Tag Archives: 40509

Day 59-Clusters, not blocks

day 59 Today took me to an area near Woodhill park, not far from the area I visited on Day 3.   On that day, I actually walked through two distinct areas, the southernmost of which was the same neighborhood, Shadow Wood, that made up all of today’s walk. This area was built in the 80’s and a common design is a shed roof or a similar offset roof that is unique.  Many of these homes still have wooden batten siding that I assume was originally present throughout.  Most houses have been upgraded to vinyl siding.  Another feature of this neighborhood is that the layout results in clusters of houses more than blocks of houses (especially on the west side of Woodhill), where clusters along a street are essentially connected at the back.  This is similar to the neighborhood from Day 19.   Most houses feel like they have multiple “next door” neighbors.  This may or may not have resulted in an increased sense of community, but it seems like a neat experiment.

One of the neat things about this project will be seeing the same neighborhood at different times of year to see how it changes.  Generally, yards are a neat communication tool, a projection of the occupants.  Sometimes blending in or simply being unintrusive offers as much information as standing out.  Gardens and lawns have already taken a back seat to seasonal decorations (and it’ll be interesting to see how different residential areas address the dismal depths of winter, after Christmas decorations come down).   A few homes here offered some hints on how this might be done with colorful, non-holiday-specific flags and similar yard decorations.  Mostly, though, yards here tend toward the inconspicuous.  So, this neighborhood (at least as seen in November) seems to be cozy and introverted.

Day 53-Parking Woes

Day 53Today I took a quick trip through the Eastwood neighborhood, near Liberty and Fortune Drive.  This was a residential neighborhood, and most of the houses were townhouses, with some small houses as I moved further from Fortune.  These seem to be relatively young, mostly early 2000’s homes.

With this area being dominated by multifamily homes and thus fairly dense, one thing that stood out was parking.  Parking appeared to be a big problem here.  No Parking signs were all over the place, in front of mailboxes, in front of trash cans, in front of private spaces.  And cars were everywhere, too, even in the middle of the day.  What do these people do when then want to invite company over?  The interesting thing is that there really didn’t appear to be a lack of spaces, with units having garages in most cases, and often a second dedicated space.  There were additional visitor spaces too.  So how many car spaces does a family living in a townhouse need?

I was reminded of something I saw recently about a residential parking garage in Portland that is well under capacity.  And while there are a lot of differences between downtown Portland and Lexington outside of New Circle Road, clearly there are conditions where people survive, get to work, get groceries, all presumably contentedly and with something less than 2 cars per family.  To an extent, we understand what those conditions are and they usually involve “density” and “transit” which are four-letter words in many places.  So part of the question for a city like Lexington may be whether it is desirable to create those conditions, and part of the question may be, if so, could they be created in a specific location such as this one.

Day 40

day 40Today’s walk was through the Gleneagles neighborhood, just east of I-75 and Man O’ War.  This is a relatively new area and in fact my wife and I walked through several houses in this area when we first moved to Lexington in 2006.  The street names, Market Garden, Scottish Trace, for me elicit memories of new house smell.

My impression of the area is less favorable now than in 2006, mostly due to my increased interest in utilitarian walking.  Like most of the places we looked at at that time including the one into which we moved, the walking opportunities are nice but almost strictly recreational.  Polo Club is nice and does connect into a larger network of trails and parks, though at a scale more appropriate for bicycling.  This section of Polo Club crosses a wetland preserve and some of the Market Garden houses back to the same greenspace.  At the time of this visit, the greenspace was occupied by heavy equipment.

Two houses with a mirrored floor plan
Two houses with a mirrored floor plan

Something of a consistent theme, I’ve noticed that glimpses into the hearts of houses are rare, usually confined to backyards on corner lots.  But often, especially in newer tract home neighborhoods, people have moved their lives outside to the fronts of their houses.  There are rarely porches, but garages and occasionally front yards may be occupied.  Whatever builders think people want, people are making their houses outward facing on their own.

What works: the wide trail on Polo Club

What doesn’t: trash accumulating in certain areas inside the neighborhood.

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.

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.