Baird flips, connector road flops, and the ochlocracy rules.

This happened Tuesday.

Here's the plan commission's climbdown ...

New Albany commission amends plan, removes controversial road from park project, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

New Little League fields and a Floyd County park are closer to becoming a reality; however, more hurdles will have to be cleared before the joint project comes to fruition.

But there won’t be a road in the middle of the park ... The New Albany Plan Commission voted 6-4 Tuesday to amend its comprehensive plan to remove the section that called for the completion of Highland Oaks Drive from Kamer Miller Road to Charlestown Road.

 ... and here's the explanation proffered by a crucial "swing" voter.

Councilwoman Shirley Baird, who is also a member of the commission, voted against the variance for the park in April. She said Tuesday the residents of Highland Oaks overwhelmingly opposed the road extension; therefore, Baird voted for the amendment.

Mrs Baird may have been right as to the specific merits of the non-road, but I doubt she'd apply the same logic to a human rights issue, i.e., 9 out of 10 New Albany's supposed "Democrats" oppose same sex marriage, therefore ... well, you get my drift, even if they don't.

So, refresh my memory: First the Mt. Tabor roundabout, then Highland Oaks Drive. How many residents of the Spring, Elm and Market corridors have to fill a meeting to get two-way streets?

Or does "quality of life" even apply to us?

Ochlocracy ... from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ochlocracy (Greek: ὀχλοκρατία, okhlokratía; Latin: ochlocratia) or mob rule is the rule of government by mob or a mass of people, or the intimidation of legitimate authorities. As a pejorative for majoritarianism, it is akin to the Latin phrase mobile vulgus meaning "the fickle crowd", from which the English term "mob" was originally derived in the 1680s.

Ochlocracy ("rule of the general populace") is democracy ("rule of the people") spoiled by demagoguery, "tyranny of the majority", and the rule of passion over reason, just like oligarchy ("rule of a few") is aristocracy ("rule of the best") spoiled by corruption, and tyranny is monarchy spoiled by lack of virtue. Ochlocracy is synonymous in meaning and usage to the modern, informal term "mobocracy", which emerged from a much more recent colloquial etymology.

It's all about "public safety first" -- unless it's a one-way street, of course!

And then we're utterly powerless and chock full of cowardice.

It's the first time in months that Mayor Gahan has shown any interest in downtown ... and it's a demolition. That speaks volumes, even if he doesn't.

When the city announces this latest redevelopment triumph, will there be the requisite exclamation mark?

Old New Albany tavern to be torn down; Indiana Landmarks wanted Culbertson Avenue building, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

... “We want to be respectful of the structures we have, but at the same time, we have to put public safety first,” (David Brewer) said.

Mike Kopp left this one off the downtown checklist.

Arguably, it's nearly as important as a tanning salon. Thanks to GC for the idea.

"New Albany's first LGBT bar is now open."

Geppetto wept as Rosenbarger seized the microphone.

As we posit the potential for John Rosenbarger's ever-growing nose to bridge Silver Creek for the Greenway, students in England have already performed the necessary load-bearing studies.

Pinocchio would have broken neck after 13 lies, by Sarah Knapton (Telegraph)

Science students at the University of Leicester have found that Pinocchio could only have told 13 lies before the weight of his nose would have cause his neck to break.

Fiber optic, fiber schmoptic! We've got the Come to Rotary Dial City Initiative 2014!

Boy oh boy, the city of New Albany listens!

And what elderly Democratic Party voters are telling us is that we don't need no stinking fiber optic network just to build pallets at J & J!

Who needs fiber optic, anyway? We have all these old phones stacked up in the back room down at the Street Department!

There's just one little problem, so if anyone remembers how often you have to change those little cassettes in the answering machine, please let us know!

Just drop a note in the mailbox! It'll get right to us, because we have one of those cool pneumatic tubes like the one at the White House back when we were kids!

Two companies could bring fiber Internet to Louisville homes, by Chris Otts (WDRB)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A British company is considering building a fiber-optic network that would provide super-fast Internet connections throughout the old City of Louisville, according to a proposed franchise agreement on file with the Metro Council.

New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part Fifteen: Forty seconds on Market Street, Wednesday morning.

And then two other random shots as the earth moves beneath our feet.

The Warehouse generates a tsunami.

I expend too many brain cells pontificating about "important" issues. Occasionally readers respond heartily, and at other times, not so much. I've long since given up trying to detect a pattern in any of it.

