Plan to issue fake citations to youth jaywalkers, promote “defensive walking” draws criticism

Apr 20, 2016

Bike Louisville, the city agency that oversees both bikes and pedestrians, has received thousands in grant money from the Paula Nye Memorial Bicyclist & Pedestrian Education Grant, which is supplied with funds from those “Share the Road” bike license plates on cars. Rolf Eisinger, bike and pedestrian coordinator at Bike Louisville, recently accepted the award of $29,400 from the Kentucky Bicycle & Bikeway Commission (KBBC).

Of those funds, Bike Louisville plans to spend $11,900 on a program to “educate youths to bicycle and walk defensively.” And part of that means a crackdown on jaywalking. Or at least a fake one. According to the KBBC, “the funding will allow several LMPD officers to bicycle in targeted areas around each of the nine community centers and hand out educational “citations” to youth who are not following the rules of the road.” According to Bike Louisville’s grant application, “The classes will teach our youth to walk and bicycle defensively, to anticipate dangerous situations, and to react appropriately.”

And that has been sparking controversy in online forums.

Louisville’s streets are deadly, built with the sole purpose of moving cars rapidly, and the city ranks above the national average for pedestrian fatalities—it’s not easy for anyone outside of a car to get around. We’re not going to educate our pedestrians out of our street safety problem. And even the most defensive walker is still no match for a distracted driver.

Eisinger defended the program on a heated thread of the Bicycling for Louisville Facebook page, noting that he believes education is always important. “Not sure if there isn’t a time that providing education to our youth about life making decisions is not warranted,” he said. “A lot of our streets aren’t as safe as they need be and education is just one tool that can be used.”

And to be fair, despite a poorly worded Facebook announcement from the KBBC, it does sound like these fake citations won’t be on Louisville streets at large, but only at nine community centers hosting summer programs for kids. But the message it sends is still problematic.

While educating children in proper street safety is certainly important, the underlying message that we should raise our children to “walk defensively” on Louisville streets misses the mark. On the surface, it appears to condone Louisville’s unsafe streets and place responsibility for dealing with it on the shoulders of bikers and pedestrians. Additionally, on our city’s dangerous streets, sometimes the safest place to cross the street is actually in the middle of a block, not at a crosswalk where multiple chaotic turning motions of motorists can end up being more dangerous—which could be termed jaywalking. What’s worse, this approach could end up teaching some Louisville pedestrians that our streets are unsafe and they’re better off driving in a car to avoid the risk. And as we have already explored in depth, jaywalking to begin with was originally a campaign begun by car manufacturers to stigmatize walking and get people off the street to make them easier to drive cars on.

While one quick reaction to hearing about a program like this is to suggest flipping the scenario and ticketing motorists for dangerous behavior instead, it’s important to remember that Paula Nye Memorial Grant is limited in what it funds. The grant can only be used for certain educational endeavors:

To educate and inform in matters pertaining to bicycle and pedestrian safety through the development of curriculum, training aids, and/or educational programs or projects directly related to bicycle and pedestrian safety.
To educate and inform about the health, recreational, economic,
social, cultural, and other benefits arising from bicycling and walking.
To promote other bicycling and pedestrian related non-profit, educational and purposes as deemed appropriate by the KBBC.

In future funding cycles (no pun intended), it would be great to see the city use such grant money for bike and pedestrian encouragement. In New York, for example, the city, in partnership with nonprofits, regularly sets up bicycling booths on highly trafficked areas where they hand out bike bells and lights, breakfast energy bars and drinks to morning commuters, and generally encourage cyclists to make them feel like they belong on the street. And while not everyone on a bike will stop and grab an energy bar, I can speak from experience that seeing people waving and shouting good morning simply because you’re on a bike certainly brightens up your normal commute.

The city believes the effort in question, called the Summer Bike/Walk Sense and Bike Sense Cops for Kids Program, could reach up to 500 youths this summer. Bike Louisville said in its application that the Bike Sense program funds would pay for 500 youth bicycle helmets, 10 youth bicycles, equipment repair, coloring books, class time, and police overtime.

Bike Louisville devised the fake citation component to test whether youth involved in the program are retaining the information taught in the defensive walking classes. “Based on last year’s results it is estimated that sixty youth or 6 youth per community center will be reached while patrolling,” Bike Louisville wrote in its grant application.

