardized or killed projects in the past. Jefferson Development Group previously proposed twin office towers atop a parking podium across from Slugger Field. The company demolished two historic buildings on the site but never realized the project. The site today is now a surface parking lot.

    After several rounds of revisions and staunch opposition from the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood, JDG abandoned a high-end condo development on Cherokee Road called the Cherokee Grande that would have replaced a 1970s apartment complex. Another proposal, the Willow Grande condo tower, also in Cherokee Triangle, is still planned but has been held up by lawsuits. JDG successfully completed the unfortunately designed Parke Grande in Bonnycastle, a stack of McMansions on Cherokee Road, in 2006.

    Architect Steve Wiser honored as AIA Fellow for activism, community engagement

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    Louisville has its second inductee in two years into the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows. Broken Sidewalk contributor and local architect Steve Wiser will be presented with the honor later this year at the AIA’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida. Last year, Roberto De Leon of De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop received the distinction.

    “To be recognized by my architectural peers is indeed a distinct honor,” Wiser told Broken Sidewalk in an email. “I have been a lifelong member of the organization and have been an active participant in the American Institute of Architects for over 35 years.”

    AIA Fellowship (FAIA) recognizes architects who have made a significant contribution to the field of architecture and to society at large. Specifically, the Jury of Fellows commended Wiser’s “civic activism in urban planning, preservation, publications, architectural advocacy, and healthcare, all of which have contributed to enhancing awareness and appreciation of exceptional design and its impact on the Louisville community and the world at large,” according to a statement from the AIA.

    Wiser is a frequent lecturer on Louisville history and has written several books including Louisville Sites to See by DESIGN, Distinguished Houses of Louisville, and, most recently, Carriage Houses of Louisville. He has also been a strong advocate of historic preservation and saving the historic archives of architecture firms across Kentucky.

    “FAIA status bestows a sense of responsibility in providing an example of how architects can be of benefit to society,” Wiser said. “I will use this status to continue my career pursuit of ‘making Louisville a better place in which to live.’ I still have many more architectural talks to present, books to write, historic buildings to preserve, and quality design to promote.”

    Today, Wiser is a healthcare architect at Louisville’s JRA Architects, located on East Market Street. He has worked on many hospitals across the state and on stabilizing Whiskey Row here on Main Street.

    Michael Jacobs of Lexington’s Omni Architects was also elected to the College of Fellows this year. There have only been 33 AIA Fellows in Kentucky, of which 13 are alive today.

    “As someone who did not have any prior architectural connections nor construction experience, I’ve been very blessed to attain this level of achievement,” Wiser added. “As I tell other aspiring architects: thru dedication and passion, keep pursuing your dreams and they will happen. Mine certainly have, more than I ever imagined.”

    [Top image of Steve Wiser courtesy JRA Architects.]

    America’s best bike lanes of 2016 show how to build robust bicycling networks

    Randolph Street and Dearborn Street, Chicago. (John Greenfield / Streetsblog Chicago)
    Randolph Street and Dearborn Street, Chicago. (John Greenfield / Streetsblog Chicago)

    (Editor’s Note: Yesterday we looked at how Louisville stacks up nationally in terms of bike ridership and infrastructure. Part of that involved suggestions from leading bike groups that the city implement better designs on its new system of protected bike lanes. Here are a few examples of top protected bike lanes from across the country.)

    If 2013 was the year protected bike lanes went national, 2014 was the year they got beautiful and 2015 was the year they got durable, 2016 has been the year they did something even more valuable.

    They started to connect.

    From Atlanta to Chicago to Seattle, protected bike lanes intersected. For the first time this year, the leading cities weren’t just closing bike lane gaps (though they were). They were also starting to form grids.

    Almost exactly 100 years after American transportation was revolutionized by the build-out of a different vehicular grid—these days most people refer to it as “the road”—the country’s gradual investment in all-ages bike lanes is finally becoming an investment in all-ages bike networks.

    In recognition of that and of the new phase of our work at PeopleForBikes that’ll help cities prioritize and complete gaps in their developing bike networks, we asked the experts who advised us on this year’s fourth annual list of the country’s best new bike lanes to put extra emphasis on the role projects played in their city’s network.