Late yesterday I posted a simple piece at this blog about the advent of New Albany's first LGBT bar (Warehouse Bar), and this morning, I linked to it on Facebook.

Six hours later, it has ...

21 Fb shares, or seven or more times the usual number.
4:15 a.m. on June 20: 101
7:30 a.m. on June 22: 163

3,400 on Fb "reached," or ten times more than the norm.
16.096
30,032

535 unique hits at Blogger, about four times more than the customary number.
2,060
3,670

It doesn't mean that we don't need two-way streets, and it shouldn't preclude various other issues, but perhaps these numbers verify the importance of the grassroots being precisely that, and motivated folks just going out and doing what must be done whether or not there has been a public hearing or the council's approval.

I was chatting with a youthful NABC employee last evening, who greeted the news of a "gay bar" in New Albany with a bored shrug and these incisive words:

"They're just doing it to make money."

Even in New Albany? Wow.

Maybe there's hope for us yet.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART THREE: Anatomy of a red herring.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART ONE: Yellow lines, and what comes due.
ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART TWO: You actually can get something for nothing.
ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART THREE: Anatomy of a red herring.

Okay, I'm jabbing and feinting.

There really isn't a third "ONE THE AVENUES REWOUND." Rather, the first two are intended solely to provide background and perspective for this link to a newspaper column this week by Dale Moss.

In which New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan still cannot bring himself to mention two-way streets without prefacing his statement with the word "possibility."

In which the fiction is perpetuated that local government and a solitary realtor have heroically turned the tide.

In which each person quoted, save one, actually has not invested a dime of his own money in downtown revitalization.

Jeeebus, agitprop like this is disheartening. Anyone got a bucket?

---

MOSS: Mike Kopp has his hand in progress in area downtowns; A little forward thinking goes a long way, by Dale Moss ('Bune)

... “It seemed like someone was waiting on someone to do something,” (Mike) Kopp said. “I figured it was me.”

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART TWO: You actually can get something for nothing.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART ONE: Yellow lines, and what comes due.
ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART TWO: You actually can get something for nothing.
ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART THREE: Anatomy of a red herring.

I'm building toward a Part Three, folks. The general idea is a separation of wheat from chaff. The following repeat isn't very old, but apparently in the ongoing absence of comprehension, I must persist in making the same point, over and over.

---

ON THE AVENUES: You actually can get something for nothing.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor, originally published on September 16, 2013.

To me, symbolism matters.

To me, the short stretch of sidewalk in front of Bank Street Brewhouse, my downtown business, stands for far more than it may seem, at least at first glance.

The year was 2009.

From the very beginning, as NABC’s owners planned what would eventually become BSB, we hoped the city of New Albany would be able to help us think and act creatively with the sidewalk’s immediate future. Then-mayor Doug England was receptive, as were other city officials and the Board or Works.

Our idea was to sacrifice three parking spaces and replace the existing, pitted and narrow sidewalk, which appeared to have been untouched for a half-century (and perhaps even since the construction of the building itself in 1950), by pouring new concrete and pushing the perimeter out into Bank Street.

Steve Resch, the building owner and contractor, showed the plan to all appropriate authorities. The city took bids, and the price for our Bank Street work and another sidewalk replacement project in front of the future Wick’s Pizza on State Street proved to be far less than what the city originally anticipated (combined, the bid was around $16,000). All parties were in agreement. The requisite jackhammering, mixing, pouring, signing and coloring took place, and as a result, we had frontage for a patio.

Concurrent to this $8,000 sidewalk undertaking, NABC was in the process of investing around $750,000 into BSB as our second brewery and restaurant. This was only the initial investment. All told, we’ve put more than one million dollars into an abandoned cinder block day-old bread store building. Profits have been minimal, if any. That’s okay. When you’re playing a long game, shorter terms are negotiable, assuming the rules are the same.

And there’s the rub.

---

Consider, if you will, the bizness-as-usual mantra of economic development as it pertains to a city like New Albany, and those demands for public assistance typically made by the likes of a Wal-Mart or TG Missouri. Watch the city’s economic development team (any of them, extending back to the Scribner Brothers) eagerly roll on their backs with these terms, amid those enduringly familiar explanations about spending whatever is necessary to lure employers to our fair city.

Now, think back to NABC’s sidewalk. In addition, since we’ve been located on Bank Street, the street has been paved, as was the alley. Conceding that asphalt isn’t cheap, at least the costs are spread out among all users. Even the sidewalk bump-out project itself, while obviously benefiting BSB directly, has commensurate benefit to anyone walking on it. Yes, we’ve gotten tax credits from the Urban Enterprise Association … but that’s an Indiana state initiative, isn’t it?

