I didn't attend the League of Women Voters' fix-is-in-non-debate, and here's why.

Speaking personally, I'm appreciative that so many of you took the time yesterday to ask whether I'd be attending last evening's pompous South Central League of Women Voters' fix-is-in-non-debate at Deaf Gahan's palatial Silver Street Pleasure Dome.

The way I phrased the preceding paragraph just might clue you in as to why I had no intention of attending. I value my health more than that. 

Amid the League's characteristically vacuous blathering as to why softball questions are a better format for incumbent influence peddlers than something approximating a genuine debate -- and reminding all and sundry of the League's abject failure to stage something approximating a genuine debate back in 2015, when I experienced first-hand just how fawning this organization can be when it comes to peer groups and existing power structures -- kindly allow me to repeat a link from last week.

Editorial: Why political debates still matter (LA Times Editorial Board)

But voters have a lot to gain too. In the era of multimillion-dollar campaigns and slick political messaging, nothing beats the potential of old-school debates to reveal and humanize the men and women behind the glossy ads and focus-group-approved slogans.

They still matter, just not here in the News and Tribune's readership area, although by all rights the newspaper should be leading the way by joining with entities like the League to insist that candidates participate in a real, honest, and impartial debates, and publicly shaming them if they won't.

But the newspaper can't muster the minimum integrity necessary to afflict the comfortable, apparently because the comfortable underwrite the newspaper, so we must watch yet again as myriad opportunities are lost even as those chiefly responsible for squandering them beam happily for the camera, inadvertently taking full credit for their joyful roles in cheapening discourse.

A pox on them all, I say.

The problem with 95% of those posturing hereabouts as community "leaders" is that they never bother leading, and probably couldn't define the term if asked. Pretend as you will; I'm always satisfied to be speaking truth, not wishful thinking.

Here's your Bill Hanson nothingness link for Friday, September 13.

Local political forum features New Albany candidates, by Brooke McAfee (Tom May Content Coagulator)

Aside from New Albany, "Designing greener streets starts with finding room for bicycles and trees."

The pain of missed opportunities.

Designing greener streets starts with finding room for bicycles and trees, by Anne Lusk (The Conversation)

City streets and sidewalks in the United States have been engineered for decades to keep vehicle occupants and pedestrians safe. If streets include trees at all, they might be planted in small sidewalk pits, where, if constrained and with little water, they live only three to 10 years on average. Until recently, U.S. streets have also lacked cycle tracks – paths exclusively for bicycles between the road and the sidewalk, protected from cars by some type of barrier.

Today there is growing support for bicycling in many U.S. cities for both commuting and recreation. Research is also showing that urban trees provide many benefits, from absorbing air pollutants to cooling neighborhoods. As an academic who has focused on the bicycle for 37 years, I am interested in helping planners integrate cycle tracks and trees into busy streets.

Street design in the United States has been guided for decades by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, whose guidelines for developing bicycle facilities long excluded cycle tracks. Now the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the Federal Highway Administration and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials have produced guidelines that support cycle tracks. But even these updated references do not specify how and where to plant trees in relation to cycle tracks and sidewalks.

In a study newly published in the journal Cities and spotlighted in a podcast from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, I worked with colleagues from the University of Sao Paulo to learn whether pedestrians and bicyclists on five cycle tracks in the Boston area liked having trees, where they preferred the trees to be placed and whether they thought the trees provided any benefits. We found that they liked having trees, preferably between the cycle track and the street. Such additions could greatly improve street environments for all users.

In New Albany and Florida, bicyclists and pedestrians remain at risk when planners refuse the change car-centric nature of the street grid.

Read this sentence.

Florida's complete streets law led officials to tack on bike and pedestrian infrastructure without changing the car-centric nature of the state's transportation planning.

Allow me to fix it.

Jeff Gahan's de-Specked two-way street reversion led HWC Engineering to tack on bike and pedestrian infrastructure without changing the car-centric nature of the state's transportation planning.

Actually, almost all the biking infrastructure suggested by Speck was removed amid gleeful cheering by the irresolute likes of CM Greg Phipps (has he ever actually been on a bicycle?), but the analogy holds.

