Broken Sidewalk

News Roundup & Open Thread

Branden Klayko — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:14:32 +0000

Photo by Diane Deaton-Street

Congratulations to Bill Robinson and Clark for correctly identifying our last sidewalk photo as N 15th Street between Rowan and Lytle Streets in the Shippingport neighborhood, several others were really close as well. Here’s a new sidewalk photo ready for guesses in the comments.

We’re starting a new feature this week: a Broken Sidewalk events calendar. You can see upcoming events in the sidebar (we’re currently adding a bunch of events). Our calendar will highlight events relating to topics we cover here, such as urbanism, architecture, sustainability, or transportation. If you know of any events that might fit that bill, feel free to send info to tips@brokensidewalk.com.

Don’t forget that we brought back our very own discussion forums as well. There are a few topics that are starting to take off and you can add your voice to the discussion. Broken Sidewalk Forums are easily accessed through the buttons at the top of the page or by going to talk.brokensidewalk.com. See you there!

Local News

Kentucky Kingdom could reopen next spring (Fox 41)
UL’s Duthie Center for Engineering awarded LEED Gold (U of L)
Shively residents protest expansion of LG&E coal ash pond (Whas11)
More water contaminated by coal ash than previously thought (The Edit)
Louisville Free Public Library wants you to get into local music (37 Flood)
Fans impressed by upgrades to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium (Fox 41)
Proposal to rename 34th Street may be revised (WFPL)
The new BBC on Main Street is finally open (Insider Lou)
Cake Flour to be featured on Food Network (C-J)

Transportation

Record crowds turn out for the Hike & Bike (C-J, Pedalaround)
Parking lots outnumber cars in some states (Discovery)
Why are fewer and fewer young people driving? (Grist)
Boulder asks drivers to take one day off from driving a week (Bike Portland)
Japan announces world’s first solar-powered public bus (Inhabitat)
Portland streetcar success has fueled interest elsewhere (USA Today)
Public transit projects create more jobs than highways (Common Dreams, Huff Po)
Proposed crosswalk redesign helps pedestrians cut corners (Good)
What’s the most dangerous thing about being a cop? Traffic (How We Drive)
Video: driver hits a parked car & a failed escape aka bollards are great (Boing Boing)
Eight types of cyclists to be found on NYC’s East Village streets (EV Grieve)
Kirk Kandle is back from a cross country bike ride (Pedalaround)
This driver-cyclist interaction ends with the driver buying a bike (Salon)
Photography: Beautiful & bizarre roads of the world (E Minor)
NYC’s Broadway is busy, with pedestrians, if not car traffic (NY Times)
And the Times article draws reaction about bikes as traffic (Reuters)
Kentucky’s public bus system leaves many behind (LEO)

Everything Else

Copenhagen makes green roofs mandatory (Good)
iPhone app tells how much water is wasted from dripping faucets (Inhabitat)
Owensboro uses new urbanism, smart economics for rejuvenation (Citiwire)
Climate benefits of smart growth may be far greater than we thought (NRDC)
New Chicago park uses concrete that absorbs smog (Architect’s Newspaper)
Shiller: It’s Time For More ‘Inspirational’ Housing Policy Ideas (WSJ)
James Howard Kunstler wrote a book about a bleak post-oil future (Boing Boing)
New Urbanist Andres Duany on smart growth (Builder)
Gross public art: Seattle’s gum wall (E Minor)
And a few flickr photos of the day here and here and here.

New York Construction Fence Shows World Walk Symbols

Branden Klayko — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:40:32 +0000

New York construction fence Walking Men (Broken Sidewalk)

Urban construction sites are far too often messy, dusty, and unpleasant to be around, but a public art project in Lower Manhattan called Re: Construction aims to bring innovative art installations to construction sites around the city. Among the initiatives is a display called Walking Men 99 by Maya Barkai which covers a plywood construction fence with 99 life-size pedestrian walk symbols from around the world at 99 Church Street where a Four Seasons Hotel is being built.

Walking around the three sides of the construction site, I kept expecting to find a repeating pattern of pedestrian walk symbols, but each of the 99 is unique and shows the creativity of the culture from where it’s from. Some symbols are very standard while others choose realism or abstraction of the human form. The type of light illumination – LED vs. traditional – helps to shape many of the symbols.

Here’s more about the project from artist Maya Barkai:

“The subject of this project started with one of New York City’s most familiar street icons, one that repeatedly appears in the pedestrian traffic light we meet every day. As one of NYC’s most recognizable figures, the ‘walking man’ is also an international celebrity, a graphic sign that transcends all languages and places, and appears in various forms around the world as an integral part of our urban landscape.