Hmm, what else? At last glance, we’ve employed people, paid our share of taxes, and helped draw visitors to a previously moribund downtown.

Those crickets are chirping again.

The point I’m making is that from an economic development standpoint, the city of New Albany has leveraged its blessed downtown indie “renaissance” on virtually nothing, compared with what it routinely spends on industrial park space and chain retail enfluffment.

In NABC’s case, this has meant a mere $8K for a sidewalk that had not been improved since Dwight Eisenhower was President, and some street paving that would have been done anyway. Voila! A cool million pumped into downtown.

Now, multiply these figures by the number of new businesses appearing downtown during the time that Bank Street Brewhouse has been operating – and don’t forget investments made before 2009, by since-departed pioneers like Bistro New Albany and Speakeasy. There are no handy reliable figures, and yet is $20 million dollars exaggerated? It’s likely an understatement, and virtually all of it has come from small, local, independent businesses … for the city’s price of routine infrastructure work that’s supposed to be happening, anyway, and often wasn’t in any timely fashion.

There’s another, perhaps more galling side to this viewpoint: How stupid have the entrepreneurs been, me prime among them, not to have behaved more like the Wally World predators, and less like simpering victims of the Stockholm Syndrome?

Inexplicably, we remain feral cats that refuse to be herded, even when our own obvious interests are at stake. Remember Mainland Properties’ abortive $15 million parking garage clip job? That’s a lot more jack than an 8K expanse of concrete, isn’t it – and Doug and Carl wanted all of it to go to one company, itself sans a cast iron pissing pot, but with the notable chutzpah to extort money it couldn’t even match.

How quaint of us to have been spending our own money on our own businesses. What could we have been thinking?

---

Before the free-marketing Darwinians go all mental on me, rest assured that I’m not advocating a direct transfer of funds from taxpayers to my European travel fund. That’s because my being faint of stomach, the inevitable self-immolations might prove disruptive to the digestive track. Erika’s no prize without the lighter fluid.

Rather, it is my unapologetic view, and one that is far more representative of the new generation of business people downtown than those stuck ostrich-first in the rotary dial era, that the city can indeed help downtown entrepreneurs and indie businesses in a broader, collective sense by aggressively molding urban conditions, particularly the infrastructure, and specifically, the street grid.

When it comes to the downtown business community, two-way streets, traffic calming and greater walkability are enhancements to revitalization, not impediments. The city touts its responsibility to assist industrial park occupants by providing the “right” infrastructure, doesn’t it?

The downtown business zone is deserving of the same rationale, isn’t it?

Successive generations of political leadership in New Albany have neglected economic development in the historic core of the city. Finally indies and entrepreneurs took it on themselves to do much of the heavy lifting, on their own, with little more than verbal encouragement. Isn’t it past time for the city to put some real, substantive skin in the game – in a clear, real-world way that benefits the many, rather than the few?

Isn’t it time for the city’s economic development team to advocate publicly for what’s right downtown?

I think so.

To me, symbolism matters – but there’s nothing quite like a sincere, loving embrace, and we long to feel it.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART ONE: Yellow lines, and what comes due.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART ONE: Yellow lines, and what comes due.
ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART TWO: You actually can get something for nothing.
ON THE AVENUES REWOUND, PART THREE: Anatomy of a red herring.

Since this was written last fall, I've decided that Wile E. Rosenbarger is anything but benign. He's taken credit for bringing the world leader in street sense, Jeff Speck, to New Albany, after which Speck was hired to study our Miller Lite of a street grid and recommend modernity. Now Rosenbarger will fight behind the scenes against whatever Speck recommends, and when the whole project collapses, he'll blame either the stupidity of Joe Sixpack, the cowardice of politicians, or both, and intimate that the only way for us to weather the ensuing nastiness is continue paying him to pretend he's Gail Wynand.

Apart from that, I stick with the following. Thus far, entrepreneurial capital has made the difference in New Albany. The rest is sophistry (see Part Three).

---

ON THE AVENUES: Yellow lines, and what comes due.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor ... originally published on September 9, 2013

On Tuesday I visited an old pal to do some catching up.

He’s a Louisville restaurateur whose business is located in the epicenter of Frankfort Avenue. As we spoke over a cool adult libation, a steady stream of walkers, joggers and cyclists traveled past. It’s a thriving area with a strong indie ethos. There are a handful of retail vacancies, but not many. The neighborhood around my buddy’s place is filled with homes worth double or greater the value of equivalent structures in New Albany.