The two-way street grid project has not been transformative because Gahan didn't allow it to be. Speck saw the larger picture, but Gahan made adulterated sausage from it, rendering potential boons to walkability and bikeability into yet another omnibus paving project to appease speeding drivers, and now we're left with paltry returns from what might have been genuinely meaningful, and without the political will to make the necessary changes. Phipps himself already has surrendered -- not that this is unusual.

Yep.

Told you so. Now can we all join together and do the right thing?

#FireGahan2019

Florida’s Complete Streets Law Saved Thousands of Lives, and That Wasn’t Enough, by Angie Schmitt (Streetsblog)

A new study highlights the successes and shortcomings of the state's 1984 law that mandated consideration of walking and biking routes in transportation projects.

Florida epitomizes Sun Belt autosprawl and all its attendant dangers for people on foot. The state routinely ranks among the deadliest for walking.

But it could have been worse, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Florida adopted a statewide complete streets policy in 1984. The law stated that routes for biking and walking must be considered in road construction projects, with a few limited exceptions. It also charged the state with developing a statewide “integrated system of bicycle and pedestrian ways.”

The law, now 34 years old, did not transform car-centric transportation planning in Florida, and the state’s streets remain unacceptably dangerous for walking. But even this incremental step saved lives, according University of Georgia researcher Jamila Porter.

Porter and her team compared changes in Florida’s pedestrian fatality rate to national trends, as well as to other Sun Belt states without complete streets policies. They found that pedestrian deaths fell faster in Florida after the complete streets law was adopted than they would have if the state had tracked trends in peer states or the U.S. as a whole. The difference added up to between 3,500 and 4,000 lives saved over a 30-year period.

While Florida’s per capita pedestrian fatality rate fell 60 percent, from 6.36 fatalities per 100,000 people to 2.56, it remains among the most dangerous in the nation for walking. In 2015, only Delaware had a higher rate.

In interviews with 10 Florida DOT officials, each with at least 15 years of experience, Porter and her team also highlight how the law was not sufficient on its own to change the cars-first culture at the agency. While infrastructure for walking and biking was tacked on to projects, the state still focused on moving motor vehicles, not creating safe bike and pedestrian networks.

“We did well what we thought we knew to do well. We provided a 5-foot sidewalk… that was it. Or we provided a bit of bike lane,” said one staffer. But the state was still “consumed with the requirements — that we have adequate capacity for cars on roadways — and part of that was based on the ability of a car to get from location A to B in a timely manner and fast.”

Other state policies worked against the goals of the complete streets law. One staffer pointed out that Florida still places too much emphasis on metrics of motor vehicle throughput, like level of service, that undermine pedestrian safety. Some said that while the state’s policies were better than most, Florida should have made more progress.

Louisville's Logan Street Market reminds us of downtown New Albany's missed market opportunity.

The advent of the Logan Street Market in Louisville (below; also reported at Insider Louisville) annoyingly recalls New Albany's discarded chance to construct a farmers market at a more suitable downtown location, and in conjunction with other food-related developments as part of a coherent overall plan.

(laugh track inserted here) 

City Hall had no such overall plan, and still doesn't, only piecemeal paybacks, but apart from this it isn't necessary to go any further than developer Matt Chalfant's forthcoming condo construction on the southeastern corner of Main and Bank.

A building like this should have been prioritized for the footprint now taken up by the farmers market. It still should. Infill and residency are more important, and the very concept of a farmers market lends itself to mobility. The farmers market might yet be moved to a location in need of an upgrade, as attached to a year-round concept just like ... well, the Logan Street Market.

But no, not in #HisNA. Beaks were wetted, envelopes exchanged, and an opportunity squandered. In other words, Gahanism 101.

First, the link to the Logan Street Market story at the CJ. Then, an NAC posting from 2015 that ties it together.

A 21st-century grocery model: Public market to open by summer in Shelby Park, by Bailey Loosemore (Louisville Courier Journal)

By summer, Louisville will once again be home to a year-round public market — thanks to two entrepreneurs and a $1-million investment.

The Logan Street Market, proposed by Mike and Medora Safai, will feature more than two dozen vendors selling locally sourced foods, including fruits, vegetables, meats and cheeses.

It's expected both to fill a need in its surrounding neighborhoods and serve as a tourist attraction for Louisville as a whole.

