...about items that are on our committee list or things we might want to work on in the upcoming future. Our first item is the Downtown Traffic Management and Revitalization Study, and I think Mr. King, Chris King, Director of Planning, is here to make comments about that. That is on pages 1 through 11 of our packet, and something that's very much top of mind, and go help us with that. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Council Members. Thank you, sir. Welcome. Here in the latest update that we have had on this project that has really been talked about for well over five years now, as you know, since the idea first officially got on the table through the Downtown Development Authority's Downtown Master Planning process back in 2006-2007, One of the recommendations that came out of that project, as you recall, was that Lexington should convert its one-way pairs. And I believe I have a map. I think you know them. Very good. It's coming up now of our four one-way pairs that cross through the downtown. Main and Vine, High and Maxwell, Lyman Upper, and Second Short. and when the recommendations of the downtown master plan were considered for our community's full comprehensive plan at the 2006-2007 update, that timing was about the same time, the Planning Commission accepted that concept along with many others that were in the downtown master plan in principle. It said this matter needed additional study. Certainly that was the Commission's take on that, although it was included in the plan. And the notion picked up steam in the early 2009s when the Council took up the issue and the Council actually passed a resolution laying out a step-by-step process for the community review and consider that. And during the last administration, efforts were started down that path as outlined in that resolution. As we moved into the need for additional information, as we worked on even just the second and short pair, we had a vast series of public meetings and other things to talk about that. And it came upon the need, information that was lacking even on second shorts, which had been seen as the easiest of the pairs to consider. and an opportunity arose through an earmark grant funding for the community to seek a grant funding to have a study done to get those answers. And the Urban County Council agreed to pursue that grant, accept that grant, which has been awarded, and since that time we have been progressing towards the hiring of a consultant to lead that effort. and through the fall and winter of last year, RFP was prepared, was put out, a selection committee formed early this year, a recommendation made, and now the recommended consultant you have on your docket this week for first reading to approve that contract, execute that contract. And upon Council taking that action, the project will begin immediately. So the project basically had five major steps that we were looking at in terms of what the scope of this project would be. And this is from the RFP, basically, to develop traffic simulation modeling and analysis of what the impact would be on the traffic system. This is one item that the Transportation Cabinet was very adamant about. Even though not all of these pairs are 100% within their final jurisdiction, every one of them crosses streets that are, and therefore they do ultimately have control. For instance, when we were working on Second and Short and we met with the Cabinet, they said, well, we need X, Y, and Z because you have to cross Broadway, you have to intersect with Newtown Pike. those are our roads, and before you can change any signals, do anything there, you will need our approval. And they were very cooperative in looking at that, but again, that's some of the information that we would need. We wanted to identify, review, and propose solution alternatives to areas of special concern or need. We identified some in a study that was done in 2007 in conjunction with the downtown master plan, And when we did the second short work, we found others, as you engage the public, that raised concerns, such as the area around Short and Broadway, around the Opera House, the loading and unloading of children on school buses for productions there, which happens on a regular basis throughout the year. So we needed assistance in analyzing and reviewing those and proposing solutions. We needed some preliminary design and cost estimates. Certainly I know the cost of the conversion would be a matter of concern to this body, and there never were and never had been any concrete analyses of what that would actually cost. I know during the second and short discussions we developed a couple of estimates in-house, and just for some minor restriping, new signals, and a little bit of curbing work and things that would have to be done, That cost was estimated at, I believe, approximately $275,000 just before that. And so we need more and better cost estimates. The Transportation Cabinet insisted that we identify environmental, safety, cultural, historic, and other important impacts from two-way operation, political, and preliminary design. You might not think about it, but the Transportation Cabinet, thinking of our entire community's roadway network. I said, for example, will this have an impact on New Circle Road if you make these changes in the downtown? So that's what the modeling also does is let you assess those impacts. And also the fifth key component of what we put out in the RFP was to have an effective public participation plan as a part of this process. We know when we did Second Short, we contacted literally over a thousand different businesses, neighborhoods, property owners, residential institutions that were along that corridor. I forget the found number, but it was well over a thousand. We had four or five meetings on that. And I believe in the end our tally of the people that came was something like 85. Again, in terms of the overall numbers, a fairly small percentage. But what you find about this project, it engenders passion on both sides, maybe out of proportion to the number of people that do have a great interest in it. But it is certainly the kind of project that does generate a lot of interest. So at this point, we think this is the next best next step. The council has already approved, like I say, the awarding of the grant. We have been through the scope of the project. We have done final negotiations with our selected contractor and developed a draft contract. And, again, that is on your docket for first reading this week. Thank you for that outline of all the work that's gone on up to this point. I wanted to see if there's any questions from any council members. and if there are, we'll take them. If not, then I would follow with a couple once we are complete. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chris, more or less out of curiosity, how did the streets in question get turned from two-way into one-way, and is that conversion as complicated as the one we're contemplating now? Dr. Blues, I can profess to not be an expert on that history. I know I have been around here a long time, but when these conversions were done, I was still a happy college student or a high school student and barely being able to borrow Dad's car to get out on them. But I do recall Main and Vine because I particularly lived in the downtown area when all that was being done. Main Street was a two-way system for a number of years, but during the urban renewal years in the late 60s and early 70s when the Vine Street was basically created as we know it today, Vine Street before that was a very small, narrow street, but most of that area was the rail yards that came through town. So as part of the urban renewal project, as I recall, the Vine Street corridor was created, and that was determined to be the eastbound one-way pair, and Main Street was then converted to one-way westbound or northwestbound, depending on how rigorous you are about our compass points. The history of Upper and the others, I really apologize. I do not know. I guess it's I have a sense that it was easier to do than it is to undo. That may well be. Of course, you know, we've had a lot of downtown development since that time that was based upon particularly Main and Vine, you know, such things as parking garages and how they were set up to respond to the one-way network and other things. Certainly we have more traffic in a lot of ways, particularly bypass traffic through downtown, although, as I recall, we had a considerable amount back in those days as well. But you also had a lot of downtown destination traffic. And I guess, too, that this plan or intention, or at least this research, looking into the possibility, also reflects a different concept of downtown. That's true. You know, downtown has changed a lot and is reinventing itself even again. It's really a neighborhood. And I think our long-term vision of downtown is certainly a community center and focus, not the retail focus that it had, say, prior to the late 60s when the malls and suburban development pulled a lot of that retail energy away. It continues to be our community identity and focus. It is the center of banking, finance, legal, and government activities, which it is now. and it's rebuilding and re-energizing, as you know, as an entertainment destination in downtown and also as a residential location. And the downtown master plan and others try to maximize on those concepts of our downtown, making it a more livable environment, a more conducive to retail environment, because you're going to need that. I mean, it may and probably will never be the core of community retail as it was, But if it's going to become a neighborhood, you're going to need those services. Everyone talks about the need for downtown groceries and downtown services and things like that for residents. And part of making that a more livable environment, and many communities have discovered converting the one-way pairs back, tends to calm the traffic, slow the traffic down, let the traffic move in two directions, and discourage traffic that's just cutting through downtown to get to somewhere else in favor of a downtown destination. I remember one of the public meetings a few years ago, one of the members of the public said that really much more important than two-way conversions in downtown would be destinations. If you're going to make downtown more walkable, more livable, you have to have places where people are going to actually walk to. And so it becomes a sort of chicken-egg relationship in order to make it more livable, walkable, amenable to pedestrians. then does this depend on, and attractive to retail, do you need the two-way streets? And that seems to be the tendency of the research, at any rate, that you do. So thank you. It's going to be interesting to see how this study comes out. Yes, sir, it is. Thank you, Doctor. Next I have Vice Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chris, thank you very much. I had a couple questions. On page 5 of the packet, about three-fourths of the way down, there's a number 4 under 4.0 Alternatives Identification and Evaluation. and this says based on direction from the technical steering group and the policy advisory group regarding which one-way street should be recommended for conversion to two-way. I want to know, it says that it needs to be consistent with the objective to enhance the, quote, sense of place, unquote. for downtown Lexington. What is your interpretation of what that means? My interpretation of what that means is that there are more issues on the table than just moving cars and traffic, that as we were just talking about how will this conversion affect movement of pedestrians, bicycles, transit, and also that whole character of downtown. And, again, I think that's what we're talking about, enhancing the sense of place. And we know that transportation systems can help in that. I mean, we can all think of places we've traveled where the street and how the street and the public realm enhances the quality of the surrounding development as well. You know, there's an energy between those two. And, again, that's what we wanted to emphasize in this. It's just not 100 percent about the traffic. Okay. Well, that's a perfect segue into my second question. So noting that there are no council members or neighbors on the technical steering group, who would be involved from the neighborhood on the policy advisory group who would look at these issues to be addressed? I mean, I think that the neighborhoods surrounding the areas are critical to understanding the issues and giving input. I agree, and we have identified them as key stakeholder group as others. The mayor is actually going to appoint the policy advisory group, but we think of this as the same type of arrangement that we've had where you have a technical group that deals with the strictly technical type of aspects. But then there will be a larger group. Now, I would comment as far as the neighborhoods in our meetings that we had, there's not necessarily a full consensus among neighborhoods or neighbors about this issue, so it would be hard for someone to be representative in a group like that. But again, I don't know. I won't be appointing those members or what the membership will be. But the idea is that there would be a larger group that would be just beyond the technical. And I know what you're saying, and I think that it will be important that that group be representative of a lot of different points of view as well. And I was thinking about the three groups. I mean, the policy advisory group is different from the stakeholder meetings, correct? Correct. So if the stakeholder meetings are simply to exchange information and listen to concerns, which is what it says here, the policy advisory group is receiving summaries of progress and issues to be