    Here are the nation’s best new connections.

    1) Westlake Avenue, Seattle

    (Courtesy Seattle Department of Transportation)
    (Courtesy Seattle Department of Transportation)
    (Courtesy PeopleForBikes)
    (Courtesy PeopleForBikes)

    The country’s best new bike lane of 2016 is a stripe of asphalt evidence that Seattle is willing to explain, over and over again, why a parallel route two blocks away sometimes isn’t good enough.

    No one who’s actually ridden a bike in Seattle’s near north side would confuse Dexter Avenue, with its 300-foot climb, with the lakeside bend of Westlake Avenue just to the east.

    Fortunately for Seattle, its leaders knew the lay of the land. So they soldiered through years of negotiations and lawsuit threats to finish Westlake, finding a design that preserved 90 percent of the spaces in a relevant public parking lot. The turning point: Mayor Ed Murray called all parties into a room and forced them to hear one another out.

    “If you never sit down and talk to the people who are on the other side of the table, you’re going to invent reasons to disagree,” Seattle Transportation Director Scott Kubly said Tuesday. “When it gets right down to it, most people wanted the same thing.”

    What they got was a world-class bikeway: the first flat, intuitive link joining downtown Seattle to the north side and a vast regional trail network.

    2) Randolph Street, Chicago

    The intersection at the top of this post as seen from street level during construction. Green coloring came later. (John Greenfield / Streetsblog Chicago)
    The intersection at the top of this post as seen from street level during construction. Green coloring came later. (John Greenfield / Streetsblog Chicago)
    (Courtesy PeopleForBikes)
    (Courtesy PeopleForBikes)

    Seattle and Chicago are the only two cities whose projects have landed on this this list four years in a row, but it’s Chicago that continues to deliver first-in-the-nation designs—and also, as it happens, some of the country’s most consistent growth in bike commuting.

    Two eye-catching protected intersections along Randolph, where the new protected lane crosses existing bikeways on Canal and Dearborn, are the first in a major U.S. downtown.

    Even more exciting to our experts, though, was the fact that Randolph links Dearborn (our #1 lane of 2013) with Clinton (our #10 lane of 2015), making both of them twice as useful. Randolph will get even better this spring when an extended buffered lane on Washington, one block south, creates an east-west couplet—enough for us to forgive Randolph’s unfortunate one-block detour onto the sidewalk.

    3) Downtown-University network, Tallahassee

    The best bike lane separation is often several different kinds at once. (Courtesy City of Tallahassee)
    The best bike lane separation is often several different kinds at once. (Courtesy City of Tallahassee)

    Tallahassee planner Artie White isn’t sure what the thinking was that once led his city to turn the two main routes between Florida State University and his city’s downtown into one-way speedways.

    “If you want to take the life off of the street and have it as a place that you drive through instead of driving to, sure maybe,” he said. “But that’s not what we wanted to do with our downtown.”

    So this year Tallahassee started calming these streets (which run on either side of Florida’s capitol building) by adding protected bike lanes instead — and threw in three other short segments that connect the system directly to the 16-mile St. Marks Trail to the Gulf coast. Look for the number of bicycles transported through Tallahassee by car-top roof rack to plummet in the next few years.

    4) River Street, Aurora

    Trail gap no more. (Courtesy City of Aurora)
    Trail gap no more. (Courtesy City of Aurora)

    The second-biggest city in Illinois is accustomed to life in the shadow of the biggest one, 40 miles to its east. But Chicago has nothing like the Fox River Trail that runs through the western collar counties.

    For years, the only flaw in the trail’s 60-mile span (intersecting with several other paths) has been a one-mile gap near central Aurora — until last spring, that is, when the city unveiled a new one-mile curb-protected bike lane that brought everything together, complete with green paint and bike-only signals.

    “We knew it would benefit not just bicyclists, but our residents and businesses as well,” Mayor Tom Weisner said in September. Party on, Aurora.

    5) Pulaski Bridge, New York City

    If they were to jointly secede from NYC, Brooklyn and Queens would create the country’s biggest city.

    The two boroughs are separated by Newtown Creek, an industrial channel with just two bridges in a two-mile stretch. One of those bridges, Pulaski, has long forced people walking and biking into the same narrow, crowded shared path.