Bike Louisville’s remaining Paula Nye funds will be used for the Travel with Care Campaign ($15,000) that “is aimed at humanizing people on bikes and encouraging better behavior among drivers and bike riders,” and the Earn a Bike Education program ($2,500) to fund a series of “bicycle safety and bicycling for transportation” classes required as part of the University of Louisville’s Earn-A-Bike program where students give up their parking permits in exchange for a $400 bike voucher and taking the aforementioned classes.

The Paula Nye Memorial Grant is named after Paula Nye, who served as Kentucky’s Bicycle & Pedestrian Coordinator from 2000–2005.

How green is that highway? U.S. DOT wants states to disclose climate impact of transportation projects

Transportation

By Branden Klayko -

Apr 20, 2016

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The Obama administration wants state DOTs to report on the climate impact of their transportation policies, reports Michael Grunwald at Politico, and the road lobby is dead set against it.

As part of the implementation of the MAP-21 federal transportation bill, U.S. DOT officials are preparing a new rule that would require states to set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and report their progress, according to Grunwald.

It’s the same idea behind similar rules requiring states to track progress on traffic congestion and walk/bike safety. No penalty would apply to states that fail to attain their goals, but the rule would increase transparency and enable advocates to hold transportation agencies accountable for their climate performance.

The road building lobby appears to hate the idea. From Grunwald’s piece:

Nick Goldstein, vice president for regulatory affairs with the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, warned that a mandate for agencies to set climate targets could be used as a pretext to discourage highway construction at a time when America desperately needs better infrastructure. He suggested the Obama administration has embraced an anti-asphalt mentality.

The draft rule has yet to be released by U.S. DOT. Once that happens, it will be subject to a period of public comment, and that feedback could shape the final form of the rule.

The climate rule is definitely one to keep an eye on. We’ll post more details as they become available.

[Editor’s Note: This article has been cross-posted from Streetsblog. Top image of the Ohio River Bridges Project under construction circa February 2016 courtesy Ohio River Bridges: Downtown Crossing / Flickr.]

Construction activity picks up at the Omni Louisville Hotel site

By Branden Klayko -

Apr 19, 2016

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13-omni-louisville-hotel-construction-april-2016 — (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the tower cranes hovering over the Omni block in Downtown Louisville began to rise into their own place on the skyline. But today the mega-block construction site is a mini city within a city walled off behind chained link as construction crews move about their business of preparing the Omni Louisville Hotel‘s foundation.

We stopped by the construction site recently to take a look at the action from a variety of vantage points, and there’s plenty to see. The day after these photos were taken, a line of concrete trucks wrapped around the block on Third and Liberty streets dousing the site with concrete where crews had previously been laying rebar.

1 of 14

The $300 million Omni Louisville Hotel includes not just a 600 room hotel, but also some 200 apartments, retail and restaurant space, and a mini-convention center within its walls. On the western side of the block, there’s also a way-too-large, above ground parking deck that’s thrown the future of Third Street into jeopardy.

The Omni ceremoniously broke ground on January 29 and is expected to be complete by 2018. There will be plenty of time for construction updates along the way.

Site leveled for C2, the Smoketown venue replacing the Connection

By Branden Klayko -

Apr 19, 2016

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Renderings can be deceiving. When we reported on the VU Guest House and adjoining C2 venue under construction in Smoketown, we thought a new building going up on Breckinridge Street was incorporating part of the facade of the old Ewald Radiator Company, which had a garage covered in metal panels about the same massing as a box in the rendering.

Rendering of the C2 venue under construction on Breckinridge Street. (Courtesy VU Guest House)

We were wrong.

Stopping by the construction site recently shows that it has been completely leveled and that the new C2 facility, replacing the Connection nightclub Downtown, will be entirely new construction. These are the latest views from Breckinridge Street.

Saving or not saving the old garage does not change the fact that the structure has not been designed to be a good neighbor to its surrounding community. The developers had previously torn down a row of historic houses to build a parking lot for the complex. Bryan Grumley detailed the project’s shortcomings in this piece from December 2015.

Attorney Deborah Bilitski, who represented the West End Walmart, to take helm of city’s development agency on April 25

Development

By Branden Klayko -

Apr 19, 2016

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On April 25, newly appointed Director of Develop Louisville, Deborah Bilistki, will begin overseeing the city’s department covering land use, planning and zoning, housing and community development, vacant and abandoned properties, construction review, and sustainable initiatives, among others.