addressed. So will the policy advisory group have neighborhoods represented on it? Do you know? Again, I do not know for certain. I'm certain that the mayor and the mayor's office would consider that and consider the makeup of that group, because the idea is that it's beyond the technical core of people that deal with traffic issues and signal timings and bus schedules and all those things that would go into the technical aspect. Right. I think it's very important, and I know Scott is here from the mayor's office, that the neighbors be some of the first to know, not the last to know. Certainly. and particularly with something as important as this. And then my final question has to do with page 7. So at the very bottom, the paragraph says, evaluation of alternatives will include identification of future projects and development that affect traffic flow and circulation. Do you know what years are plugged in for the completion of Newtown Pike extension and renovations to Rupp and Lexington Center? You know, that will just have to be something that's worked out with everybody's best estimate. I know we'll certainly, this consultant's job will be to connect up with Andrew and the other folks here, for instance, on the Newtown Pike-Oliver Lewis Way completion, which is a critical, I remember in the past study show, So really that happening takes a lot of the bypass traffic that's currently using our downtown streets out of the mix and should really help with those issues. The renovations to Rupp, Lexington Center, Center Point Development, and other things, we will just develop the best estimate of when those will occur. But the point is you need, as you analyze this, we do, you know, there are certain things we don't know will happen in downtown, but there are certain ones that are being done, trying to be done, will be worked, and those are the ones you try to estimate what those impacts will be on the system as well. So that's what this is speaking to. Okay, so when we get this report, we'll know whether the projected Newtown Pike Extension Oliver Lewis Way to be finished in 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, and the same with Rupp and Lexington Center, because I think it will make a difference. Well, remember, the analysis of the traffic modeling and things won't be a year-by-year guess. You're dealing in broad ranges, and really we talk to them about what we call low and high development scenarios in terms of the development in new traffic. So this is part of the art that the technical advisory group will consult with the consultant and others to put in reasonable estimates of when these will occur and have impacts on the system. They will all be documented. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. Could you give me the time frame and how much it was, what's the cost again to do the study? The net is $465,000, this grant. The grant was $500,000, but the federal folks take a skim off the top, and the state folks take a skim off the top, and the net to us was $465,000. So that was known going in, so when the RFP was put out there, it wasn't so much as how cheap are you going to do this, it's what will you give us for the $465,000 that's been budgeted for this project. So, you know, that was kind of how it was framed. And is it 14 months? 14 months, 12 to 14 months is the anticipated project. And I think as I told Council last time, we've had a lot of conversations with the consultant, and they are agreeable to work to see if, as we go through, we can get meaningful output, not at month 14 but at various stages along the way so that maybe there could be incremental consideration and it may be that some decisions are needed to build on other decisions as we actually get into this. So even though we have a project schedule roadmap here, I think there will be some flexibility in how that's actually administered as it moves along. So what would that put at the drop-dead date of when we would receive the executive summary of their study? Fourteen months, because the grant has a life, and we need to expend all the funds within a certain period. I forget that date, but as I recall, this project schedule just fits within that. Thank you so much. So it won't be one of these things that drags on and on and on, in my opinion. Good. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next up, Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Chris, for presenting this. My question is a really follow-up on what's already been raised by a couple of the council members. On page 11A, there's a timeline. It indicates that the policy advisory group, et cetera, would have begun, I believe, in a week. So my question really is, is that planned to be implemented shortly? And if not, does that mean that the timeline that we have here needs to be backed up? And then I've got a couple of other concerns, but go ahead. Two comments on that. First of all, this project schedule, and I did not send it in the original packet, as Benningfield knows, because when we did the blue sheet, we actually submitted the blue sheet to be one cycle earlier than we actually ended up, and we wanted the consultant to start immediately because of some unfortunate timing dealing with the Legistar system. It ended up being delayed one week. Rather than have the consultant make all these changes in these dates, We thought we would wait and see what happens this Thursday night, whether the council actually just gives one reading or you would suspend the rules and give two. I'm not asking for that. I know there's a process, but, you know, I've been here long enough to know there are all kinds of eventualities that happen on Thursday night. If, in fact, you only give first reading Thursday night, The consultant will be charged with making an adjustment in the schedule based upon the start date, basically moving the key dates one week out. I have consulted with law, and they have no problem with that new schedule being inserted into the draft contract agreement and going forward from there. The other thing that I would comment is that not every start date listed on here basically says when that phase begins, It doesn't mean, this does not mean there will be a meeting with the technical steering group on Monday the 15th, 14th. It means the process of starting that, naming the technical group, getting it set up, will start at that time. If you look at that, there are a lot of dates that are basically tied to that kickoff. It's just like all the data research and collection will start, but it won't be done and accomplished on Tuesday the 15th of May. That's how I interpret these dates. Okay. But there will be every effort to move with as much due speed as possible. Okay. So then I just want to reemphasize what's been said about the policy advisory group. I think the makeup of that group is going to be crucial. There will be, I think, many technical answers to the