Business Lexington just ran an article on
bike advocacy issues. If you are interested in this topic, I would suggest that you check out the article. It provides a nice overview about the current status of incorporating bike friendly civic planning and trail development into the Lexington area.
To be honest, I have not been involved in cycling advocacy and open space advocacy since my work with the
Divide Park Board and the little help I could provide Kevin at the
Teller County Parks Department. Hopefully that will change soon! This is an important time for bike advocacy in Lexington.
My response and thoughts about what I read:1.
This issue is behavioral and environmental. This is a very important concept to keep in mind when planning and designing new routes. It will impact most variables in a design.
Reading the article, I got the impression that a "Field of Dreams" mentality might be leading some movement. "Build it and they will come," doesn't work when implementing trails and bike lanes. If a person is unfamiliar to riding a bike or walking for pleasure or transportation, then adding a new lane beside current traffic adds little motivation to begin.
I love the concept of creating trails that display historical places and tourist attractions, but they will do little to motivate changes in local residents' everyday lifestyle. It may get people motivated to use the trail once, maybe even twice, but the adoption of a cycling or commuting community is unlikely.
2.
The design must give people a reason to cycle - everyday. When the novelty of a trail wears off, there still needs to be a purpose for its everyday use. When someone decides to adopt a bike commuting lifestyle they need to be able to accomplish everyday actions. This includes:
a. work commute
b. take children to school
c. grocery shop
d. attend dining out / entertainment options
e. shop for basic goods
A design that incorporates all those options begin to give the cyclist a true motive to commute. It creates an option that supports their normal life pattern, not just their weekend interest around viewing history in the Bluegrass.
Learning from ExamplesMy current commute - Upon returning to Lexington, I made a decision to also return to a predominantly bike commuting lifestyle. It worked fairly well too as I found a route that could accomplish most of my needs. After a few twists, I was able to get to Chinoe Road. This allowed me to get inside New Circle without too many problems. It also allowed me to pass the Kroger and other shopping available in the Chinoe Shopping Center (a very nice commuting option, especially when you forget a wife's birthday as I did that first year). That commute also allowed me to use Alunmi or Cooper Drive to get to work at UK. It is with no mistake that I had this route, as I chose our apartment partly due to this option.
Now as Nikki and I move towards the Hartland area, the route options become less optimal and they take away all shopping options, unless I add additional miles and circle around to the shopping within Hartland (and then would eventually pass Chinoe Shopping Center too). I wonder what it would be like if Tates Creek was a viable commuter road?
Lincoln's Trail System - I lived in Lincoln, Nebraska while in my undergraduate program. One thing that Lincoln did very well was create a system of paved multi-use trails throughout the city. I commuted 5 miles across town to attend classes my junior year. It was great, with one major problem - I could only attend classes. The trails were poorly linked to shopping, business or grocery options. So I regularly commuted to school and back home, only to hop in a car and head to work or get groceries. Many others chose to not even bother with a week day commute. During the week, I would commonly see a couple commuters along with a few recreational users, but during the weekends they were over crowded. They were a great option for recreational lifestyle, but they did little to promote bike commuting or decrease crowded roadways.
3.
The safety of a cyclist must be considered. This seems obvious within this discussion, but possibly not seriously considered. All I have to do to point out this observation is highlight the fairly recent bike lane added to Richmond Road. The additional lane is nice to see, but poorly implemented. There have been few steps taken to reduce traffic speed making cyclists safer. There have been no attempts to provide any type of "barrier" between vehicle traffic and pedestrian traffic (barrier being used in a psychological and literal sense). In fact, traffic has to regularly cross and use the bike lane in order to turn off Richmond Road and enter shopping outlets. The lane added to Richmond Road could possibly turn into a wonderful asset to Lexington's commuting community, if they can find a way to calm the local traffic and connect the route to more dense housing stock.
Chinoe Road could also be a great route for many possible commuters. To improve the safety along this road there needs to be changes in lane width (the road is incredibly wide and already prime for adding bike lanes) and address the square edged curbs by implementing round edged curbs from Alumni to Richmond Road.
Final ThoughtsThere are many more issues to address when looking at the bikability and walkability of Lexington's streets and I'll share my thoughts once the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government publishes their plan on their
Bike/Walk Lexington site.
This discussion also has done nothing to talk about the walkability concepts that should be addressed in the downtown Lexington plans. If you are interested, I suggest you check out
www.walkable.org. I learned more in one day listening to Dan Burden, when we brought him to Teller County to do a walkable audit, then I've learned in all my reading combined. I hope and pray that some of his concepts can make it to Lexington.
For now, I ask anyone with an interest to get involved. The time for change is coming quickly and if we don't speak up now, it may be too late?
Labels: active communities, behavior change, bikability, walkability
