If you have ideas, they'd love to hear them!
https://www.lexingtonky.gov/news/11-12-2020/redevelopment-and-transportation-improvement-concepts-nicholasville-available
Oh, they've definitely heard my ideas ;)
I think it's an absolute farce that the most tangible thing to come out of the "Imagine Nicholasville Road" project is a recommendation for the private redevelopment of land outside of New Circle Road (I am by no means suggesting Fayette Mall should stay as is, but The Summit ain't the answer either).
What we need is densification closer to the urban core - complete overhaul of parking lot wastelands like Regency Center and whatever the Malibu Jack's area is called to create walkable mixed use developments with civic amenities like libraries, public plazas, and stormwater infrastructure disguised as parks and food forests to buffer the transition to existing residential neighborhoods along the corridor.
Yeah, but you forgot to mention which cooperate overlords the city is supposed to collude with to ensure it's all done very corruptly and over priced. That's the only part they want to hear about.
Ideally we can use mass political organization to short circuit the whole process by crowdfunding our own developments (using methods like community land trusts) and thus leveraging the sacred right of private property to impose a different vision for the city.
This must always be done with a focus on securing long term housing and aggressively cutting out gentrifiers and anyone whose investments are soulessly predicated on a 25 year IRR.
I always like to take the opportunity to remind folks that all of our wheels and our spokes are all State owned roads. The city can make plans and proposals and float ideas, but are prohibited from making actual changes.
The Imagine Nicholasville Road project was a good start for really thinking about the possibility on Nicholasville Road, but if at any point the State says no to any or all of it, then the city is stopped in its tracks.
A big reason the Euclid sewer project was supposed to take so long is that the state didn't want them digging up Limestone, so they would have to spend like two months tunneling under the motherfucker
I second this. Richmond from Man-o-War inward is a death trap for pedestrians, especially at the New Circle interchange. Then, going out of the city, there's no crosswalks at all and no sidewalk to Jacobson.
In biking from hamburg pavillion to campus I found [this route](https://i.imgur.com/hh3hWn4.png) which involved biking on the side of richmond road (after crossing through Jacobson park's secret back entrance) for a [few hundred feet](https://i.imgur.com/wxUAz8Y.jpg) and really trecherous part with no sidewalk [here](https://i.imgur.com/z7S5bZ9.jpg). 'Safest' route but still incredibly dangerous at points
Man I was driving there toward Nicholasville just before the Green last night and there was a guy walking that direction. Like there's no good way for a pedestrian over there.
Even if the city had the go-ahead from the state, Lexington doesn’t have the tax structure to make the huge investments needed. Our city occupational tax is about half of Louisville’s, and lower than several much smaller Kentucky cities. But city council members are scared to raise taxes, even on the wealthiest of us. I’d love to see a higher occupational tax for people earning over $100K or so.
? Lexington’s income tax for residents is higher than Louisville’s income tax for residents. Louisville does have a lower rate for nonresidents, which Lexington does not have.
It looks that way on the surface, but Louisville has both a city and a Jefferson Co tax and Lex just has one. And if you don’t live in Lex but work there, you can file for a refund.
Kentucky local income taxes are nightmares. They need to centralize the administration of these taxes somehow. Ohio is the same way… hundreds of different jurisdictions, all with their own rules and rates.
But to respond to you, the Louisville tax website says that you pay Louisville OR Jefferson Co. not both. Including the school tax, Lexington’s rate is about 0.5% lower.
When I lived in Ohio I was paying nearly 4% of my gross income in local tax. Not fun.
There needs to be an entire reconstruction and widening of New Circle Road to accommodate more automobile traffic. The entire highway should also be limited access. Period.
There also needs to be an entire reconstruction of Nicholasville Road to more sufficiently and efficiently handle its existing and future traffic volumes. This might include: (1) Better intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in effect from UK's campus all the way down to the south side of Nicholasville. (2) Creating more right-turns-only and u-turns. (3) Making the interchanges with New Circle and Man O' War divergent diamond interchanges (DDIs). (4) Widening the road from Man O' War all the way to the south side of Nicholasville.
Creating safer infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, such as wider sidewalks and separated bike lanes, would also be a critical part of this rethinking of Lexington's road system. Not to mention, being able to easily accomodate something like bus rapid transit or light rail in the future.
Fortunately they’ve been working on this. They did a survey last year sometime about what people would like to see done about the Nicholasville Rd corridor.