questions that are raised, but ultimately the question about how we proceed, I believe, is going to be a question of the values that we hold about the nature of downtown. So the makeup of that group and the decisions that they make based on the information they get is going to be, I think, what makes the difference in how well specific proposals are approved or viewed. So perhaps obvious, but I just want to kind of reemphasize that the makeup, getting it started early, having it perhaps begin to think about the ways in which it weighs the various desires and needs. And the obvious one is moving traffic through and making downtown a place that's pedestrian friendly. So how those things are weighed, I think the earlier the better those things are put on the agenda, the more they will be useful in looking at data and determining how to evaluate the data and then how to move to decisions. I would just comment that I agree 100%. The whole reason that we even proposed that there be a policy advisory group in there is to deal with and address just those kinds of issues that you were talking about. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. We've placed that exhibit on the overhead. Sounds good. If there's an opportunity to make it bigger at some point and legible, I think we'd all appreciate that. But it is hard to read so far in any capacity that I've been around it. I'm sure once the consultant knows that that's the final one, we can ask the consultant to provide it in a larger format for you. Well, I'm just thinking of the opportunity for two readings versus not. And I'm over it. We're moving on. It'll all be fine. Councilmember Beard was up next. Thank you, Chair. A couple of things. Scott, are you anticipating me unloading here? That's not going to happen. At the time that we got the Air St. Grove proposal, for lack of a better term, on two-way streets, we were very, very happy about the fact that we were seeing some condo development and things of that sort that would bring individuals to downtown to live. that hasn't really worked out as well as we thought it was. Do we do, or is there any desire to do an inventory of how many main on rows has empty, how many the 500 building down across from Rupp Arena has empty? the Nunn building, if they have vacancies. I don't even know what it's called at the corner of Woodland and High Street that went under and had to be finished by, as I remember, Central Bank. Whether we're getting this influx, an actual influx of people who are going to be the pedestrian-friendly people that everybody's talking about because we have people downtown right now, and I don't see them out flocking up and down the streets when they go out to lunch or where they go, but I just don't see the people walking anywhere. So is this a pipe dream? uh it's that aspect of it that uh that bothers me most is that uh we've we've dreamed of what we think is going to happen but we don't really have a clue what's going to happen and um maybe you could respond to that to one level or another uh chris there's so many levels respond to that i I understand. First Council Member Beard, we have not done any kind of analysis of the downtown housing stock inventory and status. But I think all of us know that 2008 hit the downtown housing market hard, just as hard as it hit the suburban housing market. But as you know, the kinds of projects that you do in downtown and how you provide housing is a very different type of project, a very different financial arrangement, different structure. You can't build a 10-story condominium building like you build a single-family subdivision one house at a time. So you kind of have to go all in, and if you hit it right, everything works out very well. If you hit it wrong, you have issues. We feel, and I feel as a professional planner, and based upon housing market studies and housing analysis that I read from experts all across the country, that the undeniable movement is that a considerable and certain portion of the population, comprising of empty nesters and a large percentage, not all, and also young professionals look for and wish and desire to live in a downtown environment, in a walkable environment, in a different environment than the drivable suburban environment, which has been the dominant residential form in this country over the past number of years. We feel that our community size and our growth policies, the kinds of folks that we attract to this community is a very ripe demographic. Our housing market study hit on this point that our prospects, fairly short, medium, and long term, to capture a lot of that market and make a change in downtown in terms of the character based upon that is very real and something that we can have a fair amount of reliance on. To what extent that will be, what degree it is, depends on forces none of us can control. You know, as you know, it will be how does the development community rebound, what is the availability of money, what are the lending policies towards developers by lending institutions who, as you know, are very gun-shy after what happened in 2008. And so, you know, it's not a completely crystal ball, but I know I believe and a whole lot of others that long-term, this kind of policy will pay off for Lexington. I would agree that long-term that's the case, but I'm looking at her horizon maybe just 20 years out, not three years out, I think. Well, I hope my horizon extends beyond that. Thank you very much, Chris. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next, I have Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Chris, thanks for coming down, as always. I hear enormous concern in the downtown business community that two-way streets will turn downtown into a parking lot during rush hour. And I've communicated this. The concerns are how do you turn left when you have two-way streets? You have a big flow of traffic coming down. You have to wait to turn across traffic, and that backs up everybody behind you. And so that is a real problem, and I look forward to hearing the solution to that. The other issue is how will deliveries be made? You know, we have, what, four lanes on Main Street now. Is that right? Are we at four or three? Three moving and. Depends where you are. But anyway. Yeah, depending. We've got more than we're going to have. and a single beer truck or soft drink truck or something like that was parked in the middle of the lane making deliveries and backed up traffic for a block or two. How much worse is that going to be when we're at two-way streets than we are today? We have an enormous amount of traffic going east-west and west-east or sort of southwest, northeast, something like that. So the question is, yeah, we've got a lot of traffic through downtown, and we can't just pretend that we don't, hoping it's going to go someplace else. And so I want to make sure that this study tells us how we're going to handle the volume