Bilitski was appointed by Mayor Greg Fischer on March 31 to replace Jim Mims, who is returning to the private sector. For the past year, Bilitski has served as Assistant County Attorney where she provides legal counsel to the Mayor, Metro Council, and other city agencies. Before that, Bilitski spent almost 9 years at private law firm Wyatt Tarrant & Combs, where she was a partner.

At that firm, Bilitski led the Real Estate & Lending Service Team where she concentrated on zoning and land use law. Her clients included “developers, businesses, and property owners in obtaining zoning changes, conditional use permits, variances, subdivisions, historic preservation/landmarks and overlay district approvals, and other land use and development approvals and entitlements,” according to her former bio on the firm’s website.

Also while at Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, Bilitski represented Walmart in its (still ongoing) proposal to build a supercenter at Broadway, 18th Street, and Dixie Highway, just a few blocks outside of Downtown. Given how that project, one of Mayor Fischer’s and Louisville Forward’s pet projects at the time, ripped through long-standing regulations of the land development code, it will be important to watch how Develop Louisville changes in coming years.

The city was not concerned by Bilitski’s representation of the West End Walmart when we asked for a statement about her connection to a project that so weakened the land development code. We received a fairly generic response in return: “Deborah is a highly respected attorney with impressive experience and expertise in land use,” Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, Chief of Louisville Forward, told Broken Sidewalk in an email. “She brings a vision that adds tremendous value to the work of Develop Louisville.”

Bilitski has worked with developers on many high-profile projects while working in corporate law, giving her first-hand experience of what developers want while working with local government. And Metro Louisville has sought to streamline the bureaucratic process for developers, not without its own bumps along the way, so it seems fitting that Fischer would choose someone with Bilitski’s experience.

The agencies overseen by Develop Louisville have been changing over the past few years, so the continued evolution of the department will be critical to follow to understand the forces shaping the built landscape of Louisville. And Develop Louisville isn’t just about development. One of the agencies it oversees, the Office of Advanced Planning, is responsible for planning activities that range from the Move Louisville transportation plan to the city’s public art initiative.

Before joining Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, Bilitski previously worked for nine years as an Assistant County Attorney, beginning that post two years after graduating from law school at the University of Louisville in 1995. As Assistant County Attorney, she provided counsel to the Louisville Metro Planning Commission, the Board of Zoning Adjustments, Metro Council, and Planning & Design Services, among others.

It was during this tenure that Bilitski found herself fighting against Walmart in the late ’90s, this time in Okolona, when it failed to abide by its development agreement with the city. A new ordinance at the time gave the city authority to issue fines in such cases, which she oversaw.

Bilitski has remained active in the community, serving on the boards of the Louisville Downtown Management District from 2008–2013 (including a role on the Physical Improvement Committee), the Patty Smith Hill and Mildred Jane Hill Happy Birthday Park, the Home Builders Association of Louisville, and president of Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Louisville from 2006–2012. She was in the Leadership Louisville class of 2009 and the Bingham Fellows class of 2011 with a focus on “Shaping Louisville for the 21st Century.” Bilitski has also served on the Oak Street Task Force under David James that sought physical and policy changes to Old Louisville’s commercial corridor and the Louisville Metro Land Development Code Improvement Committee.

Develop Louisville was established in 2014 as part of the creation of Louisville Forward. The agency oversees the Office of Advanced Planning, Planning & Design Services, the Office of Construction Review, Housing and Community Development, Brightside, the Office of Sustainability, and the Vacant & Public Property Administration.

[Top image: The Metro Development Center houses Develop Louisville and many of its subsidiary agencies. Courtesy Google.]

Child riding his bike killed by motorist on quiet residential street

By Branden Klayko -

Apr 19, 2016

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A five-year-old boy was struck and killed by a motorist at around 11:40a.m. on Friday, April 15.

The collision took place on Whispering Brook Drive near Quiet Wood Court, just south of the Gene Snyder in Okolona. The boy had been riding his bike near the entrance to his apartment complex on a narrow, quiet street just past Mud Creek. The motorist, the apartment maintenance man, was driving a white Ford pickup truck with a trailer hauling a refrigerator. The child was rushed to Kosair Children’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The incident was reported by WAVE3 (update), WDRB, WLKY, and WHAS11.

