Monthly Archives: September 2014

Uncategorized

Day 37

day37Imagine for a minute that you are outside, late at night, in a quiet and remote place, perhaps  in the middle of the Great Plains.  You can see a highway, maybe a quarter mile away, and maybe a few times per hour a truck drives by.  Imagine how this truck sounds to you as it slowly approaches, passes, and drives away from you, a subdued, lonely roar mixed with road noise that sounds almost like a rainstorm.  Now imagine this roar, except now a dozen times a minute and much closer and you can imagine the lonely cacophony of Buena Vista Road.

This area has some picturesque streetscapes
This area has some picturesque streetscapes

This area is quiet and a little lonely, but it is well-suited to its location near I-75.  It is populated with a mix of car-centric businesses with motels being the dominant player, though gas stations and roadside restaurants are also mixed in. It’s a pleasant area with acceptable though not completely reliable sidewalks that do provide car-free accessibility between the hotels and restaurants.  The long quiet stretches of Buena Vista and Elkhorn also provide parking areas for truckers.  The areas seems to be doing pretty well.  Two properties appear to have been razed at some point in the past (one of which was a motel), but one hotel recently completed a remodel and a new hotel is being built nearby. Generally, the area appears to have been built out in the 1980’s and seems to be getting a breath of fresh air from recent development across Winchester.

This sign was near a stream. Any guess as to what it once said?
This sign was near a stream. Any guess as to what it once said?

What works: mix of businesses that are interdependent.

What doesn’t: Might be saturated with motels; the next higher class of hotel property might create some synergy with restaurants across Winchester but on-foot accessibility isn’t as good.

Uncategorized

Day 36

day 36Today’s walk took me to the Chilesburg area along Hays Boulevard and close to Todd’s Road and I-75.  This neighborhood as a whole is fairly new; new houses were under construction within view of the area through which I walked. The houses I passed were relatively old, but still built in the last 15 years or so.

Newer neighborhoods have adopted some common design elements.  While earlier neighborhoods were built on a trunk-and-branch philosophy, these areas typically feature a circle with branches.  They often feature parklets, as this area does.  They also seem to deal a little more thoughtfully with stormwater.  Perhaps this is due to required environmental impact investigation?  Streams are allowed to remain above ground and even in some cases landscaping around them (though I don’t know that we’ve reached a point where the landscaping is always suitable.)

What works: Trees work well to keep the highway sound down.  Stormwater stream is an amenity.

What doesn’t: The narrow streets caused some problems when roofers and recycling pickup (trash trucks) competed for the same space.

Uncategorized

Day 35

day 35Today’s walk was through an odd mix of light industrial, commercial and residential along and behind Winchester Road.  The commercial strip stood out; this stretch of Winchester is generally gritty, the kind of place you go to shop for a greasy part in your car,  not where you would go to find a trendy boutique.  The specific section I walked along featured two nightclubs, two “gentleman’s” clubs and a KFC.  The opposite side of the street has some intriguing businesses that look like the kind of nondescript places where people who know something shop for…vintage pinball machines?  I have to remember to take a closer look at those shops when I return to walk through the area on the south side of the street.

Another feature of this area is a named alley. (I love these.  Who wouldn’t want to have an alley named after them?)  But of course, street names have stories and you can learn from this Herald-Leader column that there was a La Flame nightclub along Winchester from the late 1950’s.

2014-09-04_13-19-24-M
One of the more peculiar sights among the car-oriented businesses was this car with missing and inadequate tires.

This area is surely more interesting at night; I wonder where everyone must park.  Transit in this area is evidently a challenge.  A bicyclist was using the marked bike lane, but minutes later, two vehicles parked in the bike lane so their owners could grab lunch.  Despite the steady number of pedestrians, it’s clear cars own this stretch just out of the sheer number of auto-oriented businesses.

Side note for the geeky: the geographic center of the area I walked today is due south of the center of the area I walked on Day 34; both have the same longitude, to four decimal places!

What works: This short stretch of Winchester has some unique things.

What doesn’t: Parking needs compete with bike lanes.

Uncategorized

Day 34

day34Today I visited a neighborhood off of Russell Cave Road called Radcliffe.  The area through which I walked was originally built out over a relative long period stretching from the early 1950’s until well into the mid 1960’s and had a correspondingly diverse range of construction types and styles.  Overall, my impression of this neighborhood was fairly typical for neighborhoods from this period.  It was pleasant to walk through, and probably the most fragrant (or at least, pleasantly fragrant) of any I’ve walked through all summer.  The people I ran into were all pleasant.  And I think the good weather (cool, cloudy, nice breeze) may affect my judgment, it felt shady and cool despite relatively few street trees.

Neighborhoods sometimes have subtle signs of distress, and this one had a few.  Among the many well kept yards, there were a few that were running wild, a few places where liquor bottles were disposed inconspicuously or smashed.  And the neighborhood seems to have some high turnover despite other owners who have lived in their homes for decades, with some houses being sold this year for two thirds of what they were sold for eight years ago.   Though this area seems to exemplify the housing crisis and it’s impact on Lexington, it also feels like it’s close to coming through the crisis.

Though it was very evident here, every neighborhood has its nice yards and its wild ones (and in my neighborhood, to be honest, my yard is one of the wild ones).  Generally, neighborhoods seem to have some self-regulation.  A degree of weediness or wildness may be tolerated (or even preferred) in some neighborhoods while others consist almost entirely of perfectly manicured lots.  And this becomes an interesting psychological question–do residents take after their neighbors in caring for their yards,  or is this self-regulation really the result of people self-sorting into neighborhoods with yards that they themselves would be comfortable maintaining?  And, when this self-regulation breaks down, how does the neighborhood react?  Is their an informal mechanism for correction (which may or may involve a homeowner’s association)?