“Numerous traffic-light-characters represent the modern “Walking Men”. Standardized yet diverse, they commonly show us the correct and safe way of travel. Driven directly from the associative vocabulary of urban circulation, I use these conceptually similar symbols to create photographic compositions and juxtapositions that combine the cultural representation of cities around the world. As a result, my assorted collection of generic icons comes to life as a united group, now charged with a symbolic metaphor. The ‘Walking Men Worldwide’ project is a subjective interpretation that carries this message through photographic reportage, depicting a visual fragment from our daily reality.”

The site-specific art display was unveiled last January and will remain in place through the end of September. You can contribute photos of pedestrian figures through the Walking Men Worldwide web site. Maya is working on another installation called Men at Work featuring the iconography of “Working Men” street signs from around the world. The exhibit opens this month in Israel.

While we’re on the topic of pedestrian signals, you might also enjoy this video I posted in March featuring a walking man breaking loose with a little dance. Also, here’s another video for an artfully redesigned pedestrian signal that brings animation to the walking man.

Here are some of my favorite’s from the New York installation:

Help A Broken Sidewalk Out

Branden Klayko — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:22:36 +0000

Want to be more involved with the Broken Sidewalk community? We’re currently looking for a Calendar Editor to maintain a Google Calendar of events relating to the topics we cover here at Broken Sidewalk. There’s so much going on in Louisville, it’s hard to keep track of it all, but if related events are all in one, easy-to-access place, we could boost community involvement in events that matter.

If you’re interested in helping out, please send an e.mail to bs@brokensidewalk.com and tell us a little but about yourself! There are other ways to get involved as well, so if you’d like more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Now & Then: Butchertown’s Buchanan Street

Branden Klayko — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:53:51 +0000

Buchanan Street from Franklin Street in 1983 (courtesy tipster)

Thanks to a tipster for sending in this great photo of road work on Buchanan Street looking south from Franklin Street taken in 1983. Not that much has changed besides the destruction of several shotgun houses (and a few trees) on the west side of the street. The Blind Pig is just down the street at the intersection with Washington Street.

What I want to know, however, is when did that crazy-wavy mural on the left-hand side disappear? I want it back.

Buchanan Street south from Franklin Street today (via Google)

Portland And Back Again

Branden Klayko — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:39:32 +0000

Skyline of Portland, Oregon (Broken Sidewalk)

I had the chance to spend a week studying Portland, OR last month and came away with a few observations on the city’s development, architecture, transportation, and culture. Like most approaching the city from a cycling point of view, I wondered if the bike mecca would live up to the hype surrounding it, but I also wanted to keep my eye out for areas of improvement.

There’s way too much to cover in a single article, but in the next week or so, I’ll be posting a series documenting Portland’s unique bike culture and sense of place along with observations on what makes it successful – or not.

Skyline of Portland, Oregon (Broken Sidewalk)

My trip to Portland marked the first time the main point of a vacation was not the destination but the journey. I didn’t go to Portland as much to see the sites as I did to move around them – although I did enjoy some Stumptown Coffee and Voodoo Doughnuts along the way. What I really wanted to see, in the end, was how the city works: how does it feel getting around on bike, what details make neighborhoods feel unique and welcoming – essentially I wanted to understand Portland as a Portlander.

The first thing I did once in the city was to rent a bike – and the city has plenty of rental options to choose from. I needed a decent road bike, opting to avoid the standard cruisers most visitors take around the city, and found a great and affordable bike in Chinatown. From there, the rest of the week was spent on two wheels.

Everyone knows Portland is way ahead of the pack when it comes to bikability, but I wanted to know if the place lived up to the hype. How does biking in Portland relate to tangential issues of planning, sustainability, development, and transit? I was there to dissect the city.

I had the great fortune of staying in Northeast Portland in the Boise-Eliot neighborhood in a newly opened guest house dedicated to cyclists. From my outpost on Williams Avenue, it was easy to take two newly paved bike lanes – along with a fairly steady stream of cyclists all day.

It’s an easy ride over the Broadway Bridge into Downtown Portland and the Pearl District or around the east side to explore surrounding neighborhoods such as the Mississippi Historic District, the Albina Arts District, and the famous Hawthorne District that parallels Louisville’s own Bardstown Road.

Portland is predominantly a flat city – despite being surrounded by some formidable hills and mountains – which makes cycling really easy. The regular grid that stretched across most of the city also helps with quick navigation. I did, however, manage to unwittingly bike up a 900 foot vertical ascent over about 1.5 miles to the highest point in Portland – quite a strenuous ride. (The above view of the skyline was taken about a third of the way up.)

Stay tuned for a barrage of articles and photos from Portland – both the good and the bad – as I try to determine what does and doesn’t work and how the lessons of Stumptown can be applied elsewhere. My goal isn’t to create more “Isn’t Portland great” material, but to understand what’s really going on in the city through observation.

Skyline of Portland, Oregon (Broken Sidewalk)

Video: Multi-Modal Streets In Turn Of The Century San Francisco

Branden Klayko — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:03:44 +0000

Check out this video of Market Street in San Francisco in 1905, just before the city was destroyed by the famous 1906 earthquake set to a relaxing Air soundtrack. What’s really great about the footage, taken from the front of a streetcar, is that you can find just about every type of transportation available.

