These post-COVID ideas for cities could be scaled down for Nawbany.

It's a British publication, and in some ways these ideas are scaled for cities much larger than Nawbany. 

At the same time, the guiding principles are intelligent and applicable, and could be scaled down to fit -- if we had anyone here in a position of authority who could read and assimilate information absent an expectation of cash-stuffed envelopes. 

Bike superhighways

Garden streets

A digitally enabled high street

Multipurpose neighborhoods

Unlikely in this god-awful stupid place, but a boy can dream pro bono.

From garden streets to bike highways: four ideas for post-Covid cities – visualised, by Chris Michael, Lydia McMullan and Frank Hulley-Jones (The Guardian) 

As the pandemic wreaks havoc on existing structures, we look at some visions for post-Covid cities – and how they hold up

There is a huge, looming, unanswerable question that overshadows our cities, like an elephant squatting in the central square. Will a Covid-19 vaccine or herd immunity return us to “normal”, or will we need to redesign our cities to accommodate a world in which close proximity to other people can kill you?

After an anxious summer in the northern hemisphere, during which those of us who were able to safely do so mimicked a kind of normality with limited socialising on patios and in gardens, winter is coming – and it will test the limits of our urban design. Regardless of whether we “solve” this latest coronavirus, humanity now knows how vulnerable we are to pandemics.

Can we mitigate the effects of the next great disease before it happens? And has the colossal disruption to the way we work and travel created a renewed impetus to organise cities in a more sustainable, more pleasant way?

We asked four architecture firms to share their visions of what cities should do, now, to better design everything from offices to streets to transport – and we have analysed each one – to help inoculate our cities against a disease that is proving so difficult to inoculate against in our bodies.

Doesn't It Make You Feel Small?

I'm taking it very slowly, this getting back into the saddle after seven-odd years. We've taken two rides on the Greenway, and I've been using the bicycle to get back and forth between home and work.

I use a rear-view mirror that attaches to a pair of sunglasses, with backup mirrors at home. It is my preference not to be on the street without a mirror, because drivers cannot be trusted.

Come cooler and darker weather, the plan is to take the lenses out of an old pair of cheap sunglasses.

As for the title question of this article, the answer seems clear enough.

We're flipping idiots. 

online.com/2394062/stealing-bike-racks" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Why Do Americans Hate Bikes So Much? by Eben Weiss (Outside)

How low will some of us go to keep our neighborhoods bike-free? And won’t somebody please think of the children?

 ... But regardless of whether this is indeed an organized attempt to shut a bunch of schoolkids out of a bike rack, or merely one self-appointed spokesperson claiming to represent an otherwise loosely affiliated smattering of disgruntled motorists, what’s perhaps most absurd about all of this is how long it took the city to install the bike corral in the first place. From application to installation, the process took one year, not including “a few months of work” during which “we had to take photos of bikes locked to sign posts and trees to demonstrate demand for a bike corral.”

Parents driving kids to school creates a traffic nightmare; the city should be doing everything it can to create safe bike routes to schools and to give kids places to leave their bikes and scooters once they get there, and they should be doing it proactively. This would make life easier for everyone, even the cranky people in the neighborhood whose primary concern is how difficult it is to find parking.

Instead of dumping bikes on the corral, they should be leaving it thank you notes.

"12 Hacks to Turn Your Unfinished Attic Into an Organized Haven."

At Good Housekeeping: Transform your go-to dumping ground into a clutter-free zone.


Is anyone looking?


Good.

PLEASE READ NO FURTHER UNLESS YOU WISH TO CONSIDER A REASONABLE, DISPASSIONATE DISCUSSION ABOUT MULTI-MODAL TRANSIT, ESPECIALLY BICYCLES. THANK YOU.

Now let's talk about the latest greenway extension press release from the municipals, as forwarded by the local chain newspaper: design/article_58768636-b59b-11ea-ac27-fbf8f2c391e9.html" style="font-weight: bold;">New Albany proceeds with next stage of greenway design.

Before you read the pull, know that to have surveyed the goings-on by the municipal higher-ups for the past decade or more is to see that when it comes to their attitude toward bicycles, it's as if none of them have ever been to a place in America or abroad where people use bicycles to commute and achieve actual useful tasks (as they would driving a car), as opposed to using bicycles strictly as recreational conveyances -- often, loading a bike onto a car and TAKING it somewhere else to ride.

In functional bicycle-friendly cities, the idea is to connect one's front door to a safe path to food, drink and a haircut as well as the recreational pathway.

Why do you think almost all the useful bicycle infrastructure was stripped from the Speck plan? The movers and shakers either don't understand, or they do understand and have made the conscious decision not to pursue genuinely multi-modal transport options. I tend to think they simply don't comprehend, because if they did, don't you think reality would reflect just a wee bit of it by now?

Let's read about the Democratic Party's plans for partial modernity.

Basically, the idea is to extend the Greenway to the little pocket park where people can park their cars next to Silver Creek. A quarter-mile, maybe?

It won't serve any constructive purpose as it pertains to people using bikes to connect from neighborhoods to the center, presumably because this would inconvenience drivers.

If there's another reason why they do these things, I wish someone would explain it to me instead of refusing to discuss it.

Note the quote from Adam Dickey about connecting bicycles to Clarksville via projected sidewalks. You know, where bicycles are NOT SUPPOSED TO BE in the first place. They're supposed to be on the street ... where we won't make it safe for people outside their cars. And yet Dickey adds that future plans should include provisions for walkers, not bicycles.

Automobile supremacy has us by the gonads, doesn't it?

 ... “This part called Silver Creek Landing not only expands northward up Silver Creek, but it also opens Silver Creek up to recreational use,” (redevelopment's Josh) Staten said.

Commission member Adam Dickey said the Clarksville Town Council has expressed interest in improving sidewalks along Providence Way, which could further improve safety and accessibility to the greenway.

He added that New Albany’s prior work on the greenway allows the city to explore additional connectivity to the pathway in the corridor.

“This is going to put us in a great position because no one else has moved up to Silver Creek, and I think this puts us in a leadership position,” Dickey said.

New Albany City Councilman Jason Applegate, who is also a member of the commission, emphasized the importance of opening up the greenway to other neighborhoods. He said safety is also a vital component of accessibility, and Dickey added the city should ensure that future roadway design centers around complete streets that allow for pedestrian use.