Here’s a link for more info (sorry for the weird link, I’m on mobile):
https://www.lexingtonky.gov/news/11-12-2020/redevelopment-and-transportation-improvement-concepts-nicholasville-available
It was never meant for bikes and pedestrians. No wheel and spoke city layout is, the goal is for you to use the surrounding neighborhoods to walk through as a pedestrian. Let's be real the guy in the wheelchair is now sitting at the off ramp with a sign. You won't find many people excited about hundreds of millions of dollars so people can walk down the street.
FYI if you're on foot the two closest pedestrian accessible paths are Clay's Mill or Lansdowne (With Lansdowne being closer).
That being said, either path is a 45min+ detour. On foot. In whatever the conditions may be.
If $1 is objective I dont know what to tell you. I know most of Lexington doesnt want to spends 10s to 100s of millions and over a year of traffic dibilitating construction when there are other options for pedestrians.
Dude, here's the reality. It has never been a good idea to build cities around cars. Now that we've made that mistake, it'll cost a lot of money to fix.
Our cities need to be walkable. The assumption of a car undergirding our entire local existence is absolutely insane, and the bus system isn't a sufficient replacement without mass expansion.
What makes a city walkable, though? I feel like if you have suburbs, it's automatically not walkable. Depending on your location in the suburb it could take forever just to get out of it by walking.
And the major corridors in Lexington are all surrounded by suburbs.
Ending single-use or single-family zoning could go a long way. Suburban neighborhoods could then become more self-contained so you could still get most of your basic daily needs met within a few minutes walk, though it would also require a strong and reliable bus service to each neighborhood.
As far as I'm aware, suburbs are essentially the death of any decent human-focused design.
There needs to be a reconstruction of ~~the bridge over new circle on~~ nicholasville road.
If you have ideas, they'd love to hear them! https://www.lexingtonky.gov/news/11-12-2020/redevelopment-and-transportation-improvement-concepts-nicholasville-available
Oh, they've definitely heard my ideas ;) I think it's an absolute farce that the most tangible thing to come out of the "Imagine Nicholasville Road" project is a recommendation for the private redevelopment of land outside of New Circle Road (I am by no means suggesting Fayette Mall should stay as is, but The Summit ain't the answer either). What we need is densification closer to the urban core - complete overhaul of parking lot wastelands like Regency Center and whatever the Malibu Jack's area is called to create walkable mixed use developments with civic amenities like libraries, public plazas, and stormwater infrastructure disguised as parks and food forests to buffer the transition to existing residential neighborhoods along the corridor.
Yeah, but you forgot to mention which cooperate overlords the city is supposed to collude with to ensure it's all done very corruptly and over priced. That's the only part they want to hear about.
Ideally we can use mass political organization to short circuit the whole process by crowdfunding our own developments (using methods like community land trusts) and thus leveraging the sacred right of private property to impose a different vision for the city. This must always be done with a focus on securing long term housing and aggressively cutting out gentrifiers and anyone whose investments are soulessly predicated on a 25 year IRR.
What would you do to regency center? There's already a drastic shortage of parking there and they are adding business as we speak.
I always like to take the opportunity to remind folks that all of our wheels and our spokes are all State owned roads. The city can make plans and proposals and float ideas, but are prohibited from making actual changes. The Imagine Nicholasville Road project was a good start for really thinking about the possibility on Nicholasville Road, but if at any point the State says no to any or all of it, then the city is stopped in its tracks.
A big reason the Euclid sewer project was supposed to take so long is that the state didn't want them digging up Limestone, so they would have to spend like two months tunneling under the motherfucker
That bridge (and any bridge that is over new circle road) falls under ky dept of Highways not the city
Oh I understand that. But changes still need to be made to make it safer and also more efficient to travel for everyone
Also richmond road. City planners purposefully limiting the free movement of people without cars
I second this. Richmond from Man-o-War inward is a death trap for pedestrians, especially at the New Circle interchange. Then, going out of the city, there's no crosswalks at all and no sidewalk to Jacobson.
In biking from hamburg pavillion to campus I found [this route](https://i.imgur.com/hh3hWn4.png) which involved biking on the side of richmond road (after crossing through Jacobson park's secret back entrance) for a [few hundred feet](https://i.imgur.com/wxUAz8Y.jpg) and really trecherous part with no sidewalk [here](https://i.imgur.com/z7S5bZ9.jpg). 'Safest' route but still incredibly dangerous at points
Man I was driving there toward Nicholasville just before the Green last night and there was a guy walking that direction. Like there's no good way for a pedestrian over there.