In short, Frankfort Avenue is fun and livable, and it’s the same milieu once publicly shunned by a New Albany city councilman, who feared our town might become too much like it. Yogi Berra couldn’t have said it any better than L’il Stevie: No one goes there anymore because it’s way too crowded.

Granted, my friend’s business always has been difficult to reach in peak periods – and the parking at times is gruesome. But even now, when me and the wife spend so much of our own free time in downtown New Albany, we still make the transit over to the Frankfort Avenue area every other week. Yes, there are lots of people therein. Travel can be quite slow, and parking often is a pain – and yet, precisely owing to these factors and others that flow from urban density, there is abundant life on every corner.

It’s a worthwhile destination, and so we seek it out.

So there I was on Tuesday afternoon, ensconced a stone’s throw from Frankfort Avenue -- and all my friend wanted to talk about was my town, not his. He said that recently his family was in New Albany for an entire day, just exploring, shopping, eating and drinking. He professed fascination with the atmosphere and history, and conceded that there’s enough to do in New Albany to occupy a whole weekend without once venturing into Louisville.

He asked me: How are you guys managing to do this?

My answer: Pretty much all on our own, as entrepreneurs, volunteers and chief bottle washers.

“But what about local government? What has it done?”

Crickets chirped. Pins dropped.

Somewhere, a skateboarder barked at a dog.

---

The single most important step toward New Albany’s revitalization ever taken by any portion of city government was the council’s approval in 2006 of the riverfront development area, and the subsequent availability of non-quota 3-way alcoholic beverage permits.

It’s true that the Urban Enterprise Association’s façade grants have been helpful, as has Develop New Albany’s networking. While I’ve not always agreed with Clean and Green’s program of beautification, at least the work has come from private donations. The Horseshoe Foundation’s revolving loans have been useful, too.

Other than these entities, and with One Southern Indiana abjectly negligible, most of the entire record of revitalization has been written by entrepreneurs, ranging from business owners through developers and facilitators like Steve Resch. There are too many names of over-achieving, life-savings-grade investors to mention all of them here, but it should suffice to say that apart from a perpetually well-intentioned bully pulpit, local New Albany government largely has been AWOL – chronically under-funded, often paying more attention (and granting very real tax abatements) to larger companies in industrial parks, or just uninformed, disorganized and obsessed with political irrelevancies.

It isn’t that I’m not thankful for their moral support. It isn’t that the politician types aren’t trying the best they know how, with the tools at their disposal. It’s just that the haphazard, uncoordinated and plainly strange way we’re now approaching street grid reform has me fearing the worst.

And those fears have a history of being realized.

---

This blog began in 2004. In 2005, the Garner administration publicly (and with exaggerated and paranoid caution) casually mentioned the concept of impending two-way street conversions.

Nothing happened.

Garner’s successor, King England III, talked quite a lot about the topic. In truth, there may never again be a mayor who talked as much.

By the way, nothing happened then, either.

Now, a full eight years after the first muffled and muted Hauss Square mutterings somehow leaked into the newspaper of record, we’re told that when it comes to two-way traffic, the current Mayor Jeff Gahan is said to be “for it” – so much so that City Hall has yet to make an official statement supporting two-way streets ... and David Duggins, Gahan’s economic development adjutant, has offered no public utterances on the topic to date.

Now, I believe what I’ve heard through the grapevine, but at this juncture, the administration’s only real comments on the matter have been made at council meetings by city planner John Rosenbarger, and I’m sorry: This is rather like President Barack Obama trotting out the head of the Postal Service to reveal bombing plans for Syria.

All Rosenbarger can do is speak nuts and bolts to engineering wonks. The political side of this – and yes, so long as Bob Caesar seeks to hold back the evil forces of modernity, there is a political side – falls to officials quite apart from the planner. They’re not putting enough skin into this game, at least for my taste.

Consequently, and mostly because no one else seems willing to say it aloud, please allow me to be the bringer of truth:

Dear New Albany politicians in the executive and legislative branches of government,

Hi. You know this whole two-way street conversion thing we’ve been talking about since the House of Bread was still open? Well, here’s the way it needs to work.

Do it. 

Now.

You owe us.

That’s right: You owe us.

In fact, it’s all quite easy to understand, so let me help you out.