“We see the greenways being used so I think connectivity is so important,” Applegate said.

Traffic Cluster, Part Two: We'll never resolve traffic issues until "leadership" is willing to lead, not pander.

It occurred to me last night that as the coronavirus pushes unprecedented bicycle sales, here and across the country, Jeff Speck gave us a diagram for downtown streets purposefully rebuilt to accommodate modernity in the form of bikes and biking.

Our mayor threw it out the window.

Had he paid attention and been progressive, we now would have the ideal grid for a pandemic, the sort of step even Jeffersonville hasn't managed.

Instead, we have more of what we plainly specialize in as a municipality: congenital underachievement, plain and simple.

It boils down to this.

According to Team Gahan, all traffic issues have been magically resolved by pure genius since the prime cuts of the Speck grid study were rendered into oatmeal-flecked, fat-encrusted sausage to suit the needs of pay-to-play campaign finance.

According to genuine reality, most such issues remain, because our emperors routinely fail to wear clothes, and partisan politics infects everything, leading otherwise thoughtful people like my district councilman Greg Phipps to cautiously treat symptoms with band-aids, leaving major violators like the thoroughly non-calmed Spring Street three-mile long interstate ramp untouched by critical scrutiny.

Yes, Greg you're absolutely right; four-way stops are needed in the neighborhoods. Drivers occasionally run a four-way at full speed, but usually they at least slow before doing so, whereas stop light signals impel drivers to increase their speed as they approach the intersection.

But unless some of them are placed on Spring Street itself, or something else done to slow ever-escalating speeds (which police bizarrely deny even occur), heavy trucks will continue to travel in excess of 40 mph THROUGH A NEIGHBORHOOD WITH MORE CHILDREN LIVING THERE THAN AT ANY TIME IN PHIPPS' RESIDENCY AND MY OWN.

Phipps need only glance outside his window at the tonnage streaking past and feel the vibrations, but he won't, because City Hall is in denial, and City Hall lickspittles are not allowed to ask questions pertaining to demonstrable reality. Big Daddy must be obeyed, and Spring must remain an artery for dipshit drivers.

Because, I suppose, that's who we are as a city: enablers for misbehavior.

We can change this for the better. All we need is a willingness to act. Why must it be this hard to convince them to attack problems that can be seen plainly with their own eyes?

Perhaps it's because they refuse to look.

New Albany council discusses traffic problems, by Daniel Suddeath (Returning Journalist Laps Papa)

NEW ALBANY — The most prominent concern for residents is traffic, and it’s time to ramp up efforts to ease those worries, New Albany City Councilman Scott Blair said during what may be the last virtual gathering of the body.

Traffic was the primary issue discussed during Thursday’s council meeting, with members expressing different ideas for how to address what they said is a city-wide problem.

Just watch this: "Utrecht: Planning for People, Not Cars."

Nice things we can't have in L'America.

"There have been 18 cyclist fatalities in New York so far this year. Perhaps drivers should face more serious consequences."

"But without a systemic rethinking of the primacy of cars in urban life and the implementation of more aggressive ways to de-incentivize driving and particularly careless driving, it is hard to imagine a new world emerging."

I can't recall a time since he was elected prosecutor that Keith Henderson has "held accountable" a driver who has killed a non-driver. Maybe I missed one, but I think the trend is clear. It isn't a very good trend, either.

We’ve Blamed Traffic Deaths on Bicyclists Since 1880. What About Drivers?, by Ginia Bellafante (New York Times)

There have been 18 cyclist fatalities in New York so far this year. Perhaps drivers should face more serious consequences.

 ... However much cyclists might need to heighten their awareness on the roads, cars and trucks kill people in far greater volume than cyclists kill people. Of the 711 pedestrians who have died in traffic collusions since 2014, only four have been killed by bicycles.

The law, however, protects some forms of human error more assiduously than others. In the same week that a driver was punished with a summons for opening a car door in such a way that it led to a young woman’s death, Juan Rodriguez, a social worker and the father of 1-year old twins, was charged with manslaughter for accidentally closing the door to his car, leaving his children in the back seat, where they died from the excessive heat. He believed that he had dropped them off at day care, in a scenario that has become tragically common among distracted parents since the late 1990s.

Just over a week ago, the mayor introduced a $58.4 million plan directed at promoting bike safety in the wake of the current crisis in fatalities. The plan calls for the installation of more bike lanes, the redesign of certain intersections and various traffic signaling adjustments ...

Automobile supremacy: "The machine that is the established “American Way” can commit countless legal and moral errors and be excused as an individual mistake."

"We’ve gotta be perfect. If a negligent driver kills someone, people see it as a necessary evil. But if a cyclist runs a red light, or a scooter hops onto a sidewalk alongside a busy street, we are just jerks driving crazy little vehicles with no regard for the law."

But seriously, I won't bug you; go back to complaining about the traffic on State Street, all the while accepting the underlying premise that "mobility" requires each of us to drive a vehicle, generally all alone, for just about any trip.

We've Gotta Be Perfect, by Arian Horbovetz (Strong Towns)

... The truth is, there is almost no situation in American culture where 40,000 lives are lost each year without a serious debate about whether or not the context of these deaths should lead to drastic changes. Except when it comes to cars.

If electric scooter crashes caused by negligent piloting led to the death of the elderly pedestrian and the hospitalization of two young children in my community, the public would likely call for the end of these machines. But since negligent driving was the cause of both, we see these incidents as “tragic” but ultimately accept them as normalcy. In reality, if these pedestrians and children were hit by electric scooters, bikes, or skateboarders instead of cars and trucks, they would likely still all be alive and relatively healthy. The hypocrisy in the face of potential loss of life is staggering, and shows just how addicted to our cars, trucks and SUVs we truly are.

Some may believe that addiction is too harsh a term. But when we look at the terrors of addiction, we see the unquenchable need to repeatedly engage in an activity, even if the end result can easily be dangerous or deadly. We accept the risk based on an addiction to the high. We defend its potential to ruin our lives and the lives of others around us, especially our loved ones.