According to WLKY, the Louisville Metro Police have labeled the collision a “tragic accident.” Whereas police blamed the victim in another fatal collision this weekend on Zorn Avenue, this time they took the stance of defending the motorist. “Apparently, the pickup truck was attempting to make a right turn into Quiet Wood, did not see the bicyclist,” LMPD’s Dwight Mitchell told WLKY. “The truck is pretty high up, even though it’s a pickup truck. Obviously they collided together.”

Firefighters on the scene had to lift the truck to get to the boy’s bicycle.

Not seeing a person or driving a vehicle that is prohibitively tall to take in the surroundings on the street is not an excuse for traffic violence. Distracted driving kills. “This is a very tragic incident, obviously, involving (a) child so young, and obviously for the driver of the vehicle, who unfortunately did not see (him),” Mitchell told WLKY. A narrow residential road with a low speed limit and speed bumps should be a safe street for everyone.

A series of small speed bumps are present on Whispering Brook Drive, and the motorist would have just gone over one before the collision. There are no sidewalks on the streets in question (WAVE3 was the only news source to note this). The speed limit for the street is 25 miles per hour.

This quiet area should have been an ideal place to raise a child, with the creek running through the area and Blue Lick Elementary School and Knight Middle School within walking distance.

[All images courtesy Google.]

Woman killed by motorist on Zorn Avenue

By Branden Klayko -

Apr 19, 2016

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A woman was struck and killed by a motorist on Zorn Avenue on Sunday April 17.

The fatal collision took place around 1:00a.m. on Sunday morning at the intersection of Zorn Avenue and Cleveland Boulevard in the Clifton Heights / Brownsboro Zorn neighborhoods just north of St. Leonard Catholic School. The motorist was driving a white SUV.

The incident was reported by WDRB, WLKY, WHAS11, the C-J’s rewrite of the WHAS report, and a fatal collision roundup by WAVE3. WDRB, WAVE3, WHAS11, and the C-J all labeled the collision an accident. WLKY’s report was the best of all the local news stations—barely.

All of the local news outlets regurgitated the Louisville Metro Police Department’s victim-blaming claim that the woman was not in a crosswalk, but none of them bothered to check the conditions on the ground.

Had they done so, it would be clear that there are no crosswalks anywhere near this crash site. The closest crosswalk is 1,780 feet to the south at Riedling Drive, and there are no crosswalks to the north, even at Zorn’s terminus with River Road.

There are few sidewalks in the area despite Zorn Avenue connecting a relatively dense part of Clifton Heights / Brownsboro Zorn neighborhoods with immense recreational opportunities along River Road. The sidewalk also changes sides of the street at one point, with no crosswalk in sight. And good luck navigating the interchange with Interstate 71.

At the intersection where the crash happened, a TARC stop is present with a bench and a neon yellow marker that reads pedestrians ahead. The speed limit along Zorn Avenue is posted at 35 miles per hour, but the street design and lack of controlled intersections make the stretch into a speedway connecting the interstate with Brownsboro Road.

The LMPD attributed this death and three other traffic fatalities that occurred over the weekend to warm weather. “Obviously with the turn in weather, with the great weather, motorists are going to have to pay attention to motorists, walking or on bicycle,” LMPD’s Dwight Mitchell told WHAS11.

Louisville is in the midst of a three-year, federally funded pedestrian safety campaign called Look Alive Louisville due to the city’s above average fatality rate among pedestrians.

[All images courtesy Google.]

Meet your Metro Council candidates: District 6

By Broken Sidewalk -

Apr 19, 2016

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This year, Broken Sidewalk asked each Metro Council candidate to respond to a survey of questions related to the topics we cover here on the site: urbanism, transportation, health, and the environment. Broken Sidewalk will make no endorsements this year for Metro Council candidates, but we hope these survey responses—published verbatim—are helpful to voters in making up their minds.

We will be publishing the results by district. Below is District 6. Our survey included two types of questions: 1. multiple choice answers about personal behaviors and views, and 2. longer responses on a range of topics. Each candidate was also given an optional open field to expand upon a topic of their choosing, if they so desired.

Louisville Metro Council District Six comprises Old Louisville, Limerick, SoBro, California, Park Hill, Algonquin, South Louisville, Taylor Berry, and part of Parkland.