Just take every one of those “no-brainer,” “quality of life,” and “economic development” arguments made by those in favor of $20 million worth of new city parks, and grasp that these exact same arguments apply just as strongly to two-way streets, traffic calming and complete streets – at least insofar as the new cadre of independent business owners are concerned. 

Remember us? 

We’re the ones who actually have been investing downtown.

Then add the needs and interests of present and future inhabitants in those neighborhoods making up the city’s historic core. They’re not feeling arterial – no, not at all. 

While you’re at it, take the case for Main Street’s makeover (you can keep the excessive expense, but that’s another story), and understand that the Main Street rationale (i.e., we all need nice things) applies to Elm and Spring Streets, too – as much, and probably more so, because unlike Main Street, those other neighborhoods still hang in the balance. The NSP was nice … but it was mostly Federal stimulus money, wasn’t it?

You see, you owe us a modern street grid, because so far, most of the heavy lifting in the historic core has been on someone else’s dime, whether from local investors, state highway pay-outs or Obama funds. Now, with this much needed two-way street conversion and other related measures to enhance New Albany’s prospects, it’s time at last for you to go all in and show us that you really get it, and that River Ridge envy shall not be the dominant economic development motif hereabouts.

Just remember: You owe us.

Pay us all back, all at once. Give us a street grid that facilitates revitalization, not one that actively hampers it. 

Hell, if you buy the paint, we might even roll a few kegs out some afternoon and paint the stripes for you.

If you decline to act – well, we might just paint the stripes ourselves, anyway. Maybe Clean and Green can fund it. A little civil disobedience never harmed anyone.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We're watching.

Roger

"New Albany's first LGBT bar is now open."

Both Greg Phipps and Larry Summers are reporting that the Warehouse Bar on State Street, recently under new management, will become the city's first LGBT bar. This comment on Facebook sums it up for me:

LGBT Businesses would definitely NOT tell someone they are not welcome!... unlike some other businesses that I have read about. Having said that... It is a bar, and if you go there expect to see people comfortable in their environment, to behave without fear of being judged. Gay bars are very welcoming places for all! I am always optimistic when I see something bridging the gap between acceptance and un-acceptance. Bravo New Albany! I'm sure none of this is new information for the city. I would think that the City Leaders are well aware that to borrow a quote from "The Best Little Whore House in Texas."... "New Albany's got a Gay Bar in it...

The Universal Linen truck ignores rules of the road on a road designed precisely for that.

We were driving eastbound on Market Street at 8:40 a.m. on Wednesday, and came to a stop for a red light at the intersection of Market and Bank. We were in the left lane. In the right lane, a Universal Linens truck pulled up alongside us, somewhat reluctantly observing the red light. He was several feet past the crosswalk, well into the intersection.

The light turned green, and I decided to adhere to the posted 25 mph speed limit as we proceeded eastward. You can see in the photo above how far ahead the Universal Truck already was after just two blocks.

The preceding photo shows the red light at 7th Street, which the already speeding Universal Linen truck went through without so much as slowing.

That's just daily life on New Albany's designed-for-recklessness, unregulated, arterial streets. City Hall doesn't care very much ... perhaps even less than the Universal Linen truck's driver. If it did, it would do something about it.

Hunter S. Thompson eulogizes Richard M. Nixon: "He Was a Crook."

(Wikipedia)

Arguably, the finest political obituary in American history.

It is impossible to read it without laughing aloud. It is equally impossible to pull one representative passage. One simply must read the whole piece.

You may have noticed that just two days ago, I borrowed a phrase from Dr. Thompson. This is the reason why I limit my reading of his essays, because doing so influences my own writing. Unconsciously, I try to emulate it. The same applies to H.L. Mencken.

My heroes, the polemicists. Ah, yes.

He Was a Crook

By Hunter S. Thompson (The Atlantic; originally published in Rolling Stone on June 16, 1994)

DATE: MAY 1, 1994
FROM: DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
SUBJECT: THE DEATH OF RICHARD NIXON: NOTES ON THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN MONSTER.... HE WAS A LIAR AND A QUITTER, AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED AT SEA.... BUT HE WAS, AFTER ALL, THE PRESIDENT.

... It is fitting that Richard Nixon's final gesture to the American people was a clearly illegal series of 21 105-mm howitzer blasts that shattered the peace of a residential neighborhood and permanently disturbed many children. Neighbors also complained about another unsanctioned burial in the yard at the old Nixon place, which was brazenly illegal. "It makes the whole neighborhood like a graveyard," said one. "And it fucks up my children's sense of values."