A friend and fellow bike commuter recently said something that stuck with me:

“We’ve gotta be perfect. If a negligent driver kills someone, people see it as a necessary evil. But if a cyclist runs a red light, or a scooter hops onto a sidewalk alongside a busy street, we are just jerks driving crazy little vehicles with no regard for the law.”

Indeed, it’s a double standard with maddening predictability. In general, If it’s a car crash, we blame the negligent driver. If it’s a bike, scooter or skateboard, we often blame the machine itself, or the “culture” associated with said machine. For example, if there is a rash of car accidents on the news, one might say “people drive like idiots here!” But if there are a rash of electric scooter crashes, the reaction is typically an urgent call for these machines to be banned or limited ...

"We’ll know we’re making progress when we stop blaming children and their parents for winding up underneath pickup trucks."

Our increasingly cloistered and clueless "local" newspaper's answers to questions about the way it misrepresents driver-inflicted collisions with non-automotive street users betray an indifference to the value of real-world thinking.

The city compounds the issue by blithely painting sharrow symbols on pavement and declaring victory, or as Orwell might note, merely masking their abject concession of defeat with meaningless words and symbols.

If we wish to make streets safe for all users, then drivers must be slowed, inconvenienced and in many instances awakened. Full stop.

online.com/2391240/guilty-until-proven-helmeted">
Guilty Until Proven Helmeted, by Eben Weiss (Outside)

When a driver hits a cyclist—even a child on a bike—the victim is almost always the one who gets blamed, unless they're wearing a helmet

When it comes to automotive violence and mayhem, we’ve become more desensitized than a perineum after a Gran Fondo on a maladjusted saddle, as is apparent from the way we report on incidents in which someone in a car drives into someone on a bike.

News stories about drivers who hit cyclists often implicitly absolve the driver and blame the victim. First, there’s almost always a lack of agency coupled with the passive voice: it’s never “a driver hit a cyclist.” Instead, it’s usually something like “a cyclist was hit by a car.” (Yet you never read about how a shooting victim “collided with a bullet.” Go figure.) Then there’s generally some insinuation that it must have been the victim’s fault, often along the lines of “It’s unclear whether the victim was wearing a helmet.” And despite a big push to change this, it’s also fairly typical to refer to the collision as an “accident,” even before anybody knows what really happened; in journalism, the oxymoronic “police are still investigating the accident” is reserved almost exclusively to incidents involving cars.

It’s not just reporters who write this way, either. When it comes to drivers hurting or killing people on bikes, this kind of unconscious victim-blaming permeates every aspect of our discourse ...

The conclusion.

Yet it’s essential to hack away at the gigantic blind spot that allows us to see the actual problem, which is people driving into other people with their cars. We’ve got a long way to go in that regard. But we’ll know we’re making progress when we stop blaming children and their parents for winding up underneath pickup trucks.

In Tampa with bicycles, in New Albany with all of us: "The yellow-blinking-light crosswalk there now gives pedestrians and cyclists a false sense of security."

On Twitter, Jeff Speck retweeted an important link: The Most Dangerous Place to Bicycle in America, by Scott Calvert and Max Rust (Wall Street Journal)

At 10:00 a.m., the weekly meeting of New Albany's Board of Public Works and Safety will convene. Will any of the city employees, elected officials, engineers, vendors and contractors in attendance have read this WSJ report?

Probably not, and that's unfortunate.

Here's the first section.

Trung Huynh used a marked crosswalk with flashing yellow lights when he rode his bike across busy, six-lane Park Boulevard in Pinellas Park, Fla., one morning in June.

The 18-year-old didn’t make it to the median.

A white Chevy Malibu going an estimated 45 mph slammed into him and his bike, police said. Mr. Huynh died at the scene.

The collision added to the already-high cyclist death toll in Pinellas County. Its per-capita cyclist death rate for the past decade ranks No. 1 among the four counties in the Tampa Bay metro area, which has the highest fatality rate of any major metro area in the U.S., according to federal data.

Here's the conclusion.

The state transportation department recently conducted a study of Park Boulevard, one of the county’s most perilous thoroughfares. Officials found a majority of the cyclists ride on sidewalks rather than on the road, which doesn’t have bike lanes.

Many bike crashes occur when cyclists don’t use a crosswalk, a department spokeswoman said. The department plans by next summer to install three mid-block crosswalks on Park Boulevard featuring a red light that pedestrians or cyclists can activate.

Pinellas County officials said they plan to install this type of signal at the intersection where Mr. Huynh was killed. Construction is scheduled to begin by early 2019.

Rob Angell, deputy chief of operations of the Pinellas Park Fire Department, said the upgrade can’t come soon enough. The yellow-blinking-light crosswalk there now gives pedestrians and cyclists a false sense of security, he said. There is no guarantee drivers will stop, he said, and cars go “flying through there.”

As a closing note to self-identified progressives who may be reading today, be aware that the city's street grid is a social justice issue. For the sake of consistency, you can't pick and choose when you wish to be progressive and when you don't.

Especially if you're a candidate for office.

I'm feeling suicidal: "No helmets, no problem: how the Dutch created a casual biking culture."

It's genuinely hard to read articles like this. All that intelligence and common sense, and then I look outside, and ... you have the nerve to ask me why I drink.

No helmets, no problem: how the Dutch created a casual biking culture, by David Roberts (Vox)

A chat with the authors of a new book on cycling in the Netherlands.

There's so much to quote, so might as well snip to the conclusion.

David Roberts
Some US cities have had to deal with an anti-bike lobby. Does that kind of sentiment or political force even exist at all in the Netherlands any more? Is there anyone pushing back?

Chris Bruntlett
Not that I’m aware. We had conversations with politicians there and they made it perfectly clear: Even the right-wing in the Netherlands has to support more spending on cycling.

David Roberts
Because of public pressure, public opinion?

Chris Bruntlett
Exactly. It’s not a tenable or realistic position to win an election when probably 80 percent of the population cycles at least once a week.

That’s not to say they aren’t also undermining the cause by building car parking and the like.

David Roberts
So, pro-bike is settled, but anti-car maybe is not?

Chris Bruntlett
The Dutch still love their cars. They drive miles and miles, as much as neighboring countries. They’re having the same conversations as we are around the allocation of space, because they built all this space for cycling and it started to fill up. Now they’re trying to push for more space for cycling, and the exact same argument is being made, around loss of parking, loss of vehicle lanes. Here, we’re just arguing for any space.