Word of the market has been circulating since early 2017, with some questioning whether the project would ever come into existence. But many remaining doubts were quashed over the weekend when the Safais held a preview party at the market's proposed space in Shelby Park.

"Tonight, people are still asking me, 'Do you think it's really going to happen?'" Mike Safai said Saturday. "Would I spend all this money on this party if it wasn't going to happen?"

(Technically, public indoor markets have been around for centuries, with the most famous perhaps being the Pike Place Market in Seattle. In Louisville, the Haymarket existed on Jefferson Street in various renditions from 1891 to 2003.)

---

March 30, 2015

Jeff Gahan's quarter-million dollar farmers market fluff job commences this week.

And yet, Bank remains a one-way street, just like our politics.

Yes, every City Hall argument deployed in favoring the Coyle site development simultaneously argues AGAINST the farmers market build-out.

The build-out begins this week. By the way, it’s an election year.

From December, 2014, after the city did what is said it wouldn't ...

Farmers Market expenditure: Nash, Board of Works rubber stamp flat Duggins "wait" lie.

 ... here are ...

10 reasons why Jeff Gahan's quarter-million dollar farmers market fluff job is wrong for New Albany.

It squanders irreplaceable infill residential potential on what might be a signature downtown corner – at a time when City Hall insists that such infill is a priority.

As such, it offers yet another example of disjointed, congratulatory-plaque-ready “thinking” that does not adhere to a coherent, self-reinforcing master plan.

It blatantly contradicts City Hall’s publicly stated intent to wait for the Speck street study before making a decision.

It blatantly contradicts the city council’s publicly stated position in favor of waiting for the Speck street study.

It reinforces Jeff Gahan’s enduring (and increasing disturbing) contempt for pluralism and public discussion.

It provides yet another example of Jeff Gahan’s enduring (and increasingly disturbing) penchant for edicts as rubber-stamped through clandestine activity with appointed boards, as opposed to public votes taken by elected officials.

It plainly rewards the wrong merchants, given that any money given to farmers (and to most vendors) does not remain in the city.

It just as plainly reminds us that as yet, there is no coherent downtown economic development plan to reward the right merchants, namely the ones who have invested in downtown, rather than loaded a truck with tomatoes from Orange County.

It may not even reward Develop New Albany, which for its many terminal faults has managed to steward the farmers market successfully, but likely now will see the market come under the control of the city parks department.

As such, City Hall’s latest exculpatory explanation that $250,000 will buy a facility suitable for use not only as a farmers market, but also as a likely parks department-controlled venue for other events (a) once again points to the unsuitability of Bicentennial Park as a venue; (b) once again points to the ongoing neglect of the Riverfront Amphitheater; (c) once again is an inefficient use of city property better saved for infill; and (d) once again testifies to City Hall’s proclivity for scattershot political appeasement rather than coherent, interlinked progress.

Now, ten links.

Farmers Market expenditure: Nash, Board of Works rubber stamp flat Duggins "wait" lie.

Gahan now "open" to street changes in Speck study initiated by Gahan.

In which it is revealed that the farmers market expansion will be delayed a year pending further review.

Council and city hall in unison: "New Albany Farmers Market project not high on priority list."

Multitudinous farmers market. Zero permanent infrastructure.

Applying the Bloomington solution to New Albany's farmers market.

On the farmers market in Bloomington, and how smart things make us look dumb.

Mrs. Baird inadvertently reveals the crux of the $321K farmers market lotto: "There was not a lot of discussion about it."

The farmers market in Madison WI lacks facilities. No one goes there any longer because it's too crowded.

DNA can come out of the farmers market dust-up smelling like the proverbial rose. All it needs to do is follow this script.

Meet Dongho Chang: "Seattle’s chief traffic engineer is less concerned with how fast cars are getting through the city and more concerned with how people — on foot, on bike, in buses and cars — interact with the streets."

A boy can dream. I had such high hopes for Larry Summers, and maybe he'll be able to rally, but in the end -- so predictably, and so sadly -- Jeff Gahan's dull mediocrity corrupts everyone and everything it touches.

We could have been contenders, alas. Meanwhile, try to imagine our city hall functionaries walking or riding bikes.

Can't do it, can you?

Perhaps they don't feel safe. If only they had some way of correcting this fear ...