    Until this year, when the boroughs were stitched closer with a first-rate project that repurposed an auto travel lane to finally give bikers and walkers their own spaces, separated by concrete. And it’s built on a drawbridge, no less. If NYC DOT can keep delivering projects like this, maybe Brooklyn and Queens will keep letting the three smaller boroughs hang out with them.

    6) Telegraph Avenue, Oakland

    Opening day. (Seth Solomonow / Bloomberg Associates)
    Opening day. (Seth Solomonow / Bloomberg Associates)

    When NYC DOT’s Ryan Russo visited Oakland in 2014 to check out its plans for Telegraph Avenue, he had one question: “‘Why did you pick such a difficult street to do your first protected bike lane?”

    Five lanes plus parking, lined by shops and busy with buses, Telegraph got its name because it’s always been the shortest line between two cities that are now among America’s bike capitals: Oakland and Berkeley. Few streets in the country have more long-term potential as a bike thoroughfare. That’s what led advocacy group Bike East Bay to go all in, knocking on the doors of every shop on the street and selling two business associations on the concept. They also created a huge on-street demo that helped persuade skeptical bureaucrats that it’d work.

    The nine-block stretch that opened last spring still needs improvements — floating bus islands, for example, are funded but unbuilt — but with $9 million already lined up for the next two extensions, Telegraph now has momentum to become one of the country’s best streets for people.

    7) 15th Street NW, Washington DC

    (Courtesy WABA)
    (Courtesy WABA)

    Some bike lanes exist mostly to save space for better ones in the future. That was maybe the best that could have been said for the truly odd design of DC’s 15th Avenue between V and W streets before the city gave it the major upgrade you can see above. We’ll let the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) do the talking: the new concrete curb and bidirectional bikeway here turned the intersection “from one of the most crash-prone in the city to a model example of a complete street.”

    If a network is only as comfortable as its weakest link, fixes like this one are the sort many cities need most.

    8) Franklin Avenue Bridge, Minneapolis

    (Courtesy Hennepin County)
    (Courtesy Hennepin County)

    The longest concrete span bridge in the world when it was built in 1923, the Franklin Avenue Bridge is a crucial link across the Mississippi just southeast of the University of Minnesota, joining two sections of the Twin Cities’ legendary network of off-street paths. By narrowing the auto travel area across the bridge, Hennepin County made room to move the conventional bike lanes behind a curb and rail. On the day it opened, residents from each side of the bridge dressed in their neighborhoods’ official colors and had a party together on the top.

    9) Maryland Avenue, Baltimore

    (Brian O'Doherty)
    (Brian O’Doherty)

    This project is the opposite of the last two: instead of closing a small gap in an existing network, Baltimore this year began a new network in a big way. Once the city can add some limbs to this huge 2.6-mile bidirectional trunk between Charles Village and downtown, it’ll be building a Baltimore that’s significantly easier, cheaper and healthier to get around.

    10) Cass Street, Tampa

    (Courtesy Coast Bikes)
    (Courtesy Coast Bikes)

    Biking has vast potential in the nation’s third-largest state, and this connection between the Ybor City district and the north side of Tampa’s downtown shows a Florida city building its most important bike routes first. Though overly restrictive federal bike-signal regulations may have forced a flawed signal setup on Cass, the project stands out for its importance to the future network and for the fact that it’s already helped prompt a likely follow-up project on the parallel Jackson Street — a state highway. When your project is helping get a state DOT rolling on protected bike lanes of its own, you’re doing something right.

    (Editor’s Note: This article has been cross-posted from PeopleForBikes’s Green Lane Project blog. Follow along with PeopleForBikes on Facebook and Twitter.)

    West Main short on residents, critical in shaping Louisville’s urban identity

    Last Fall, I was asked by real estate publication Curbed which street in Louisville was the most culturally significant. I wondered about Bardstown Road and Fourth Street, but in the end West Main Street captured my imagination more than any other.

    West Main has been with Louisville since the very beginning, helping to organize the city’s early east–west growth along the upper bank of the Ohio River. Narrowly avoiding complete destruction, it’s also seen more change—and continuity—over the past two centuries than just about any other part of town. The West Main we love has kept its cast-iron clothing while serving a variety of purposes for an evolving Louisville.