Pedestrians are everywhere, including elegantly dressed ladies, delivery men, and some children running in front of trolleys and cars. Horses and wagons, early cars, bikes, cable cars, and trolleys are also plentiful. Note as well how slow traffic moves on such a wide and busy thoroughfare. Pedestrians don’t cross at crosswalks or run for their lives across the middle of the street. Also interesting is how the street apparently functions in chaos without any real rules.

Snapshot: Boland Maloney Site Becomes City Space On Main

Branden Klayko — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:44:36 +0000

Boland Maloney Site last week (Photo courtesy tipster)

The old Boland Maloney Lumber Yard at 913 East Main Street is well on its way toward becoming a mini storage warehouse. Windows have been cut in a zig-zag pattern into the metal building and a fresh coat of orange and green paint has been applied. The project, named City Space, is being developed by Greg Williams, Mark Helm, and Eleanor Bingham.

Boland Maloney Site last week (Photo courtesy tipster)

City Space will contain several hundred self-storage units opening in phases distributed over 60,000 square feet and two floors. Average unit sizes are expected to be around 100 square feet. The investors spent about $2.3 million for the 1.3 acre property and subsequent renovations.

According to a Business First report from June, the warehouse will open in phases. The first phase, which was scheduled to open in late August, and the second phase each contain 240 units and the remaining space will be temporarily taken by Sign4, a commercial sign company, until storage demand warrants expansion.

The developers say they found a need for mini-storage in Louisville’s urban neighborhoods as new city residents move into smaller units. A slogan on a sign for the new City Space warehouse proudly reads, “Louisville’s First Urban Self Storage.”

While a mini-storage warehouse might not be all that exciting and is obviously not the most desirable use for the site, the property spanning from Main Street to Washington Street represents a valuable investment by the developers of the Waterfront Park Place tower and could one day substantially improve Butchertown.

Hopefully the vision that created one of Louisville’s most high-profile residential projects will transform the site into a great mixed-use development. For the foreseeable future, however, the site will remain a warehouse as the $2.3 million investment pays itself off.

Video: Tilt-Shift Boston

Branden Klayko — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:54:29 +0000

Tilt-shift. Time-lapse. Boston. Enjoy.

[ Sketches of Boston Traffic by Patrick Johnson via Digital Urban. ]

Bike Lane Installed On Eighth Street

Branden Klayko — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:36:43 +0000

New bike lane on 8th Street (Courtesy Bike Louisville)

Earlier this summer (in June to be exact), a new bike lane was installed on Eighth Street in Downtown Louisville. The lane stretches from Market Street to Broadway. As part of Louisville’s Complete Streets policy, bike lanes and sidewalks must be installed when a road is reconstructed – in this case repaved (unless certain conditions are met).

While cyclists should use caution when riding next to parked cars and watch for opening doors (and, more importantly, motorists should check for cyclists before opening their doors), the lane looks wide enough to feel comfortable. Anyone taken a ride on the lane this summer have a first-hand account?

Storefront Garden Installed At The Urban Design Studio

Branden Klayko — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:19:31 +0000

Urban Design Studio Window Garden (Courtesy UDS)

A new storefront display has been installed at the Urban Design Studio that brings native Kentucky plants indoors. The new garden features a variety of native plants growing in a large bed and on a vertical wall garden. The display is part of a rebranding effort underway at the Urban Design Studio meant to emphasize sustainability as the core of its mission.

Urban Design Studio Window Garden planting diagram (Courtesy UDS)

Already, the window garden has been generating quite a bit of interest from passing pedestrians. Patrick Piuma, Director of the Urban Design Studio, says, “With this display we are hoping to get more people interested in native plants and vertical gardening. We have only had the display in the window for a couple days now and we have had a number of people stop by just walking past to learn more.”

He encourages anyone interested in learning more about the display, vertical gardens, or native plants to stop by the Studio on Third Street at Muhammad Ali Boulevard.

Besides a large planting bed, the window display incorporates six vertical garden panels called “Wally One” by Woollypockets. The plants in the display were donated and installed by Margaret Shea of Dropseed Native Plant Nursery.

Green Wall Plants:

Passionflower – passiflora incana
River Oats – chasmanthium latifolium
Slender Mt. Mint – pycnanthemum tenuifolium
Trumpet Honeysuckle – lonicera sempervirens

Window Box Plants:

Autumn Bentgrass – agrostis perennans
Fame Flower (Flower-of-the-hour) – talinum calcaricum
Gray Goldenrod – solidago nemoralis
Orange Coneflower – rudbeckia fulgida
Nodding Wild Onion – allium cernuum
Prairie Dropseed – sporobolis heterolepis
Prickly Pear Cactus – opuntia humifusa