of traffic that we're experiencing and that there's not some sort of a waving of the magic wand that that traffic is going to somehow disappear. What we need are one or two other solutions like Newtown Pike. The connection of Newtown Pike to Harrisburg Road, to Broadway, to, I guess, Limestone, will be an enormous benefit to downtown. And what we need are a couple other workarounds, bypasses, if you will, to allow traffic that are going from connector to connector not to have to pass through downtown. And that's difficult because we have neighborhoods. And so I support a slower-paced, Mayberry-esque, leisurely-paced downtown. You know, Hendersonville, North Carolina is one of my favorite places. But it has a bypass on both sides of downtown. It has one-way streets basically going around downtown on both sides. that run parallel to Main Street. So they, too, understand that you have to move traffic. And so just turning them two-way I don't think is a solution in itself. And I have not heard any of our transportation planners say, well, the better idea is to connect Winchester Road to Tate's Creek or something where you can try to take some of this volume out of downtown. they say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it and i hate to make the same mistakes going to two-way streets because those of us are decision makers aren't old enough to remember what a failure it was because i i know folks who are who who worked a long time ago who said it was awful and so i'm going to support the mayor's wish for a study because i think it's important i think we're gonna have more information to do that and clearly there's a large group that want to see two-way streets downtown um but if they do that and this will be probably after i leave but and i'm no longer on council but if they do that if it's built and we go to two-way streets and it's a failure i don't want this council to be blamed for it because this is the administration's baby. And so I'm going to support the report, but there's a lot of folks that think this would be a disaster to go to two-way streets. But you know what? I'm willing to say I was wrong. So Chris, I'm sorry. I know I talked, but I appreciate it. Brian, you represented what I said earlier. There is great passion on both sides of the issue. I think so. Oh, I've got one guy who's going to come with torches and pitchforks if we do this. But But, you know, there is a lot of passion on it. But I absolutely support learning more about the process and learning more and let these bright engineers sort of figure a workaround. But they need to figure out where we're going to put this traffic, where we're going to send the traffic. Because if we've shut it down, people aren't going to come downtown. And that will be counterproductive of what we're trying to do. We're trying to make downtown a friendlier place where more people are down there. But if people say, God, well, I can't go downtown. It's after 2 o'clock in the afternoon. It's going to be gridlock. We'll go after eight to nine or something. Well, I will comment that on the team, the recommended team, selected team, you're going to have folks that have knowledge, experience in using computer technology to put empirical numbers on what you think human beings are going to do, which, as you know, is always a professional guesstimate as well. But also on the team are folks that have had hands-on experience in this and other communities, Stantec is a very large firm, and there are people in that firm that will be able to come and relay to you some of the experience in other communities, what the expectations were and what happened and things like that. So we think we'll have a good blend of empirical and anecdotal evidence for everyone to weigh. Chair, if I could have just one closing comment. Go right ahead. But what I don't want to get lost is I want these folks to look at the bigger picture, not just we need a stoplight here, we need a left turn here, we need a right turn here, that kind of stuff. I want them to look at the bigger flow of downtown, the way the Newtown Pike extension fixes a lot of traffic flow. Because that's the bigger picture. The rest is sort of band-aids. I mean, left turn, we'll stagger the lights here and that kind of stuff. I think we need something broader than that to understand how we're going to keep all this vast amount of traffic out of downtown. So that the folks who go there can get there. That's the idea. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next up on the list is Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Council Member Martin, because you made a point I've been making about the third district, that our neighborhoods are cut-throughs and not like neighborhoods in the sub-suburban areas, and therefore their paving needs are often different. So thanks for making that point. I'd be glad to give you a tour sometime. Okay. At any rate, I think one thing that is critical, I hear very different things from the constituents downtown that I represent in my district about at night, Main Street is a drag strip, and the streetscape was supposed to have a cutout for delivery on short, and it didn't happen, and the parking was going to be on the other side. So this and that, but the vast majority of people I talk to, business owners, et cetera, would like to see some two-way at least experiment or model pilot project, whatever you want to call it. And remembering that the last study that was done that said second and short were the easy streets to do. Well, Short Street is very different today. The landscape of downtown is very different today than it was at that time. We didn't have the pavilion and the farmer's market there. We didn't have all those businesses there. So I'm excited about the study. I think a study is just that. It's not something that you set what you want the outcome to be, and then you have people come in and make that the outcome. I was on the RFP committee, and we had, I mean, these people have a variety. This team has a variety of incredible national expertise in a variety of areas. They're not just, you know, yokels that don't know what they're doing. So they have a tremendous team with enormous positive outcomes and education experience in a variety of different communities and different situations. So I look forward to what they bring forward, and we can take it or leave it, But I think certainly I look at some of the problem areas that are actually dangerous. I've been working on the Woodland Triangle where High and Maxwell and State Street intersect. I mean, it's a miracle someone hadn't been killed there. So I think we've got some solutions for that intersection, but we also need safety. And the biggest thing I hear from people about why they don't go downtown is they don't know where to park. And now that the parking authority is taking over the parking garages and will be maintaining those, I've been working with Gary Means and the Parking Authority about signage so people who are local and visitors will be able to clearly see where there's parking available. People say, I don't go downtown because you can't find any place to park. Well, there are plenty of places to park. Nobody has known where it is. So they're planning to do some really neat signage. And I think that, and Council Member Beard, you've talked about what we need to get people downtown and get business downtown is parking. You're absolutely right. So I think now with the proper signage, people will know where to park, and that's going to make a big difference. But I'm really excited about this. I'm excited about getting it started. And whatever they come up with, you know, they come up with. It's not a predetermined outcome that we're asking for. We're asking for a study from very highly qualified individuals. Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am. And Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Yes, sir. We have, I believe, a long way to go before we get to the ultimate decisions that have to be made, but I just want to kind of emphasize one point again I think that's very important to understand. And what we're not looking for, I believe, is a plan that will move towards two-way streets and move all of the traffic that presently goes through downtown at the same pace. It's not going to do that. There's going to be a tradeoff. That's a part of the deal. The two-way streets are intended to slow traffic down, and you can't move as many cars through at a slower pace as you can at a faster pace. That's just a given. So it's not about weighing off the improvements, potential improvements, with the flow of traffic. There's going to be some slowdown. The study will hopefully mitigate that. They will come up with ways that move traffic through as effectively as possible. But finally, there will have to be, I believe, a decision made about whether we want downtown to be more pedestrian-friendly or not. If we want it to be more pedestrian-friendly, it will result in some slowdown of traffic through downtown. Now, maybe people will find ways around that. Maybe they won't mind coming downtown, even if it's a little slower. I've actually been out around Fayette Mall at Christmastime, and I've noticed that people don't seem to mind. and they don't stop going to Fayette Mall because it's hard to get in and out of Fayette Mall. There's a huge traffic jam, and yet people seem to be willing to still go there. So people may be willing to come downtown, even if it takes a little longer to get downtown and to move through downtown. That's basically it. I just don't want people to think that there's going to be a magic bullet that both creates a more walkable, livable downtown and moves all of the traffic through at its present pace. That's not possible. Thank you, Chair. Good point. I appreciate it very much at that time of the conversation. I guess it kind of comes back to the one question I was going to ask, and he's teed it up a little bit. I guess will the study take into account, I guess, what I would call the status quo? Is this just a study to see which sets go first and which ones go last, or does it take into account what the status quo is and that it might remain? Or is this just a study to say this two-way pair, this two-way pair, then this two-way pair? If I get the gist of your question. One of the things you learn in government is to take into account the status quo. Well, of course, do nothing is always an alternative. And there will be, if you think about the modeling and things like that that you have to do, it certainly has to be compared against what is going to happen even if they stay as one-way pairs. I mean, that's just an inherent part of an analysis like this. You look at status quo. So the other thing, though, is I think that what we're not looking for in this study is necessarily, and I don't know, this may sound wrong, an excuse not to do it, you know what I mean? Because any kind of change like this involves change. Sure. As pointed out, it's going to involve some subjective judgment, in my opinion, on whether the community ends up better making this choice, that choice, on this pair of streets, that pair of streets. But basically what we've charged the consultant to do is tell us how to do it. Okay. and then we can decide whether we will or not. Tell us what it will cost, and then we'll decide whether we're going to do it or not. Tell us as best you can what will be the overall impact as we assess what this will mean for our downtown in the future. So that's what we're trying to do with this study as opposed to anything that's been done in the past, which has been either largely visionary and subjective or, in one case, a very limited technical analysis in 2007. Well, and that gets back to kind of some of the questions the vice mayor was asking, and she's wanting to make comment again. But I appreciate the opportunity for the community to have discussion before, during, and after the study before any implementation, which is what you've assured me of. Yes, any implementation, as I understand, will take this body taking affirmative action to make that change and moving forward and making the commitment to do that. It will also take the Transportation Cabinet accepting what will be done, how it will be done, and things like that as well. So it's not something that's going to be unilaterally done overnight. I think that's good. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In thinking about Council Member Case's comments about slowing traffic and then Council Member Martin's comments and concerns, Will this study give us any idea of whether people will then choose not to come downtown if some of the tradeoffs are realized? I guess I'm wondering if they have that kind of data from other cities that have converted their streets. I mean, there may be some people who, if they know traffic is slowed by five or ten more minutes through town, will just simply choose to go elsewhere. Is that part of this? You know, I don't know that there will be any empirical data. We have tried to find things. You know, we get anecdotal information from folks who are trying to lease retail space and other space that they need the conversion to better market that space. So all those kinds of things come into play, and we've not, at least at this point, found any conclusive empirical studies. Sure, I think in some cases you'll find people that may, if there is some more congestion, will be reluctant to come downtown, but I don't think, you know, if you think about entertainment and things of that nature, A lot of that's off-peak anyway. A lot of it, special events, can be managed, just like we do now even with the one-way pairs. Big events have to be managed to some degree. So you'll have those kinds of considerations, and then you'll have other people that find it more attractive, having a more slowed down, more pedestrian family, more engaged, more retail downtown. And I think that's been the experience of a lot of communities. But I think what you'll find is that there's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all solution for every community, and every community is a little bit different. There are some successful downtowns that are on one-way systems. I know we've been on and around those. There are ones that were dying, and people will tell you the best thing we ever did was to change it and do that, and that is what revitalized. We all know that on anything like this, it's an interaction of many factors that result in what we ultimately want. And we won't really know until it's done what the true impact is. I know that somebody mentioned Fayette Mall. There are tons of people who avoid it at the holidays because it is slowed down, and yet there are others who go. So I guess you just don't know that result until it's done. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Beard. I said I wasn't going to do this, but I think we deteriorated to the point where I might as well unload the full magazine. um council member martin's comments about uh delivery trucks and things of that sort and i'm trying to visualize main street as a two-way street and i'm probably the one person in this room anyway that remembers specifically when it was two-way One of my first concerns was parking garages. Our present parking garages, 100% of the parking garages on Main Street are on the south side of Main Street, which means that early morning traffic coming from the east end will have to turn across traffic to get into a parking garage. Now, to complicate things, we'll pull that truck that Council Member Martin mentioned over into the other lane so that we can have 100% stoppage of all traffic for some span of time. The second thing is we're going to have to put turn lanes, if we do limestone and upper, we have to put turn lanes on both sides of Main Street. Stop me if you don't agree, please, Chris, because I don't know whether we've got enough real estate to do four lanes plus a turn lane everywhere down Main Street. I don't think it's there. Maybe you would know better. I know that the lanes are wider than maybe necessary, but are they that wide is the question. My daughter lives in Chicago. I spend three or four times a year doing the Miracle Mile, Michigan Avenue. It's eight lanes across. It's two-way. but all the cross streets are one way. Many of them. Manhattan, at least the last time I was there, most of the cross streets, not the avenues, the cross streets, alternated but one way. Scott probably could tell me how that's working out First time I drove it was in 1956, I believe And it hasn't changed since then, so they must like it pretty well I just don't know how we are ever going to get to a point where we're going to be comfortable enough to jump in the water and do this at any given point with our fingers crossed just hoping it's going to work. And the numbers, if the study is going to be $400,000, dollars I can't imagine what it's going to cost to implement signage signals and everything else that goes with it it on top of the streetscape that we just spent millions of dollars to do that we were going to undo I get where we have to undo if we're going to have to have those turn lines. And maybe you've thought about some of this and know the answers to it, Chris, and feel free to contradict me. But those are some of my concerns, or the rest of my concerns, about primarily the Maine and Vine pair. Realize as you answer he's only pausing to reload. And I would only comment on this. Obviously, I don't have all those answers. If I did, I would be a consulting firm like Stantec, and I would be out there submitting major money instead of standing here at the podium. What I would comment, Council Member Beard, is I agree with you in many ways. I don't necessarily agree with you, your conclusions. But the point is that what this study will do will give us information that will answer the questions exactly what you raised. How do you redesign? What would be a preliminary concept for a redesigned Main Street? How would you accommodate those within the existing right-of-way? How do you accommodate on-street parking? How do you accommodate turning movements? All those things. How do you accommodate changes? And what will it cost? Those are the questions that we don't have any answers to. We've not had any answers to this and have been hanging over this whole community discussion about this question for years. And again, my point is we don't know what those answers will be. We don't know what the consultant will bring us. That's not been predetermined. But what we do know is we are going to engage a firm that will give us that information. information i'll tell you right now i don't expect that you'll have every answer that will give you exactly where you're going to go that at some point there's going to be an exercise in civic judgment made on whether you move forward or not move forward but you'll have a lot more information a year from now than you have today well one other thing which um councilman martin mentioned and that was Oliver Lewis. That's a block and a half that we've been able to do in the last 54 years since it was first dreamed of. At that rate, Buck Rogers will make it to limestone. You know, the thing is going to cost, the last I heard it was going to be $83 million, and that was five years ago. So I'm sure we can up that by another 20 percent. And God knows if we go at the same pace, whether we'll ever get to limestone. And I hope we do. I think it would be a big help, but I don't know whether it's solved a whole lot yet. Thank you, sir. My goal right now is to get to the end of this discussion, and that would bring us to Councilmember Martin. Thank you, Chair. Chair, I just want to respond to something the Vice Mayor mentioned. I don't go to Fayette Mall during the Christmas season because Farmers Jewelers is located in Chevy Chase. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Martin. This just became a good discussion. I see no other sign-ups at this point. Thank you for your time with us today, and I'm assuming Mr. Shapiro has nothing to add to the comments at this time. Thank you so much. Gentlemen, I appreciate your time and your attention today. Next on our agenda is item number two, Oliver Lewis Way project update. This is one of the issues that's placed in committee for a periodic update. And Mr. Grunwald is here to give us some comments. Nice to see you, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon. Nothing like being under the gun. I'll keep my update pretty short. If you have questions, please feel free to ask me. For our Phase 1 area, this is the mitigation area. On April 5th, we did hire AU Associates. It's a woman-owned business enterprise, and they were selected to help us construct some of the rental housing for the Lexington Community Land Trust. Community development was helping us with that portion of the project. all of the houses that were vacant along garudi street this is from mckinley all the way back to the versales road viaduct with the exception of one we say in here they're all slated for demolition they have actually all been torn down the one that remains we're having to take the court. It's an eminent domain proceeding. The Fitz-Simmons Office of Architecture, they have been hired to do the renovations of the Carver Center. This was part of our environmental impact statement. It was part of our agreement with the State Historic Preservation Office. They have submitted their 50% design plans, and they're moving forward. Hopefully we'll have that under construction and the improvements being worked on this fall. The design plans for the mitigation area, this would include the residential homes as well as the site preparation for the rental areas. It includes relocating the lower town branch box culvert, the main sanitary sewer trunk lines that run through the area. Those plans are approximately 50% complete. The noise wall along the railroad yard, all of the foundation work is complete. The panels are being fabricated and they will begin to be installed late this month through June. The combined utility and construction costs for this redevelopment area are estimated about $10.5 million. these funds are programmed. They're not authorized yet at this point. The Lexington Community Land Trust, they have received their third installment of money from the project for five years. We, the project, give the Lexington Community Land Trust a sum of money, about $250,000. This is the seed money to ensure that they are stable for the next 10, 15 years until they're completely built out and operated on their own. Phase two, this is from Versailles Road to South Broadway, a very important section. The design plans are approximately 50% complete. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is proceeding with the acquisitions of 21 total take parcels within Phase I and Phase II. These include the Nathaniel Mission and Harry Gordon Steel. What we had our consultant do was produce a set of right-of-way plans at which those right-of-way plans were considered total take. We're buying the entire piece of property. They did this fairly quickly. Sometime in February, the Transportation Cabinet then authorized those plans so they could begin working on the right-of-way, working on these acquisitions. These acquisitions will be pretty substantial and could take a long time. That's why we wanted to get work moving on them. A series of meetings has been held with the Nathaniel mission. Representatives and various scenario investigations have taken place relative to either a temporary move or a permanent move for the mission, and those discussions are still ongoing and probably hopefully will conclude within the next two or three months. For this section, the utility costs are estimated about $5.4 million, and construction is about $6.1 million. Those funds are programmed, but of course they're not authorized yet. The Phase 3, this is the Scott Street connector, basically connecting Patterson Street over to the front of the University of Kentucky. Final design, it has not begun for this section. The utility costs are estimated about $3.5 million, and construction about $8.7 million. Funds are programmed past the next biannual plan. Basically, they're programmed further than 2014. Phase four, utility companies are still continuing to bury their cables. and when i wrote this i think at that time there was one aerial communication line remaining since then i drove through there the other day i did not see that line so i think they have buried it they just have not brought down the remaining communication poles that pretty much concludes my report and if i can entertain questions if anybody has them i'll see if there's any questions for any council members i would just ask you which would be the next phase to be constructed? The next phase to be constructed, it's the transportation cabinet and our hope to have phase two from Versailles Road to South Broadway under construction within the next summer of 2014. Of course, that is a goal. That's not an ultimate deadline date. I mean, you've got to start. We also hope to have the Phase 1 construction, the relocation of the lower town branch box and the sanitary sewer lines in that area by this coming up in the fall. That's a lot of physical stuff to move. It will be very complicated. Very good. Questions for anyone? Thank you for that update. I appreciate it very much. last on our active agenda today is the same type of update for the todd's road widening phase two and this is on page 13 of our packet and mr barrett welcome sir thank you this one's a bit simpler than newtown pike at least as far as where we are with it very good we're i think Like Thursday night, we're due to get a second reading on a design contract modification that would allow for the completion of the design of Section 2 of this project. After the designers are nearly complete with the plan, then we can talk about submitting right-of-way plans, getting right-of-way money authorized, move into the right-of-way acquisition phase, start looking at getting utilities, moved, and then ultimately construction, which is really out beyond FY14 again and the Transportation Improvement Program. Some big numbers there. The construction phase says $10 million. That would be a healthy swath. I appreciate that update. Are there questions for any council members on that? Anything else you need to bring to us? Thank you for the brevity of your update. I appreciate it. The last item on the agenda is just the opportunity for us to consider items that are on the committee's items referred to committee list, which is on page 14 of the original packet. We did pare this down dramatically after last meeting, and a couple of these are the ongoing variety. hopefully we'll be able to take up some of the ones that are related to utility poles repaving the relationship with the public schools traffic management in the downtown right of entry and administrative warrants our subcommittee is beginning to work this week about the harboring of animals in the residential areas the review of the street tree and tree protection ordinances, as well as Article 16 of the zoning ordinance off-street parking requirements slash stormwater management, as well as building permit extensions in ND and HD1 designated areas. So we'll work to bring several of those forward for next month. Any comments or questions on those issues? Hearing none, I would ask for a motion for adjournment. Second. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed life sign? We are adjourned. Thank you very much. Thank you.