    I wrote about the history and present day significance of West Main for a major series Curbed published on ten cities across the country last Fall. Here’s a sample from Louisville’s segment.

    Walk down West Main Street in Louisville and you’ll notice a strange vibrancy along the uniform five-story height of the corridor’s 19th-century industrial buildings. Suited-up workers dash to a quick lunch at a local cafe, and three generations of men walk together carrying miniature baseball bats, souvenirs from the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory.

    A group of women take selfies in front of a double-size replica of Michelangelo’s naked David spray painted gold. And children, lots of them, mill about on the sidewalk, no doubt bussed in for a field trip to the history or science museum.

    “Main Street is absolutely core to Louisville’s identity,” Rebecca Matheny, director of the Louisville Downtown Partnership attests. And while it’s been Louisville’s most important street for nearly the city’s entire history, its modern incarnation isn’t an accident.

    It’s definitely worth reading the full series and learning about nine other significant streets across the country. Check it out here.

    During my research for the story, I uncovered a number of fascinating West Main sub-stories that helped to give rise to the modern Louisville we know today. In coming months, I’m hoping to share a few of them here.

    What are your thoughts of West Main Street? How has it impacted your idea of Downtown or urban Louisville in general? How do you use the street? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

    Louisville becoming a more bike friendly city, but has room for improvement

    (Editor’s Note: As you’ve likely noticed, Broken Sidewalk has been sidelined for several months. Last Spring, I was diagnosed with Leukemia and immediately went into treatment. As editor of the site, I kept publishing as long as I could, but eventually, I had to take time off to focus on my health. Last Fall, I underwent a bone marrow transplant and have been slowly recovering from the effects of chemotherapy and radiation. The good news is it looks like the cancer is gone and I’m feeling a lot better. So with that, we hope to get Broken Sidewalk back on its feet. Thanks for so many of your kind thoughts and prayers throughout this difficult time, your continued patience, and for caring about the future of the city. This project only works if there’s someone on the other end of the line.)

    While I was gone, Louisville received some major recognition in its efforts to become more bikeable. First up, Bicycling magazine named Louisville the 31st best biking city in its biennial look at American cities. Rankings were determined based on an analysis of Census data, discussions with national and local bike leaders, and key bike-friendly indicators like the number of female bike commuters. The magazine cited the opening of Louisville’s bike and pedestrian Big Four Bridge connecting Waterfront Park with Jeffersonville, Indiana, among the city’s success stories. Since it opened in 2014, the bridge has been wildly popular, promoting walking and biking throughout the community.

    The magazine also spoke with Bicycling for Louisville’s Executive Director Chris Glasser about the city’s bike progress. “Louisville has gotten in the habit of reducing lane widths and painting buffered bike lanes,” Glasser told Bicycling’s Ian Dille. Reducing lane widths is among the best ways to promote street safety and reduce vehicle speeds.

    A protected bike lane in the Russell neighborhood. (Courtesy Bicycling for Louisville)
    A protected bike lane in the Russell neighborhood. (Courtesy Bicycling for Louisville)

    Dille also checked in with Louisville’s biking setbacks, such as a recent slashing of the city’s bicycling program’s budget and lack of advanced infrastructure on Louisville’s growing network of Neighborways, low traffic streets perfect for cycling. Still, Louisville’s rank at 31 is good news as it shows we’re batting above average. The list was topped by Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, New York City, and Seattle, with local peers like Indianapolis clocking in at 11 and Pittsburgh at 20. Further down the list, Cincinnati ranked 36, Columbus was 39, and Atlanta came in at a dismal 43.

    Louisville is up sharply from Bicycling’s 2014 list when the city ranked 43 in the nation. The city was listed at 21 in both the 2012 list and the 2010 ranking, but in recent years, the field has become much more competitive.

    While Bicycling magazine has plenty of good things to say about Louisville, it also printed some nice words about your favorite place for urbanism online—Broken Sidewalk. Take a look:

    Louisville’s Broken Sidewalk blog is perhaps the nation’s best local outlet chronicling a city’s urban transformation. The site’s clean design and enlightening content regularly features posts from some of the country’s top thinkers on utilitarian cycling. Every city that wants to improve biking needs an online publication this good.