John Rosenbarger: Yes, it's a design flaw, and yes, we know who designed it. Why can't we do anything about that?

Today's drive to Indianapolis shouldn't be much different than a daily jaunt down Spring Street, so let's pop the tabs on a six-pack of Rosenbarger Light.

Main Street Deforestation Project: If John Rosenbarger's lips are moving, chances are he's lying about traffic diversion. Here's why.

In other words, Main Street should be the officially designated through route bisecting downtown from east to west. It should be signposted as the One True Through Route. In particular, through trucks should be compelled to use it.

Of course, it's a design flaw. Guess who designed it?

Jeff Speck on John Rosenbarger's 12-ft wide Spring Street traffic lanes: “A 12-foot lane is a 70 mph lane."

England and Rosenbarger claimed victory, by changing absolutely nothing. They built two unbuffered bike lanes next to 70 mph traffic lanes. They did nothing else, and they want you to believe that what they did was heroic and innovative, primarily so one of them can run for office again while the other keeps his job -- again.

Until the reign of error is over, citizens are treated to recurring rounds of double dealing.

ON THE AVENUES: Bridge envy in a time of 18-wheelers.

Trust me on this one: When I’m elected mayor, Rosenbarger will become the highest paid cigarette butt remover this city has ever seen, leaving him free to mutter like a plucked peacock about the eternal stupidity of his political bosses, and the boundless depravity of the general public, but deprived of his ability to punish us any further with Gail Wynand-style “improvements” to the street grid.

Even his greatest achievements must eventually give way to the cold, hard logic of t he intersection.

Rosenbarger giveth and He taketh away; thus shall autos be glorified at the Beechwood intersection with Charlestown Road.

Recalling that John Rosenbarger regularly has hailed this situation as proof of his urban design prowess, read on as Chris Morris gives us the LOL punch line.

The city did not have to buy right-of-way to expand the intersection. Rosenbarger said the bike lanes through the intersection will be absorbed for the road expansion.

But as the photos show, there are no bike lanes through the intersection.

We'd need a matchbook cover to list the achievements.

Answer the question, John Rosenbarger: Can Jeff Speck's ideas work here, or not?

Rosenbarger's appearance at the FAN Fair followed much the same script, including open public doubt as to whether what he is paid to do, can ever actually be done in this city.

It begs a rather obvious question:

Then why pay you at all?

Ever since he decided to use the FAN Fair as a forum to explore the dimensions of his own under-achievement, I've decided to call his bluff. I'm not going to swallow the duplicity any longer. You shouldn't, either.

Ranting on John Rosenbarger's fundamental contradictions in the aftermath of an atrocious day in the neighborhood.

Rosenbarger spend quite a lot of his time yesterday mumbling about the unacceptable costs of congestion, which pretty much proves something I've been saying for a while about inbred political cowardice, and although I'll have more to write about this with time, what I think about this, I phrased in the form of a tweet to Jeff Speck yesterday afternoon:

@JeffSpeckAICP When your city planner outlines complete street options by parsing 50 shades of traffic congestion, you grasp political fear.

He retweeted it, and that makes me feel very good.

Then again, Speck's never seen anything like it, either. Verily, New Albany remains the place where brains go to atrophy. Here's the bonus: Jeff Speck in New Albany: “I’ve never seen anything like that in America."

New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part Fourteen, and the monster trucks just keep passing through, unimpeded.

If you'll be having a Coke, you'll need some ice.

Granted, the ice truck isn't all that large. Just remember that photo essays provide no indication of speed.

Ron Grooms touts his tenure, forgets to take credit for his vote against same-sex marriage.

New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part Thirteen -- dedicated to the Board of Works.

Main Street Deforestation Project: If John Rosenbarger's lips are moving, chances are he's lying about traffic diversion. Here's why.

Each time a city official, or a mercenary contractor hired by the city, makes a statement to the effect that the Main Street Deforestation Project is not intended to divert traffic from Main Street -- is not really meant to send drivers scurrying elsewhere, cannot be described as constricting to passage in terms of lane width, and shouldn't be construed in any way as threatening in the least to 18-wheelers and smart cars alike, not to mention bicycles, which will be invited to "sharrow" the roadway with whatever comes traveling down it, and at whatever speeds we fail to enforce -- what we must do is take him entirely at his word.

That's because what the functionary actually is doing is making a very strong case that when the project is completed, Main Street should return immediately to what it once was, as a state road, prior to Rosenbargerization.

In other words, Main Street should be the officially designated through route bisecting downtown from east to west. It should be signposted as the One True Through Route. In particular, through trucks should be compelled to use it.