David Roberts
So it never ends? Every bit you take away from cars is a battle, forever?

Chris Bruntlett
Exactly.

Bicycles and sidewalks? As always, New Albany's legal stance is as clear as mud -- and City Hall gazes at the ceiling.

Behold, another Rosenbarger bike lane triumph.

We've all been here before, but the fake factoids never cease, so let's have another look at the question of whether it is legal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk in New Albany. Not unexpectedly in a state with its own contradictory laws, sections of the official code of ordinances in New Albany don't jibe.

§ 73.01 OPERATION OF BICYCLES.
(A) Every person riding a bicycle upon a street shall be granted all of the rights and shall be subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle. Every person riding a bicycle upon a sidewalk shall be granted all of the rights and shall be subject to all of the duties applicable to a pedestrian.

(D) No person 14 years of age or older shall operate a bicycle on the sidewalks located within the geographical incorporated boundary limits of the City of New Albany ("city").

73.01 seems to suggest that since no person 14 years or age or older should be on the sidewalk anywhere within the city limits, everyone else should be riding on the street.

Then it gets weird.

§ 73.03 RIDING ON SIDEWALKS.
(A) Except as provided in division (B) of this section, it shall be legal to operate a bicycle upon a sidewalk when sidewalks are available and are not congested with pedestrian traffic. If the sidewalk is congested with pedestrian traffic, any bicycle operator using the sidewalk shall walk the bicycle.

(B) No person shall ride a bicycle upon a sidewalk in a business district or upon or along which signs have been erected by authority of the Board of Works prohibiting such bicycle riding.

In 73.03, it's legal to ride on the sidewalk with no reference to age, except in a business district, which isn't defined (here or elsewhere in the code), or wherever signs prohibiting bicycling have been erected.

Which is it? Maybe BOW can spin the wheel during its next meeting. In truth, it doesn't matter much because there is no enforcement of any conceivable interpretation.

As for which direction a bicyclist should travel when riding on a street, it should stand to reason that if the code of ordinance explicitly holds bicyclists riding in the street to the same duties of motorists, and it does, then these duties include riding in the same direction as traffic, seeing as a driver wouldn't decide to drive against traffic -- for the very same safety reasons as a bicyclist shouldn't.

You were taught to ride against traffic? Sorry, but you were taught wrong.

DEBUNKING WRONG-WAY RIDING, by Jamie Wine

Lots of us were taught as kids to ride facing traffic ... this sense of safety is tragically false, but that doesn’t stop it from being widely believed – especially if your last lesson in bike safety was when you were seven.

Even closer to the center of the target:

When you see someone riding the wrong way on a bike, the chances are good that they have chosen this as a crummy alternative to an even crummier series of major roads and horrifying intersections.

Yesterday during a conversation at Facebook, some guy living in Harrison County insisted that bicycle licensing is the answer to all these issues: "I believe that it (licensing) should be on the books and enforced. Especially with bike lanes now prevalent like never before."

Bike lanes prevalent? It's hard to believe bicycle lanes in New Albany amount to more than a few single digit percentage points of the street grid's total acreage. Perhaps it seems like more for folks living in mobile homes by a cornfield.

Bizarrely, until recently, the city of New Albany had bicycling laws on the books, dating from the aftermath of the Great Flood.

Rewind: Bicycles, mopeds and the ordinances not governing them.

§ 73.20 LICENSE REQUIRED BEFORE OPERATING BICYCLE.
No person shall ride or propel a bicycle upon any public highway, street, boulevard or other public place in the city, unless the same shall be licensed as herein provided.
('71 Code, §73.28) (Ord. 4120, passed 3-6-39)

In summary, city government's relationship with the street grid is devoted roughly 95% of the time to assuring drivers that car-centrism is king. There are no stated policies v.v. bicycling (or walking), no goals for improving non-automotive access, and no evident will to improve. If you're interested in this changing, then it's time to begin holding feet to the fire -- and next year, when there's a municipal election, you'll have the opportunity.

Rant over.

"Carmel, Indiana, is showing suburbs how to go big on biking."

Holy Caesar!

A councilman who rides a bike?

Meanwhile, it's almost as if Carmel has a plan. Just imagine if Jeff Gahan had coherent, organized plans pertaining to bicycling, walkability, street trees and other vital matters -- apart from luxury dog parks and public housing putsches.

Gahan only knows monetization ... but a boy can dream of better things.

CARMEL, INDIANA, IS SHOWING SUBURBS HOW TO GO BIG ON BIKING (People for Bikes)

You’ll sometimes hear that it’s almost impossible to make biking truly desirable in American suburbs. Carmel, Indiana, is proving every day how wrong that is.

The booming city of 90,000, immediately north of Indianapolis but with a distinct and dense downtown of its own, is actually evidence of the opposite idea: The country’s newer, faster-growing cities are where connecting great biking networks has the most potential to transform American life.

As explained in the video above, released Monday by the City of Carmel, the scale of Carmel’s investment in better biking since Mayor Jim Brainard first took office in 1996 can almost be hard for an outsider to believe. The city currently has 190 miles of off-street bike paths, with 20 more miles on the way in the next two years ...

Louisville "Streets for People" series is worth a read by New Albanians, because two-way traffic is only the end of the beginning.

We covered the first in Chris Glasser's informative Insider Louisville series here:

Us, too: "Louisville’s roads need to be designed for citizens, not cars."

 ... To take (Louisville mayor Greg) Fischer at his word and judge him by his own standard, our city is falling well short of the administration’s stated top goal. Fischer’s annual budgets speak volumes on this matter — they’re his defining action, louder than his words. Yes, there is a small amount allocated to build a bike network — a pittance that Metro Council undercuts every year during the budget review period — but beyond that, there is virtually nothing that will begin to push us toward achieving Fischer’s goal of 25 percent of trips occurring on foot, bike or bus by 2030.

Glasser's second installment offers an interesting twist on downtown Louisville's "9th Street Divide."

... Much has been made of the city’s “9th Street Divide” — the supposed invisible racial line that separates black Louisville to the west from white Louisville to the east. The city’s segregation (and inequality) is a matter of fact, but the “9th Street Divide” is a fallacy — or at least, a simplification of a broader, more complex idea. What we have, actually, is a crater of surface parking lots in our western downtown, creating a void in what could be a thriving city center.