    Thanks, Bicycling!

    (Courtesy U.S. Census Bureau)
    (Courtesy U.S. Census Bureau)

    Last Fall, the League of American Bicyclists also took a deep dive into newly released 2015 Census data on commuting to determine the changing landscape of biking across the country. Nationally, bike commuting dropped 3.8 percent—the first time since 2010. The League believes this decrease is due to a number of factors including low gas prices and a distinct increase in vehicle miles traveled (VMT), which, the League noted, corresponds with an increase in traffic fatalities.

    (Courtesy U.S. Census Bureau)

    Locally, Louisville was ranked 49th for its rate of bike commuting, which stands at a meager 0.4 percent of the population. According to Census data, that’s up significantly from 1990 (about 115 percent increase), about even with 2010 (a 1 percent increase) and down from 2014 (by about 20 percent).

    Portland, Oregon, topped the nation with a 7 percent bike commute rate followed by Minneapolis with 5 percent and San Francisco with 4.3 percent. Lexington was listed at 28th nationally with a rate of 1 percent. Among Louisville’s peer cities, Pittsburgh’s 1.7 percent bike commuting rate landed it at 15th, Indianapolis came in at 40 with 0.6 percent, and Cincinnati took 53rd with a 0.3 percent rate of bicycle commuting.

    (Courtesy Redfin)
    (Courtesy Redfin)

    Also last year, Old Louisville was specifically highlighted among the top ten most bikeable urban areas by real estate site Redfin. The Victorian neighborhood, which also took the honor of one of America’s best neighborhoods as determined by the American Planning Association, came in at 6th best. The top five includes Philadelphia, Tuscon, Austin, Denver, and Portland.

    Bike improvements in Louisville. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)
    Bike improvements in Louisville. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)

    “Louisville has invested in bike lanes… [that] have given residents a healthy, safe option to travel between neighborhoods and to downtown,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said in a statement last May. “But the work is hardly done. Our city is in the process of rethinking how we connect, and bicycles are a major part that strategic mobility plan.” The mayor referenced the city’s draft Move Louisville plan, a 20-year mobility framework, which calls for drastically reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) across the city. The plan expects biking and walking will play a large part in achieving those goals.

    A buffered bike lane on Fourth Street near the University of Louisville. (Courtesy Bike Louisville)
    A buffered bike lane on Fourth Street near the University of Louisville. (Courtesy Bike Louisville)

    Old Louisville (and many of Louisville’s urban neighborhoods) is particularly suited to biking with growing infrastructure, a central location, a well-connected grid of streets, and flat terrain. That’s good news considering the neighborhood will be at the center of a new bike share program set to launch later this year.

    Planned bike lane at Castlewood and Barret. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)
    Planned bike lane at Castlewood and Barret. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)

    What’s all this mean?

    Louisville has made some serious progress in building up its bike network, but there’s a lot of work still to be done. As Bicycling magazine pointed out, the city has upgraded its infrastructure but lags behind other cities like Indianapolis in terms of high quality design for protected bike lanes. Louisville’s successful Neighborways is promising but today it’s little more than a collection of sharrows. More substantial design including signage and traffic diverters should be installed to make the system easier and safer to use. To achieve these infrastructure goals, the city’s agency covering bicycling, Bike Louisville, should see its budget increase annually, not decrease. And the city’s miniscule rate of bike commuting could easily be improved.

    Bike lanes planned on West Jefferson Street in Russell. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)
    Bike lanes planned on West Jefferson Street in Russell. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)

    There are good things on the horizon as well. Louisville continues to build out its bike network with more innovative designs than we’ve seen in the past and a new bike share system is set to launch later this year. Bicycling for Louisville recently listed the city’s biggest bike wins of 2016, which included new protected bike lanes on 12th and 13th streets, ongoing planning for an extended Beargrass Creek Trail, and expansion of the Neighborways program. This year, the group is advocating for protected bike lanes on Castlewood and Barret avenues and road diets along West Jefferson Street in Russell and along Oak and Winter streets in the Highlands.