Accordingly, the city's remaining arterial neighborhood-killing streets (Spring, Elm, Market) should be immediately narrowed to 10-ft lane widths, equipped with all manor of traffic calming features, and be zealously enforced to prohibit heavy vehicle and pass-through usage.

Because: If Rosenbarger keeps saying that no traffic will be diverted from Main, then Main must logically be the place for non-diverted traffic, and just as logically, it follows that on other streets, from which traffic can and should be diverted, such a consistent, daily diversion should become the new normal.

And if Rosenbarger and the city's planners don't agree with this characterization of reality, we've caught them in a lie, haven't we?

Not that it would be a new experience.

---

What was that, Citizen A?

You're objecting to my proposal?

You say that the purpose of the Main Street Deforestation Project was to relieve the roadway of heavy usage and through traffic?

Ah, but that's not what Rosenbarger and Wes Christmas have been saying, have they? Rather, they've been exactly saying as Daniel Suddeath quotes them as saying in the News and Tribune article below.

Me?

I'm the compassionate sort. Lest they be exposed as flagrant and persistent liars, we've no choice except to believe them, right? I mean, that's the only fair course, isn't it? If the engineers and planners say that millions of dollars are being spent ONLY for dandied-up cosmetic purposes, and NOT because the fundamental nature of the street in question is to be inexorably altered, then the city is obliged to follow through in precisely the fashion they continually insist is true.

GROWING PAINS: New Albany says ends will justify the means of Main Street work

... The state paid New Albany to take over a stretch of Ind. 111 including the East Main Street span, and that money is the primary funding source for the project.

Rosenbarger said the goal is to upgrade the area, and the city’s intention is to keep the disruptions as minimal as possible until the work is completed.

As for concerns that traffic will be diverted to other city streets once the project is finished, Rosenbarger said the lanes will be 11-foot in width, which will narrow them slightly but not enough to cause a serious shift in routing.

“Our thinking is that it won’t deflect any traffic off of Main Street when it’s completed,” he said.

The goal is to slow down traffic on the street, which is different than diverting it, he continued.

By now, most New Albanians with a readable pulse grasp that the Main Street Improvement Project has been fraudulent from Day One.

It promises that Main Street residents can be given a grand boulevard, only without the characteristics that might actually render it into ... well, a grand boulevard.

That's because doing so would have required sufficiently narrow lane widths calculated to outrage OTR truckers, who apparently terrify city officials, and who should not be using a revitalizing downtown area for their businesses in the first place, and so these widths were fudged so that the project's self-interested planners could proudly point to them as proof of "no truck left behind," while at the same time nodding, nudging and winking to Main Street residents, safe in the knowledge that the project's other calming mechanisms would achieve the same effect of diverting the traffic without requiring trackable truth to be uttered aloud.

For Main Street residents to get what they have been promised, traffic must be diverted. If it is not, then John Rosenbarger and associates have lied to Main Street residents.

Note: Rosenbarger is a Main Street resident. No conflict of interest there.

But if this is the case, and Main Street residents get the neutered boulevard John has promised them, then the diverted traffic can only move to other downtown arterial streets, in which case residents of those streets have been lied to, seeing as Rosenbarger perpetually denies the very phenomenon of diversion.

Hence, the only way for Rosenbarger not to be exposed as a crass, incompetent, time-serving liar is for Main Street to be declared the One True Through Route, and for the traffic duly confined to Main Street to buck all previous human experience and be so very calmed by his state-financed, genius redesign that Main Street residents abruptly abandon their Nyquill in droves and sleep peacefully forever.

It might require some communication, which is the best reason to believe it cannot occur.

At the present time, the city is so uncommunicative that it makes North Korea's news agency look like a Kardashian feed on Twitter. Back to the newspaper:

Communication has “really been nonexistent” between property owners and the city when it comes to the project and how it has affected the Culbertson West, other establishments and residents, (Steve) Goodman continued.

Duh. The city's chosen "communicators" are Wes Christmas and John Rosenbarger. At least Christmas is earnest about it. On the other hand, as it pertains to telling the truth, Rosenbarger is so crooked that that he needs street department workers to help him screw his pants on every morning.

That Rosenbarger himself regards the public as too stupid to notice isn't surprising. That the Gahan administration believes it, too, is rather depressing. Perhaps an elected official might be persuaded to comment?

Coffee and doughnuts and downtown business tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning I'm hosting a meeting of the current incarnation of the downtown business association.