The candidates for District 6 include, in alphabetical order, barbershop owner Carol Clark (D) and incumbent David James (D).

Carol Clark

Have often do you walk to work or for basic errands?
A few times a month

Have often do you take transit to commute to work or for basic errands?
Never

How often do you ride a bike to get to work or for errands?
A few times a month

How often do you drive in a personal motor vehicle?
Every day

How safe do you feel as a pedestrian walking on Louisville’s streets?
Not very safe

Louisville’s transit system should expand service, infrastructure, and offerings.
Agree

The city should invest in complete street design that promotes safety for all road users.
Agree

Walkable and transit-oriented development should be promoted over auto-oriented development.
Undecided

Louisville should repair and maintain its existing transportation network before widening or building new roads.
Disagree

Historic architecture promotes the economic vitality of the Louisville region.
Agree

Describe your favorite walk OR your favorite place to hang out in your neighborhood.
There is no is nowhere to walk or hang out in California neighborhood.

What’s the biggest issue facing your district and how would you address it?
Crime, I would like to address crime with community policing where police can bridge the gap and get to know the community their policing, where by reducing crime.

In three sentences, what does Metro Council do?
Vote on needs of city and how to pay for them.
Economic development of community.
Establish a budget for the community.

Louisville is among the most dangerous cities in the country for pedestrian collisions and fatalities. What would you do to improve street safety for all road users in Louisville? Please cite specific examples.
Add more information in the driving manual about the rights of pedestrians and when your license are due to be renewed you would be required to take a test about pedestrian safety.

What does responsible development look like in Louisville and in your district? What would you do to promote responsible development in Louisville?
First responsible act is to notify the community of up coming development that would affect the community in anyway.

Louisville is among the fastest warming cities in the country. Please describe your stance on fixing Louisville’s Urban Heat Island Effect. What specific steps need to be taken to solve this problem?
Louisville is said to have the fifth intense summer heat and that along with global warming is dangerous, solutions lots of trees.

How would you strike a balance between preservation, development, and economic development in Louisville?
All three should be addressed with same level of importance, taking care of the old building, up building up new building and bring in new technology and or industry that improve living standards

David James

Did not respond.

New guide shows how streets can be designed with transit front and center

By Branden Klayko -

Apr 19, 2016

2

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) has released a new design guide to help cities prioritize transit on their streets.

How can cities integrate bus rapid transit with protected bike lanes? How can bus stops be improved and the boarding process sped up? How should traffic signals be optimized to prioritize buses? The Transit Street Design Guide goes into greater detail on these questions than NACTO’s Urban Street Design Guide, released in 2013.

Before the publication of this guide, city transportation officials looking to make streets work better for transit still had to hunt through a few different manuals, said NACTO’s Matthew Roe.

“The kinds of problems that the guide seeks to solve are exactly the kinds of design problems and questions that cities are trying to solve,” said Roe. “How do you get transit to get where it’s going quicker, without degrading the pedestrian environment? Some of that has to do with the details of design.”

For example, the guide lays out how to design boarding areas where buses can pick up passengers without pulling over to the curb and then waiting to reenter traffic—which can slow service considerably.

A boarding island can improve transit service, as well as prioritize comfort for riders. (Courtesy NACTO)

Many of the finer points in the guide involve making transit-priority streets that also work well for walking and biking. The image below, for instance, shows the intersection of a sidewalk-grade two-way bike lane with the pedestrian approach to a bus stop.

03-nacto-transit-guide — (Courtesy NACTO)

“Transit has to run in the place where everyone wants to be,” said Roe. “It has to be right through where everybody wants to be. To create transit streets that are living streets and active streets is something that people really struggle with.”

He said Loop Link in Chicago “truly exemplifies” that kind of street design. “Instead of pushing bikes and transit off to the side you make them the centerpiece.”

Following the release of the guide, NACTO will be working directly with three selected cities—Denver, Indianapolis, and Oakland—on a “Transit Accelerator Program,” customized assistance to bring better transit streets to fruition.

The full Transit Street Design Guide can be purchased from Island Press.

[Editor’s Note: This article has been cross-posted from Streetsblog. Top image shows a template for transit-only lanes and floating bus stops on a wide street with parking-protected bike lanes. Courtesy NACTO.]