    These infrastructure improvements are also critical for Louisville to reduce its dependency on automobiles. Research has shown that the better a city’s bike network, the more people bike. Louisville’s network is beginning to reach a critical capacity with easy to use bike lanes and Neighborways where biking becomes a very comfortable and safe option for for a larger percentage of the population. Options like well-designed protected bike lanes can help encourage people who haven’t commuted by bike to give it a try. And with only 0.4 percent of the population saddling up to go to work, there’s plenty of room to attract new audiences.

    What’s on your bike wish list for Louisville? Do you commute by bike? Share your vision in the comments below.

    [Top image shows city workers painting a bike lane on Goldsmith Lane. Courtesy Bike Louisville.]

    Louisville’s first parklet debuts at IdeaFestival, headed for Portland restaurant

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    On Friday, September 16, the world celebrated Park(ing) Day 2016, a single day where individuals and groups take over parallel parking spaces, transforming them into miniature parks called “parklets.” The idea is simple: explore how we use—or rather how we could be using—public space in our cities. Streets make up our largest public spaces, but an enormous portion of road space is dedicated to storing parked cars at very low prices. Park(ing) Day asks, what if we used some of that space for something else that benefits the whole community?

    But what good can a day playing in the street bring? Park(ing) Day is part of a concept called Tactical Urbanism, where small, short-term changes are implemented with the goal of bringing about long-term change. Slowly but surely a community can wrest control of its streets from the firm grip of the automobile and create more valuable public space experiences. That’s exactly what’s happened now in Louisville: those dozens of one-day parklets over the years have helped spur the city’s first semi-permanent parklet.

    The Community Table

    This week, The Community Table debuts at IdeaFestival. The prototype parklet hasn’t hit the streets quite yet, though—it’s located inside the lobby of the Kentucky Center for the Arts where Mayor Greg Fischer will be using the space as his mobile office during the innovation conference. The Community Table was designed by Louisville’s Gresham Smith & Partners and Lexington’s Nomi Design and commissioned by Metro Louisville.

    This is the sixth year the mayor has relocated his office to IdeaFestival. “Each year we’ve tried to do something a little different,” Chris Poynter, the mayor’s spokesperson, told Broken Sidewalk. In the beginning, the office was just a standard desk, but “we decided to engage artists and architects to create pieces that could be created for IdeaFestival and be used elsewhere afterwards.” Last year, architect Nathan Smith built a zigzagging table with indoor and outdoor seating that appeared to move through the Kentucky Center’s glass facade. That table was later reused during the Resurfaced pop-up event at Tenth Street celebrating the city’s Connect/Disconnect public art exhibition.

    Designing a Parklet

    A large table forms the centerpiece of The Community Table parklet. (Courtesy Nomi Design)
    A large table forms the centerpiece of The Community Table parklet. (Courtesy Nomi Design)

    The parklet’s design remains true to its name. Built on an elevated platform that makes the parklet flush with the sidewalk, the parking-space sized public space (8 feet by 18 feet) includes a large table with bike parking on one side. The table is big enough that a couple small groups can use it at the same time or one large group could fill the space. It’s also designed so wheelchairs can roll onto the parklet and fit comfortably at the table.

     

    “We started by thinking about what the parklet needed to do,” Louis Johnson, a project manager at Gresham Smith & Partners told Broken Sidewalk. “The whole idea was to create a space where the mayor could engage in casual or more formal conversations and community dialogue. It had to transition well to The Table restaurant.” GSP and Nomi looked at parklets from around the country for examples of designs that work well. “People want a place where they feel safe sitting along the roadway,” he said.

    Rendering of The Community Table. (Courtesy Gresham Smith & Partners)
    Rendering of The Community Table. (Courtesy Gresham Smith & Partners)

    Johnson collaborated on the design with a team from Nomi, which opened an office in Louisville this year. Nomi fabricated the parklet in its Lexington studio and hauled the modular pieces over to Louisville yesterday to be assembled at the Kentucky Center. The four-piece modular design allows the parklet to be easily assembled or disassembled and moved to a new location.