Please join us for our next meeting on Tuesday, June 17 at 8:30 AM at the New Albanian Brewing Company (Bank Street Brewhouse), located at 415 Bank St.

John Witten, with New Albany RiverStage Productions will be our guest. There are some exciting events planned for our downtown Amphitheater, John is eager to discuss them with us.

It's an informal group with a high degree of downtown retail representation, which is needed. I'll have coffee and doughnuts, so if you have a spare hour, drop by.

Jeff Speck on John Rosenbarger's 12-ft wide Spring Street traffic lanes: “A 12-foot lane is a 70 mph lane."

When we took up residence on Spring Street in 2003, it was one-way arterial, three lanes wide, and with parallel parking on both sides by the curbs.

Doug England's self-congratulatory Spring Street restriping in 2009, for which John Rosenbarger now claims glorious triumph whenever he finds himself speaking to people who don't know any better, actually involved increasing the number of total one-way lanes to four, albeit by reducing the number of automotive lanes to two, and adding two bicycle lanes, one on each side of the cars.

(Why anyone would think that two bike lanes starting nowhere, leading nowhere, and running in the same direction was a good idea, in any imaginable universe, is impossible to fathom. After all, these are locally educated functionaries.)

For a brief period, the change seemed to have a calming effect, but ultimately, traffic got fast and wild again. Recently, many more heavy trucks than before have been using Spring Street and adding to the problem, even as Rosenbarger habitually denies that these vehicles are being diverted from the Main Street Deforestation Project.

More on that utter fabrication, tomorrow.

Well ... who are you going to believe, Rosenbarger or your own eyes and ears? If his nose gets any longer, the Greenway can use it to bridge Silver Creek. So, why did Diamond John's 2011 Spring Street restripings not help at all?

Primarily, because nothing whatever changed.

The street is 50 feet wide from curb to curb. Before, there were three traffic lanes and two parking-only lanes by the curbs, but the parking lanes were not delineated. On the north side of the street, one's driver-side door just opened into speeding traffic.

Therefore, in essence, there were three 12-ft wide lanes for automotive traffic (36 feet in all) and two for parking (approximately 14 feet). One traffic lane of the three was removed. 10 of its 12 feet became bike lanes at 5-ft each. The parking areas were delineated at 8 feet. The two remaining traffic lanes remained 12 feet wide.

As for what it means to have 12-ft wide traffic lanes running through the middle of a neighborhood that politicians wish to be seen promoting as "revitalizing," let's turn to Jeff Speck and an article from Butte, Montana explaining Speck's street reform recommendations there.

... “A fight I’m fighting in state after state is the 12-foot lane width standard that most states apply,” he said.

The federal government in the past few months set new standards that differ from the states however, setting the travel lanes at 10 feet in width and parking lanes at 8 feet, he said.

“A 12-foot lane is a 70 mph lane,” Speck said. “Twelve foot lanes versus 10 foot lanes are the DOT versus us. There is no measureable decrease on urban street (traffic) capacity with 10-foot lanes. The burden is on DOT to prove why they need 12-foot streets.”

Speck argues that 10-foot lanes are safer for everyone, too, by slowing traffic.

“A person hit by a car going 30 mph is 10 times more likely to die than a person hit by a car traveling 25 mph,” he said.

That's right.

England and Rosenbarger claimed victory, by changing absolutely nothing. They built two unbuffered bike lanes next to 70 mph traffic lanes. They did nothing else, and they want you to believe that what they did was heroic and innovative, primarily so one of them can run for office again while the other keeps his job -- again.

Unfortunately, the Gahan administration has spent three years endorsing the status quo, and the status quo was, and is, a mistake, which puts the lie to all other efforts aimed at "revitalizing" the neighborhood.

Presumably, Speck will advise them to correct the idiocy, and perhaps they will. I'm guessing a Spring Street fix involves two-way traffic lanes at 10 feet, with a slightly wider turn lane in the middle, and the removal of biking lanes, which are largely useless. Should there be lanes for bicycles? Yes, somewhere. Just imagine if we had an actual plan for them, in the sense of actually leading from and to a destination ... but then a traffic lane might have to be changed, and we know how THAT inconveniences Democratic Party grandees.

Of course, in all likelihood, Rosenbarger will take credit for the correction to the problem he created. Almost surely, England will run for mayor, or council, or maybe dogcatcher. He'll claim credit for the results obtained by doing nothing. New Albany will languish because we've never met a box we didn't prefer to be constrained within.

And nothing will get done.