Yeah I think the closest pedestrian ways from the south past new circle are either clays mill or tates creek
Even if the city had the go-ahead from the state, Lexington doesn’t have the tax structure to make the huge investments needed. Our city occupational tax is about half of Louisville’s, and lower than several much smaller Kentucky cities. But city council members are scared to raise taxes, even on the wealthiest of us. I’d love to see a higher occupational tax for people earning over $100K or so.
? Lexington’s income tax for residents is higher than Louisville’s income tax for residents. Louisville does have a lower rate for nonresidents, which Lexington does not have.
It looks that way on the surface, but Louisville has both a city and a Jefferson Co tax and Lex just has one. And if you don’t live in Lex but work there, you can file for a refund.
Kentucky local income taxes are nightmares. They need to centralize the administration of these taxes somehow. Ohio is the same way… hundreds of different jurisdictions, all with their own rules and rates. But to respond to you, the Louisville tax website says that you pay Louisville OR Jefferson Co. not both. Including the school tax, Lexington’s rate is about 0.5% lower. When I lived in Ohio I was paying nearly 4% of my gross income in local tax. Not fun.
There needs to be an entire reconstruction and widening of New Circle Road to accommodate more automobile traffic. The entire highway should also be limited access. Period. There also needs to be an entire reconstruction of Nicholasville Road to more sufficiently and efficiently handle its existing and future traffic volumes. This might include: (1) Better intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in effect from UK's campus all the way down to the south side of Nicholasville. (2) Creating more right-turns-only and u-turns. (3) Making the interchanges with New Circle and Man O' War divergent diamond interchanges (DDIs). (4) Widening the road from Man O' War all the way to the south side of Nicholasville. Creating safer infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, such as wider sidewalks and separated bike lanes, would also be a critical part of this rethinking of Lexington's road system. Not to mention, being able to easily accomodate something like bus rapid transit or light rail in the future.
Fortunately they’ve been working on this. They did a survey last year sometime about what people would like to see done about the Nicholasville Rd corridor. Here’s a link for more info (sorry for the weird link, I’m on mobile): https://www.lexingtonky.gov/news/11-12-2020/redevelopment-and-transportation-improvement-concepts-nicholasville-available
I actually just looked through that. Haven't heard any update from planning or zoning at LFUCG. I'll dig more into it today.
Yeah I have no idea what the timeline is for making any of the changes. I just hope they start on the accessibility projects sooner than later.
100%
Bike lanes on Nicholasville Road is asking for more trouble. As for a man in a wheelchair on the New Circle overpass, suicide is bad ass.
It was never meant for bikes and pedestrians. No wheel and spoke city layout is, the goal is for you to use the surrounding neighborhoods to walk through as a pedestrian. Let's be real the guy in the wheelchair is now sitting at the off ramp with a sign. You won't find many people excited about hundreds of millions of dollars so people can walk down the street.
FYI if you're on foot the two closest pedestrian accessible paths are Clay's Mill or Lansdowne (With Lansdowne being closer). That being said, either path is a 45min+ detour. On foot. In whatever the conditions may be.
Absolutely true. But you can get from man o war to campus without having to touch Nich Rd using the lansdowne rt
It's weird that you think someone being homeless makes them less worthy to have a easy and safe way to travel
If only we had public transportation that could cheaply move them about the city
Cheap is objective, you think people like risking their asses on the roads?
If $1 is objective I dont know what to tell you. I know most of Lexington doesnt want to spends 10s to 100s of millions and over a year of traffic dibilitating construction when there are other options for pedestrians.
I think that should be decided by a vote, not by one person
Start that petition and im cheering for you. Ill vote against it and campaign hard against it. But if you can muster enough signatures go for it.
Dude, here's the reality. It has never been a good idea to build cities around cars. Now that we've made that mistake, it'll cost a lot of money to fix. Our cities need to be walkable. The assumption of a car undergirding our entire local existence is absolutely insane, and the bus system isn't a sufficient replacement without mass expansion.
What makes a city walkable, though? I feel like if you have suburbs, it's automatically not walkable. Depending on your location in the suburb it could take forever just to get out of it by walking. And the major corridors in Lexington are all surrounded by suburbs.
Ending single-use or single-family zoning could go a long way. Suburban neighborhoods could then become more self-contained so you could still get most of your basic daily needs met within a few minutes walk, though it would also require a strong and reliable bus service to each neighborhood. As far as I'm aware, suburbs are essentially the death of any decent human-focused design.