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?

A woonerf in Minneapolis: “Parking becomes a horrible but necessary land use but that will change over time."

Much more on woonerfs here.

It appears to be an improvement on the surface parking asphalt extravaganza existing there before, although a bit of the point surely was lost in translation. Have you stopped to consider that many of the urban conditions we complain about owe their existence to the necessity of accommodating our cars?

Is Minneapolis' first 'woonerf' really just a nice looking parking lot? by Peter Callaghan (MinnPost)

Minneapolis has its first woonerf. Or does it?

For those who aren’t on a planning commission or land-use groupies: A woonerf is a Dutch import that translates as “living street” (sometimes “living yard”) and is a hot topic in urban design and planning these days. It describes a mixed-use street or alleyway that is shared by cars, bicyclists and pedestrians — but without the strict delineation of traditional roads: sidewalks, bike lanes, traffic lanes, etc. — as a way to use limited space for multiple functions.

“For residents of a woonerf, the public space in front of their homes is a place to play, socialize, and, engage in the community,” noted the byDesign blog.

When it comes to Minneapolis’ first woonerf, however, it might be hard to envision such an idyllic scene. The path cuts diagonally between two new residential buildings — the affordable-housing apartment building Mill City Quarter and the market-rate senior apartments Abiitan Mill City — on South Second Street in downtown Minneapolis. And the new space is devoted, mostly, to 80 head-in parking stalls.

“Today it’s probably best characterized as a nice parking lot, a REALLY nice parking lot,” said Michael Schroeder, the assistant superintendent for planning at the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, which has signed off on the woonerf as part of the land deal governing the development.

All of which has raised the question: Is Minneapolis’ first woonerf woonerf-y enough to actually be called a woonerf?

"Parking Lots Are an Incredible Waste of Space. Here's How to End Them."

I only post these articles in the hope that Irv will blow a gasket.

Parking Lots Are an Incredible Waste of Space. Here's How to End Them, by Zeljko Svedic (Motherboard)

... Both carsharing and ridesharing solve the biggest problems of cars in the city: utilization. The average private car spends 95 percent of its time parked somewhere, where it waits faithfully for you to finish with your work, shopping, or a great social time that will make you too intoxicated to operate it.

Can't you read the parking signs? Yes, no ...maybe?

I'm so old, I can remember when the issue of way-finding signs for parking was mentioned at a merchant mixer meeting. It was around September, 2014. Specifically, downtown retailers asked whether there was some way of letting visitors know when the State Street parking garage could be used free of charge -- perhaps a banner visible from the street, prior to the holiday shopping season.

They were told by the city's representative that although this had never occurred to anyone previously, signs would be made. Roughly nine months later, the parking garage finally bore bright new signs like the one below.

And still nowhere is there a banner visible from the street, explaining how to use the garage, and when it can be used free of charge: Always on the upper two levels, at night, and on weekends.  

The photos below illustrate signs that greet the visitor to the city's newly dubbed "Lot J" on Pearl between Elm and Spring.

Needs a haircut, but so does the city. Can we park here ...

 ... or is it for permit holders only?

How do we get out?

Hey, does anyone know if I can park here?

More brutalism in sclerotic thinking than architecture, at least in Nawbony.

In the interest of fairness, and coming a week after the latest New Albany historic homes tour (which we very much enjoyed), here's a look at recognition for brutalist architecture in the UK.

And what is brutalist architecture?

It's largely what we skipped over in New Albany. When we demolished buildings here, more often than not we designed vacant lots to take their place, and did not even bother with rebuilding. Of course, there are exceptions. I imagine the Riverview Towers building might qualify as brutalist, although it's a bit dull and Bulgarian to fit, at least in my opinion. Bluegill, if you're reading, please weigh in.

Perhaps we can give protection to brutalist vacant lots? Especially the unused ones with asphalt.

UK's brutalist architecture celebrated as four postwar buildings get listed status; Bunker and electricity substation are among structures awarded Grade II and Grade II* protection, by Peter Walker (The Guardian)

Given that diehard critics of postwar architecture already liken its creations to bunkers, warehouses and electricity substations, they could be forgiven for feeling simultaneously vindicated and horrified at the news that the government has now granted protected listings to precisely such structures.

They are among four constructions built between the 1950s and 1980s – the last is a slightly less forbidding Mies van der Rohe-inspired steel and glass home – given Grade II or II* status on Friday by the government.

The news coincides with Brutal and Beautiful, a new exhibition by English Heritage, which advised on the listings, examining the nation's attitude to our recent architectural past ...

And that's not a bicycle rack, either.

New Albanians have been given a vague impression that a half-million or so dollars will be spent on Bob "My Way, Not Two Ways" Caesar's Bicentennial Park, which increases the likelihood that while the future garden space directly in his daily line of sight will gleam, the municipal parking lot pictured above (on State Street adjacent to Wick's) will continue to resemble a smudgy pile of civic disinterest.

Couldn't Clean and Green occupy it, or something?