Yesterday's third and final essay raises a point critical to Jeff Gahan's program of road reworkings in New Albany (in general) and the soon-to-be-finished Downtown Grid Modernization Project (specifically).

The central point is enhanced and in bold.

Streets for People: A missed opportunity on Lexington Road

This month and next, Metro Government will be completing work on the Lexington Road Safety Project — a repaving and redesign of the corridor between Grinstead Drive and Payne Street.

As stated in the city’s press release, the “new configuration is intended to improve traffic flow and reduce accidents as previously demonstrated by similar projects across Louisville.” Bike lanes will be added, and the project will improve drainage along the roadway, which neighbors Beargrass Creek and sits partially in a floodplain.

The colloquial term for a project like this is a “road diet.” It will look like this:

Road diet for Lexington Road.

While a project like this is progress to a certain degree, it’s also a huge missed opportunity — one that falls short of the original goals of the plan and fails to keep pace with what’s being implemented throughout the country. With “progress” like this, we can simultaneously be moving forward and falling behind.

The last sentence neatly summarizes the issue for New Albany. Judging from their past exploits, we can rely on our leadership cadre to declare victory and erect self-congratulatory plaques, but the fact is that the long overdue implementation of two-way streets is only a partial victory. It is the end of the beginning, and there is far more to be done.

There are walking issues, biking issues and connectivity issues. Dan Coffey will disagree, but he's an irrelevant anachronism, a sort of ideological love child spawned by Strom Thurmond and David Duke, to be breast-fed by the Thoreau Institute.

Does Jeff Gahan have a plan for the next phase of street modernity?

If so, let's see it. This whole thing about waiting to reveal designs until the milling begins is so very Ceausescu, isn't it?

On the errant notion of bicycle licenses.

"I'll be working on the assumption that policy-making is a rational tool to create a better society, not a punishment for perceived irritants. This isn't always the case but it's a necessary premise: if you simply have a gut feeling that cyclists should be taught some sort of lesson and you're not interested in the evidence then there's no point even starting."

I used to take great joy in referring to these environs as the Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness, but then I got ticketed for exceeding the syllable limit.

Yesterday during a discussion of sharrow symbols now adorning Vincennes Street -- admittedly a wretched, Rosenbargerian idea, and one revealing the ineptitude of officials unwilling to risk the installation of genuine bicycling infrastructure, either from timidity, stupidity or both -- it was suggested that bicyclists be licensed.

Let's quickly refute this car-centric twaddle. Perhaps the Aussie vantage point is best (just keep blaming the usual victims, drivers), but there'll be two others.

18 reasons why registering bicycles is a bad idea, by Michael O'Reilly (Executive Style)

Right, that's it. Enough already. I'm so tired of hearing the same contention being trotted out every time bicycles are mentioned.

I refer, of course, to the ongoing clamour that cyclists need to be registered.

Show me a news report to do with bicycles, and I'll show you someone on social media or a comments thread carrying on about bicycle registration as if it's the most urgent thing in road safety.

A bike-riding man killed in a "dooring" incident in Melbourne? "Cyclists should be registered." A cycling young woman crushed by a truck in Brisbane's CBD? "They should pay rego."

This week, news about a bill to legislate a safe minimum passing distance when cars overtake bikes drew comments such as "I'll give them space when they pay to be on the roads". Charming.

The problem with such misguided contentions is that they become a form of groupthink. If people hear such things repeatedly, it becomes acceptable to them.

It can also breed animosity - which can spill onto our roads, creating dangerous hostility and intolerance.

In truth, the angry voices are in the minority. Most Australians accept and even support cycling - after all, more bicycles are sold than cars every year. Even among people who don't ride for transport, a survey showed 60 per cent would like to do so – but many say they are too scared.

And Chicago:

Why Bicycle Licensing (Almost) Never Works, by Whet Moser (Chicago)

I’ve said it over and over again: if you really, truly want to improve cyclist compliance with the law, there are countries that do it well—especially the Netherlands—and they do it in part through a comprehensive educational system for cyclists and drivers alike that begins in elementary school. (Their form of driver’s education is also more comprehensive, and traffic fatalities have fallen faster there than in the United States in recent decades.) The Active Transportation Alliance’s Ron Burke gave Biasco some similar suggestions. You get what you put in. Contrary to the beliefs of most newspaper columnists, merely intoning the words “fixie” and “hipster” like a curse is just an exercise in filling copy quotas.

On the other hand, bike licenses have been tried throughout North America, and what you usually get is a bureaucratic facepalm.

Finally the United Kingdom (the lead quote comes from this article):

Why regulating cyclists is unnecessary and harmful, by Peter Walker (The Guardian)

Why don't cyclists have compulsory licencing, training and insurance? Because it would be utterly pointless

Cycling and cyclists are good for society; good for everyone, in fact. You might not like our funny, Lycra-wearing ways, but it's an undeniable truth. If 50% of a hypothetical city's car drivers abandoned their vehicles overnight for bikes it would slash pollution and congestion (for the remaining drivers, too), also bringing less wear to the roads and better health for the new cyclists. It would additionally, at a stroke, dramatically cut the numbers of people killed or badly hurt on the roads, saving millions of pounds and – more importantly – reducing the number of lives lost or devastated through grief or grave injury.

We have lots to discuss in New Albany, and bicycle licensing isn't one of those topics.

Grid Control, Vol. 23: City's fuddy-duddies losing their minds as the debut for a two-way Spring Street is pegged at August 29.

Thirteen years later, it's the end of the beginning.

Speaking personally, I think the Spring Street conversion announcement should have been made at roughly 2:30 p.m. on Monday, when the combination of a solar eclipse and impending two-way-street rationality (finally) would have sent the Luddites streaming panic-stricken toward Birdseye.

Spring Street in New Albany to be converted to two-way traffic Aug. 29, by Chris Morris (Hanson's Motorcycle Christianity)

NEW ALBANY — After years of talk and months of work, Spring Street is ready to be converted to two-way traffic.

Paul Lincks, project manager with HWC Engineering, informed the New Albany Board of Public Works & Safety Tuesday that Spring Street will be switched to two-way traffic some time on Aug. 29. The exact time has not yet been determined, but Lincks said it would likely be after morning rush hour.