Meet the man striving to make Seattle’s streets safer, more efficient, by David Gutman (Seattle Times)

Seattle’s chief traffic engineer is less concerned with how fast cars are getting through the city and more concerned with how people — on foot, on bike, in buses and cars — interact with the streets.

Dongho Chang’s Twitter feed is boring.

You want caustic political opinions or an endless cavalcade of bad news? Look elsewhere.

What you’ll get from Chang, the city of Seattle’s chief traffic engineer:

Pictures of plastic speed bumps outside a West Seattle elementary school. New crosswalks in Lake City. New curb ramps in South Park. Protected bike lanes all over the place.

Chang’s feed is a catalog of changes to Seattle’s street grid and urban landscape. Almost all those changes are small, but when taken together, they paint a picture of a city in transformation, one less focused on fast car travel and more focused on making streets safe and reliable for walkers, bikers, bus riders and drivers.

Seattle isn’t building many new streets these days. Chang, along with dozens of engineers and technicians, works to make the streets we have function better, rejiggering speed limits and lane lines, trying new ideas to make the streets more welcoming and more efficient.

The results, like them or not, are apparent: Seattle’s not getting easier for drivers anytime soon. But it’s one of the safest cities in the country for pedestrians. And while downtown neighborhoods have added 45,000 jobs in the last six years, the rate of drive-alone commuters has declined, and transit use has spiked.

A chorus of methodical yawns as KIPDA gives Gahan a KITE award. Lest we forget, Milli Vanilli got a Grammy, too.

What could go wrong?

After all, Gahan's been lip-synching his fidelity to complete, walkable streets since ... say, what time is it, anyway?

2-way Streets Conversion Project Wins Transportation Excellence Award (Come to Futility City Hall)

Amid the boilerplate back-slapping, there are two interesting passages. First, this.

“I want to highlight and emphasize that the city did not rush to make a decision on the finalization of the conversion project. Instead, the city took its time and was methodical. The City also was not afraid to compromise and modify the plan as needed, especially when it came to changes prompted by the feedback received from residents. This project exemplifies how local government, community members, and contractors can come together to design the best plan for their city,” stated City Council President Patrick McLaughlin.

Yep. After 13 years of resistance, words like "glacial" and "tortoise-like" are better choices than "methodical," though KIPDA probably didn't take the sloth into consideration -- and who cares whether Rob and Fab actually sang, as long as the show looked good?

Then there's this.

“I was a supporter for the two-way conversion from the beginning. The traffic has slowed and our building is more visible now. I believe it will help all downtown merchants,” stated Terry Middleton, owner of Terry Middleton’s Karate/Kickboxing/Boxing on Market Street.

To repeat, "from the beginning" means roughly 2004, not the exact moment last autumn when BOW finally approved the street grid change, and at long last it became safe to board the Snail Express. That's when McLaughlin jumped on.

Interestingly, in a News and Tribune article from June 11, 2016, reporter Danielle Grady found Middleton nowhere near as enthused.

Terry Middleton has operated a kickboxing school on Market Street for 44 years. He said he is for whatever is best for downtown New Albany, which could be switching some streets, but not others.

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to pretend to croon some pop songs -- just like Gahan will continue to pretend he scored a perfect 100 on New Albany's street grid reform. In actuality, it was a 67, which comes out to a C only because most Democrats are content to grade him on the curve.

Not me.

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.

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

The street grid proposal that Jeff Speck submitted to New Albany did more than change automotive directions.

It included a fresh and significant biking infrastructure component that if implemented, would have made New Albany the undisputed regional leader.

HWC Engineering then stripped most of Speck's ideas from the business-as-usual compromise plan, primarily because Jeff Gahan and his crony enablers never understood them, and moreover, because we're just too stupidly anchored in place as New Albany for such concepts to be grasped by the suburbanite time servers.

I suspect the two-way grid will be helpful, and conditions will improve. My councilman will declare victory in a process that by his own admission eluded his input and control.

Still, the junking of Speck's amazing vision will be remembered as a tremendous missed opportunity, ranking right up there with Bob Real's failure to tackle a ramshackle sewer system before the EPA's mega-expensive death sentence came down.

At this point, all we can do is hope the chance to optimize the downtown street grid for all users, and not just their cars, arises again at some point in the future.

Maybe next time we'll do it right.

---

Previously:

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.