    “It’s actually a quite simple design—it’s elegant,” Darren Taylor, creative director at Nomi, told Broken Sidewalk as he and principal Matthew Brooks drove the parklet to Louisville Monday. Nomi has used the concept of a communal table in its designs before. “We thought, why don’t we bring the concept of a community table where people can sit around and eat or talk or both,” Taylor said. “We started the design with the table.” Built of Ipe with a steel base, it’s heavy at nearly 300 pounds. “The cool thing about that is if the restaurant owners wanted to move it, they could. It’s sort of a furniture piece.”

    An informational sign explains how the parklet was built and why parklets are important. (Courtesy Nomi Design)
    An informational sign explains how the parklet was built and why parklets are important. (Courtesy Nomi Design)

    “We had about two-and-a-half weeks to get it from design to fabrication,” Johnson said. “Nomi is really strong with materiality, and that’s really important since this is the city’s first prototype. It had to be really durable.” The parklet is made of Ipe wood and steel. Ipe, sometimes called TKTK, is the same wood used in New York City’s park benches and boardwalks because of its ability to stand up to the elements. “It’s pretty much the best wood available,” Johnson added.

    A Parklet for Portland

    After IdeaFestival, The Community Table will be relocated to a parallel parking spot in front of The Table restaurant in Portland, where it will provide outdoor seating for lunch patrons or simply a space to hang out or talk with friends. Poynter said the parklet could also eventually be moved to other locations around the city.

    Rendering of The Community Table. (Courtesy Gresham Smith & Partners)
    Rendering of The Community Table. (Courtesy Gresham Smith & Partners)

    Parklets are not a new concept. Similar on-street public spaces have been used for years in cities across the country from San Francisco to Chicago to New York. This year, Covington, Kentucky, received national praise for its own parklet program called Curb’d which installed five parklets on its streets. “A lot of cities are way ahead of us in this measure,” Poynter said. “This is not a new concept.” In Covington as in most cities, the parklets are installed in the spring and disassembled and put in storage in the fall to minimize wear and tear and make plowing streets in winter easier.

    Crafting a Parklet Policy

    The Community Table parklet is on display at IdeaFestival 2016. (Courtesy Nomi Design)
    The Community Table parklet is on display at IdeaFestival 2016. (Courtesy Nomi Design)

    The Community Table is a prototype meant to show the community what a parklet looks like and how it’s used. Poynter said the city is putting together an official parklet policy that will help guide others interested in building their own semi-permanent parklets. “When a business comes to us that’s interested in a parklet, we can give them a checklist of what to do,” he said. “We want to show people that you can use parking spaces for more than just parking cars. We have plenty of parking in this community. How do we better use those spaces?”

    That parklet policy will also address what kinds of streets the parklets can be built on. “A lot of the streets that we’d want to do parklets on are state roads,” Poynter said, noting that the discussion about parklets began last year when Heine Brothers Coffee wanted to build a parklet in front of its store on Frankfort Avenue. The state currently doesn’t allow for such installations on roads like Frankfort, but Poynter said a team from the city’s advanced planning and public works departments will work out details with the state on implementing parklets on state-controlled streets in the city.

    Park(ing) Day to Public Space

    Louisville is no stranger to Park(ing) Day, hosting temporary parklets as far back as 2007. While some years have seen more parklets than others, there has been a near constant presence of parklets popping up for the one-day celebration. This year, architecture firm GBBN built a parklet called “Common Space” in front of its West Main Street offices. (If you know of others who built a Park(ing) Day spot, please let us know!)

    “For us it was a bit of a research project about open space,” GBBN’s Matt Nett told Broken Sidewalk. GBBN’s three U.S. offices in Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh all studied people’s behavior using their Park(ing) Day spaces in a similar manner as famed urbanist William “Holly” Whyte’s research into the Social Life of Small Urban Spaces in New York City in the 1970s.

    Architects at GBBN watched where and how people used the parklet—whether they chose to sit closer to the street or the sidewalk, how they used moveable seating, and whether people interacted with with a punching bag, a nod to Muhammad Ali and the Ali Center around the corner. “I was impressed by the amount of engagement it did receive,” Nett said. This fall, GBBN’s observations will be collected into an exhibition that will be on display in the firm’s lobby.