HWC is installing message boards throughout the downtown area to inform drivers of the conversion. Bank and Pearl streets will be converted to two-way traffic on Aug. 30. Those streets are currently being striped ...

I'm both pleased and depressed.

Yes, we'll enjoy many of the benefits of two-way traffic, albeit severely neutered by an institutionalized absence of imagination.

With the long overdue modernization of the street grid, Jeff Gahan had the chance to be what he earnestly believes himself to be, but isn't and won't ever come close to being: a progressive and transformational mayor.

Jeff Speck handed Gahan top sirloin, and unfortunately the mayor rendered it into Sloppy Joes drowning in auto-centric sauce. The sandwiches will be borderline edible, but my oh my, what might have been in the hands of a knowledgeable kitchen pro.

It never was about two-way traffic in and of itself. It was about recognizing the numerous good outcomes of two-way traffic and maximizing them by design, as with Speck's discarded bicycle infrastructure.

Alas, Gahan wasn't the only bad student. Far too many of the two-way street grid reform package's backers also never understood the ancillaries; as a result, they were far too quick to abandon them to the usual engineering suspects, imagining that if they uttered a peep, Dear Leader would ignore preferred pet projects.

Now that Gahan has half-assed the grid, getting it right is an opportunity lost, one that won't come around again until downtown streets are ready to be milled and repaved according to the usual maintenance cycle.

Maybe by then there'll be someone in City Hall capable of grasping the squandered possibilities and acting according to genuinely felt principle, not the perpetual campaign monetization of Gahanism.

Perhaps the best we can do at this point is hope that the perennial low bidder MAC's 2017 paving job within the grid project's boundaries is as wretched as what the company managed during the Main Street beautification effort less than four years ago -- because then, we'll be repaving sooner rather than later, and can rectify Gahan's faulty vision.    

---

Previously:


Grid Control, Vol. 22: City engineer Larry Summers answers our questions about intersection striping errors and the "No Trucks" sign removal.

Grid Control, Vol. 21: Murderous intersection at Spring & 10th to be repaved and restriped -- and, the hocus-pocus with a disappearing "No Trucks" sign at Spring & Vincennes.

Grid Control, Vol. 20: As Team Gahan dawdles, another bicyclist is crushed into mincemeat at 10th & Spring's dangerous dogleg.

Grid Control, Vol. 19: In a positive move, HWC begins righting the wrong cross hatching on Spring Street.

Grid Control, Vol. 18: Finally a few BoW street grid project answers, almost all of them citing "contractor error."

Grid Control, Vol. 17: Judging by the misdirection of this "CROSS TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP" sign, we now reside in the British Empire.

Grid Control, Vol. 16: What about HWC's cross hatching correction? Will this be finished before or after Team Gahan declares victory?

Grid Control, Vol. 15: Dooring enhancement perfectly epitomizes Deaf Gahan's "biking last" approach to grid modernization.

Grid Control, Vol. 14: Yes, you can still park on the south side of Spring Street during the stalled two-way grid project.

Grid Control, Vol. 13: "Dear Deaf Gahan and minions: FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, STOP TRYING TO BE COOL AND DESIGNER-ISH. YOU'RE NOT, AND IT'S EMBARRASSING ALL OF US."

Grid Control, Vol. 12: Meet the artistic crosswalk design equivalent of dogs playing poker.

Grid Control, Vol. 11: HWC Engineering meets with St. Marks, city officials nowhere to be found.

Grid Control, Vol. 10: City officials predictably AWOL as HWC Engineering falls on its sword over striping errors.

Grid Control, Vol. 9: "This was supposed to be discussed with us," but Dear Leader doesn't ever discuss, does he?

Grid Control, Vol. 8: City Hall characteristically mum as HWC Engineering at least tries to answer the cross-hatching question.

Grid Control, Vol. 7: What will the Board of Works do to rectify HWC's striping errors on the north side of Spring Street, apart from microwaving another round of sausage biscuits?

Grid Control, Vol. 6: Jeff Speck tweets about NA's grid changes, and those missed bicycling opportunities.

Grid Control, Vol. 5: Egg on HWC Engineering's well-compensated face as it botches Spring Street's westbound bike buffer cross hatching.

Grid Control, Vol. 4: But this actually isn't a bus lane, is it?

Grid Control, Vol. 3: TARC's taking your curbside church parking, says City Hall.

Grid Control, Vol. 2: Southsiders get six more parking inches, but you gotta love those 10-foot traffic lanes on Spring.

Grid Control, Vol. 1: You people drive so freaking horribly that someone's going to die at Spring and 10th.

ASK THE BORED: If bicycles should be on the street, not the sidewalk, then why has the two-way grid plan been stripped of most cycling safety measures?

Yesterday we surveyed the scandal-plagued Gahan administration's Tour de Sharrow.

Grid Control, Vol. 15: Dooring enhancement perfectly epitomizes Deaf Gahan's "biking last" approach to grid modernization.

As noted previously (and often) in this space, a sharrow symbol might as well be the Mark of Blithering Idiot on Jeff Gahan's forehead, and my old friend K, a veteran cyclist, offers this excellent comment on the utter uselessness of the concept.

What few know about the "smash cyclist here" sharrow is that it's purpose is to remind motorists that they are potentially sharing the roadway with bicyclists, thereby theoretically making for safer cycling. So, sharrows are painted in the center of a roadway where they are obvious to motorists.

Sharrows do not delineate a bike lane. The great misfortune in the sharrow strategy is that the sharrow has the luring appearance of granting center-of-the-roadway, or "cycle here", safe cycling rights to unwitting bicyclists. Nothing improves cycling safety more than this combination; a busy roadway, a couple of doses of cognitive chaos, and the subliminal message of motorists repeatedly running over painted images of cyclists.

Ironically, at the Board of Public Works and Safety meeting last week (July 11), a member of the public returned to a favored topic, riffing on a previous appearance described here:

ASK THE BORED: "Design Is Better Than Enforcement To Make Cities Safer For Everyone."

Mr. Peterson's point, as offered last week as well as an October 2016 letter to the News and Tribune, is that we can have arterial streets designed for moving traffic at unsafe (and altogether anti-social) speeds, then easily reduce these speeds through constant enforcement -- though we wouldn't want to be a speed trap, would we? In other news, I can have my cake and eat it, too. Yet again, for the umpteenth thousandth time ...

Design Is Better Than Enforcement To Make Cities Safer For Everyone, by Charlie Sorrel (fastcoexist)

As an aside, it's never been clear to me which section of Jeff Speck's Downtown Street Network Proposal concedes a higher rate of vehicular accidents, as Peterson alleges. I've just now searched the word "accident(s)" in the proposal, and found the word used four times, each in a context of accident reduction, not increase.

Reading incomprehension is a civic institution, so let's leave it aside and proceed to one of Peterson's better recent points, though it takes a while to get there, and he may well have inadvertently stumbled on truth from a collection of flawed premises.

Take note: Warren Nash now has agreed that education about bicycle behavior is a good thing, and that bicycles should be on the street, not the sidewalk.

Note also that Nash just approved, and is implementing, a street grid plan that negates the majority of Speck's measures to make bicycle riding on the street (not the sidewalk) ... safer.

Me thinks that Nash speaks with a forked tongue. Unfortunately, this practice also is a civic institution in New Gahania. K gets the coda, too:

Speaking of cognitive chaos, the complete dismissal of Speck's ideal bicycling concept (protected bike paths, see attached picture) from two-way street implementation defies logic, at least from where I sit a couple of hundred miles from there.

If I had the opportunity, I'd be knocking on the doors of City Hall seeking a cogent explanation for the omission of protected bike lanes in favor of a MUCH MORE DANGEROUS concept that will see less use. Other than the notion that protected bike lanes initially might have an eccentric appearance to some, I can't imagine why protected bike paths were abandoned. Sure there could be a few fogyish complaints from residents, but those complaints have no merit once two-way implementation is a given. Perhaps the cognitive deficiency is mine in this case. Is there an explanation for choosing the less ideal and more dangerous while expending virtually the same resources for implementation?

There's an explanation, K: City Hall's minions neither bike, nor walk. They drive. What they have not personally experienced, they cannot fathom.

Welcome to New Gahania.

---

As an addendum, NA Confidential has been unable to confirm whether New Albany Mayor Jeff M. Gahan or anyone working in the city's administration is under federal investigation or indictment for corruption, bribery or racketeering. It is standard policy of the U.S. Justice Department to refuse to confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or subjects of investigations. A similar policy exists at the F.B.I.

Grid Control, Vol. 15: Dooring enhancement perfectly epitomizes Deaf Gahan's "biking last" approach to grid modernization.

The incredible disappearing "safe to bike here" symbol.

The following words summarize the scandal-plagued Gahan administration's approach (more accurately, its absence) in using Jeff Speck's street study as a blueprint for "grid modernization," or, the project that dare not mention "two-way streets" publicly.

If it bikes, blame it.
If it walks, marginalize it.
If it drives, subsidize it.
-- Attributed to Dan Kostelec

Speck encouraged state-of-the-art bicycling infrastructure as a considerable component of traffic calming and walkability enhancement. City Hall rejected almost all of it, for precisely the same reason it fells so many trees: minions neither bike, nor walk.

They drive.

What they have not personally experienced, they cannot fathom, which is why this formerly shady walk along the river now is denuded of foliage and is cleared as wide as an interstate highway. More on this, another time.

As noted previously, once Speck's study was handed to HWC Engineering for political monetization, members of the public saw nothing of it until the striping began, at which point we've seen plenty, including errors and issues, from which City Hall has fled as quickly as chihuahua legs will carry its timeservers.

Among these: varying parking space measurements, misdirected cross-hatching in bike lane buffers, bus stops blocking church parking, and the future death trap at Spring and 10th (above). Recent striping on Vincennes now boasts a bike land symbol half on asphalt, and the other half on curb cut.

Returning to the point: Had Team Gahan ever been serious about grid "modernization," bicycle infrastructure would have been vastly improved as a result of current expenditures. However, it has not been and will not be, and Speck's study has been largely stripped of usefulness as it pertains to bicycles.

We can expect to see this plain fact obscured by the celebratory use of the most magical symbol of all, one outranking even the mud-flats-anchor in civic importance. Follow the tire tracks to spot the symbol in this photo:

The sharrow, otherwise known as the gift that keeps on absolving planners from planning. Political willpower might keep the sharrow in remission, but in New Gahania ... mayoral conscience long since got doored.

Speaking of dooring, those too-narrow parking spaces on the north side of Spring between Vincennes and 4th will increase the likelihood of dooring.

Public education in New Gahania? Unlikely, so let's consider the Dutch Reach.

Why People In The Netherlands Open Car Doors With Their Right Hands (And Why You Should Too)

When was the last time you parked your car on a busy street and came into inches of opening your door in front of an oncoming cyclist? We’ll be honest here and tell you that it has definitely happened to us once or twice, and it is SCARY. It’s easy to forget that vehicles are dangerous, even when parked!

Now, the prospect of causing a collision when the motor is already turned off sounds like something that would be found in the “weird news” section of your town paper, but it’s something that happens all of the time in big cities. It’s called “dooring” and it can be deadly for both the cyclist and the driver.

“Dooring” is a huge safety issue seen in most – if not all – urban areas. In fact, between 2010 and 2012, the city of Chicago reported that up to 19.7% of bike crashes involved “dooring”.

On a slightly more philosophical plane:

When Freedom's Just Another Word for "Get Out of My Way", by Tony Dutzik (Frontier Group)

Over a recent vacation, I picked up Laura Everett’s new book, Holy Spokes, a meditation on the spiritual aspects of urban bicycling, which, it turns out, extend beyond praying for one’s life and calling down the wrath of God on that dude who cut you off.

In one poignant chapter, Everett, who is an ordained minister and the executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, describes her sense of loss after an injury sustained in a crash kept her off her bike for a prolonged period of time:

Gone was the pleasure of moving at my own speed, on my own route, going where I wanted when I wanted. Now I was dependent on other people to take me where I want to go, on their schedule, when they wanted.

The passage reminded me of something else I’d read recently: Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby’s lament for his loss of “auto-nomy” when he chose to give up his daily car commute for the MBTA Green Line following the relocation of the Globe’s offices downtown:

When you drive, you have auto-mobility. You travel where you choose, by the route you choose, with the company you choose, and at the time you choose.