    GSP helped with KyASLA's Park(ing) Day spot in Lexington. (Courtesy GSP)
    GSP helped with KyASLA’s Park(ing) Day spot in Lexington. (Courtesy GSP)

    Gresham Smith & Partners also participated in Park(ing) Day this year, working with the Kentucky chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) on a temporary parklet in Lexington.

    “Events like Park(ing) Day are all about creating awareness and creating spaces for people,” Johnson said.”The statement that we’re really making is that streets can be rethought as public spaces.” In the spectrum of Tactical Urbanism’s temporary to permanent approach, “the[semi-permanent] parklet is the mid-term version,” he said.

    A temporary parklet commissioned by the 21c Museum Hotel on display at IdeaFestival in 2012. (Louis Huber-Calvo / Instagram)
    A temporary parklet commissioned by the 21c Museum Hotel for Park(ing) Day on display at IdeaFestival in 2012. (Louis Huber-Calvo / Instagram)

    Way back in 2012, IdeaFestival played host to another temporary parklet commissioned by the 21c Museum Hotel for Park(ing) Day. The “mobile parklet” built on the back of a trailer featured undulating sod with a park bench and was on display in front of the Kentucky Center.

    Stop by the Kentucky Center beginning today through Friday to see The Community Table parklet and share your own innovative ideas for the city with the mayor and his team. We’ll keep you updated with progress on the city’s parklet policy as it develops.

     

     

     

    Neckdowns, rain garden make crossing First Street safer for pedestrians

    If you’re walking along First Street in Downtown, be sure to check out a new streetscape at First and Gray streets, currently awaiting its finishing touches from Jefferson Community & Technical College.

    Like any good infrastructure project, the neckdowns at First and Gray accomplish several goals at once.

    The First Street neckdowns. (Dan Borsch)
    The First Street neckdowns. (Dan Borsch)

    “They all kind of mesh together into one project,” Craig Turpin, Director of Facilities & Maintenance at JCTC, told Broken Sidewalk. “One of the issues we have had is a safety concern.urpin said the new streetscape makes it easier for pedestrians to cross the street by narrowing the road bed. The neckdown occupies space in the parking lane.

    “I walked across it the other day,” Turpin said. “It takes about eight strides to cross—you’re really crossing two lanes instead of four.” High visibility crosswalks have been painted on the street, an improvement over the previous parallel lines. He said it’s too soon to tell if the neckdown will also calm automobile traffic along First, but will be watching how motorists react as classes start next week. “I hope it does [calm traffic],” he said. “We’re trying to make a safer environment for our students.

    10-louisville-first-street-neckdowns-jctc

    11-louisville-first-street-neckdowns-jctc

    A new cast stone and metal fence will buffer the parking lot, steering JCTC students the nearest crosswalk rather than walking directly from the parking lot and crossing mid block, Turpin said. The fence posts will take cues from the architecture of the Seminary Building at First and Broadway and resemble signage currently in place around campus. Turpin said he expects the fence to be installed around Labor Day.

    On the sidewalk, new lighting will also soon be installed. Electric utilities are already “stubbed” in, Turpin said, but all the components haven’t arrived yet. He said the fixtures will resemble those installed along Second Street and within the JCTC campus.

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    One of the large rain gardens along First Street. (Dan Borsch)

    Another major design feature of the new streetscape is a series of rain gardens that will capture water from the street. “The rain garden accomplishes several things,” Turpin said. “Hopefully it will help absorb water directly into the ground and reduce the water going into the storm sewer.” He also expects planned landscaping to improve the street’s aesthetics and, again, steer pedestrians to the improved crosswalk. New plans will be installed once the weather cools down, Turpin said. “We told them them to wait to give the plants a little better chance of surviving.”

    The new streetscape was designed by Louisville’s Qk4 Engineering. JCTC also worked with Metro Louisville Public Works, which will be installing a new traffic signal at the intersection, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC), and the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) to get the project built. Turpin said the improvements came in a little under the $625,000 budget, which included design work. Funding came from JCTC and a transportation enhancement grant. The entire project is expected to be complete in early September.

    “We’ve had the idea for a couple of years,” Turpin said. “For different reasons we weren’t able to get it bid out till this spring.” He said at some point, JCTC could consider making similar changes, perhaps at First and Chestnut streets, if additional funds become available.