The similarity between the two passages got me thinking: Could it be that, deep down, cyclists and drivers – despite often being at odds – really want the same thing? Could it also be that the desire to travel comfortably and safely at the time and in the manner of one’s choosing extends beyond those categories – even to transit riders, who are more likely to use a transit service if it serves more places they want to go, faster, more frequently and more reliably?

Or, more likely, City Hall will simply capitulate when a prominent Democratic donor-to-be-named upholds the sanctity of auto-centrism.

Baltimore Battles Its Bike Lanes, by Andrew Zaleski (CityLab)

At first, cycling advocates in Baltimore were ecstatic. After many years of lagging well behind other towns, in recent months the Maryland city made big strides to grow its bicycle infrastructure: It debuted a bike share program, a trio of protected cycle tracks, and a larger network of 122 miles of bike lanes by the end of 2016.

Then things got ugly. Residents living near the cycle tracks pushed back, raising questions over lost parking spaces and whether driving lanes were being narrowed at the expense of cars.

Team Gahan's view of "grid modernization" has been to spend millions improving infrastructure for the unchanging dominance of vehicular traffic, while cheapening or dispensing entirely with other possibilities to enhance non-automotive use and genuinely implement modernization.

It's a bare minimum but a huge missed opportunity, and I can only hope that some day we're able to make good on Deaf Gahan's crippling lack of vision -- and that no bicyclists are injured or killed until such a time arrives.

---

Previously:

Grid Control, Vol. 14: Yes, you can still park on the south side of Spring Street during the stalled two-way grid project.

Grid Control, Vol. 13: "Dear Deaf Gahan and minions: FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, STOP TRYING TO BE COOL AND DESIGNER-ISH. YOU'RE NOT, AND IT'S EMBARRASSING ALL OF US."

Grid Control, Vol. 12: Meet the artistic crosswalk design equivalent of dogs playing poker.

Grid Control, Vol. 11: HWC Engineering meets with St. Marks, city officials nowhere to be found.

Grid Control, Vol. 10: City officials predictably AWOL as HWC Engineering falls on its sword over striping errors.

Grid Control, Vol. 9: "This was supposed to be discussed with us," but Dear Leader doesn't ever discuss, does he?

Grid Control, Vol. 8: City Hall characteristically mum as HWC Engineering at least tries to answer the cross-hatching question.

Grid Control, Vol. 7: What will the Board of Works do to rectify HWC's striping errors on the north side of Spring Street, apart from microwaving another round of sausage biscuits?

Grid Control, Vol. 6: Jeff Speck tweets about NA's grid changes, and those missed bicycling opportunities.

Grid Control, Vol. 5: Egg on HWC Engineering's well-compensated face as it botches Spring Street's westbound bike buffer cross hatching.

Grid Control, Vol. 4: But this actually isn't a bus lane, is it?

Grid Control, Vol. 3: TARC's taking your curbside church parking, says City Hall.

Grid Control, Vol. 2: Southsiders get six more parking inches, but you gotta love those 10-foot traffic lanes on Spring.

Grid Control, Vol. 1: You people drive so freaking horribly that someone's going to die at Spring and 10th.

The Arnhem-Nijmegen Cycle Superhighway, and fighting climate change by battling autocentrism.

This video makes me want to cry with joy (it's been far too long), then lash out with anger.

You go over there and see what's readily possible in the sense of co-existence.

You come back here and jostle for space with a semi rig on a cowardly Rosenbarger sharrow. Fuck autocentrism.

Biking the Arnhem-Nijmegen Cycle Superhighway from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

Unless you live under a rock and don't ride a bike, you know that the Dutch have some of the best bicycle infra design on this Earth of ours.

While attending the Velo-city 2017 conference in the Netherlands I got to ride (3 times!) the Arnhem-Nijmegen Cycle Superhighway. Imagine being able to bike 18km (about 11 miles) between two medium-sized cities in your country and not have to stop once for cars?

Then there's this.

"To fight climate change, cities also need to fight personal cars, and all the infrastructure they require."

To Fight Climate Change, Cities Need to Battle Cars, by Henry Grabar (Slate via CityLab)

It sounds obvious. But it requires changing the way we build.

Mayors can fund transit, build bus and bike lanes, end free parking, and reform building codes that require it. (Though they mostly don't.) But ultimately, the only way to combat American automobile dependency is to reform the way we build, and in particular, to help avoid low-density settlement patterns that make it impractical or impossible for Americans to get anywhere without a personal car.

Did HWC Engineering read this? "The Quality of Bike Infrastructure Matters."

How Speck wanted us to do it (we won't be).

This excerpt from Merchant Meeting notes:

Beginning on May 1st the two way street project will begin, no street shut downs, lane changes, and Pavers are out, decorative cross walks are planned, ADA ramps. Dedicated bike lanes on Market and Elm, Market St some shrubs coming out and trees being planted.

Although unmentioned, we'll assume the Spring Street bike lanes remain on the plan (prospective Spring Street homeowner Duggins wouldn't stand for it otherwise), and observe that the as-yet-undisclosed design of these lanes will play a large role in what comes next.

Guess what? Actual research supports this observation. Will Team Gahan get this right in the "grid monetization modernization" build-out?

Study: The Quality of Bike Infrastructure Matters, by James Brasuell (Planetizen)

Another study shows what should be obvious by now: the higher quality the bike infrastructure, the better the results in terms of safety and mode choice.

"A new study [pdf] published in the American Journal of Public Health has concluded that physical separation from motor traffic is “crucial” to reducing the higher than average cyclist injury rates seen across the U.S.," reports Mark Sutton.

SNIP

It is crucial to provide physical separation from fast-moving, high-volume motor vehicle traffic and better intersection design to avoid conflicts between cyclists and motor vehicles. More and better bicycle infrastructure and safer cycling would encourage Americans to make more of their daily trips by bicycle and, thus, help raise the currently low physical activity levels of the US population.
The study's exhibit A is provided by Minneapolis, where the city "grew its cycle network by 113% between 2000 and 2015, delivering a 79% reduction in severe injuries per 100,000 cycle journeys," explains Sutton. "This also tallied with a 203% growth in cycling in the areas where safe infrastructure was present."