Proposal for radical arterial surgery

Another Creative for Common Sense position paper.

Two recent downtown traffic developments have piqued the curiousity of we Creatives for Common Sense. First has been the admission by Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Jeff Fugate that creating a vibrant and workable downtown–and not the specific creation of two-way streets–should be the primary goal of any city project. Second has been the recent “modest proposal” for downtown traffic realignment proffered by NoC writer David Shattuck.

Accordingly, we Creatives endeavored to create our own downtown traffic model, one that embraces Fugate’s desire for a workable and holistic downtown, and one that eschews Shattuck’s plans for minor “holistic medicine” in favor of performing radical surgery on our downtown traffic arteries.


CfCS traffic projection models are based on two general assumptions: (1) cars are fucking expensive, spew shit-tons of harmful carbon energy into the air, and generally help condition us to become economically unhealthy anti-social slobs; (2) therefore, in the somewhat-near future we will be (or ought to be) prioritizing less of our precious public transportation space to their existence.

The nut of the CfCS plan involves keeping Main, Vine and Short Streets one-way while reducing by one the number of auto-traffic lanes in operation on each of the three thoroughfares. In short, we envision re-engineering Main/Vine/Short streets to include (1) a two-lane, barriered-off inner-city bike/horse highway, (2) a public transport/emergency vehicle lane running next to it, and (3) a single one-way lane reserved for commercial/private traffic. This design pattern, our models indicate, will calm traffic traveling upon the city’s major thoroughfares, promote pedestrian life and healthy communities, and reduce the city’s atrociously large carbon footprint and its financial commitment to road maintenance.



Calm carbon-burning traffic
Current downtown traffic models assume that increases in downtown auto traffic will calm (slow) street traffic and enliven pedestrian commercial activity. CfCS models, however, suggest that the same goal can be accomplished by funnelling fewer automobilies onto decreased amounts of road space. Here is why:

CfCS ad-hoc Subcommittee on Traffic Analysis models indicate that an estimated 20 percent of downtown auto-goers will become so enraged by changes proposed in the CfCS plan that they will pledge via an avalanche of Lexington Herald Leader Discus comments to never ever drive downtown again. Yet despite this expected plunge in auto traffic entering downtown, CfCS models predict that, as the remains of downtown traffic get forced onto fewer roads, a traffic calming (which is to say traffic-causing) effect will occur similar to that envisioned in two-way proposals.

Unlike two-way proposals, though, we CfCSers are mindful that in choosing to calm our gas-burning auto traffic, we also potentially choose to increase our county’s carbon emissions. Writing in North of Center, David Shattuck has cited an Austin, Texas traffic study that projected a 10-13 percent increase in air pollution levels that would accompany the city’s plan to switch to slower-moving two-way streets. A 2007 Lexington traffic study reached similar conclusions. Conversion to two-way streets, the report concluded, would lead to “higher vehicle emission levels (air pollution)…as a result of the increased congestion.”

The CfCS plan, by comparison, creatively offsets any potential carbon emmissions gains. Its reliance on one-way streets, which move traffic more efficiently through space than two-way roadways, will provide an immediate cut in projected emissions. In addition, our Emissions Reading Group comrades have argued that Lexington might feasibly experience a net decrease in carbon emissions.  Between those who refuse to drive on a single lane of downtown track, and those who transition into public and alternate forms of transportation, we project Fayette carbon emissions to decrease. The ideas, admittedly, are crude and in need of refinement and further theorization, but initial evidence suggests that less cars on the road generally means less climate destabilizing pollution, particularly if bolstered by a robust and diverse public transportation system of peds, bikes and busses.

Stimulate calorie-burning traffic
In addition to mitigating the tonnage of Fayette County carbon released into the air, the CfCS plan also endorses alternate modes of transportation that promote healthy living. A singular reliance upon personal and commercial automobile traffic–important modes of transportation, to be sure–has had the byproduct effect of contributing to our inactive and unhealthy lifestyles. We estimate that fully one-half or more of Main, Vine and Short will be given over to more efficient carbon-burning (bus) and calorie-burning (walking, riding) forms of public transportation. (Take that, Colbert!)

Ideally, the realigned streets shall provide an entryway for a county-wide commitment to bike paths and bus routes that connect our neighborhoods and commercial centers. Lexington’s suburban grid, which sits atop the city’s eighteenth-century wagon-and-spoke system, is ideally suited for bike and bus travel. By creating a multi-modal downtown transportation grid that encourages walking and biking, the city will provide a centerpiece to which future transportation developments may seek to connect.

Transportation economics
Carbon-emitting based traffic solutions also require significant amounts of capital to construct, operate and repair roads and garages. Consider Ninth District councilmember Jay McChord, Lexington’s most bike-friendly councilmember, whose website boasts his efforts generating $2.5 million in funding for a variety of biking and walking trails at neighborhood parks located throughout the county. The funding, while significant and evidence of McChord’s clear commitment to healthy activity, nevertheless pales in comparison to the $55 million in local, state and federal funds he directed into Lexington road projects.  When even the most ardent political supporter of bike-use operates at a 20-1 funding disadvantage, it should be a sign that costs are out of control.

One chief reason for high automotive costs is that construction and maintenance of roads and parking structures compels cities to make significant long-term financial commitments. Discussions of Rupp Arena’s expansion, for example, have often been accompanied by the corollary need for tens of millions of dollars to create the parking capacity (i.e., parking garages) necessary to store the increased amounts of cars that the rehabbed arena expects to attract. Likewise, roadways are no cheap propositions, and more traffic means more maintenance costs. The CfCS structural attention to public transportation should be viewed as an economic win for the city. By mitigating car-traffic, our design reduces the amount and costs associated with road repairs.

Meanwhile, costs for bike and pedestrian thoroughfares are cheap by comparison, and they require less maintenance. A group of active biking citizens, for example, recently installed four miles of mountain bike trails at Veteran’s Park for a cost of $30,000. For those keeping tabs, four miles is near the distance from downtown to Zandale Center, traveling south on Limestone/Nicholasville Road—and just about the average distance of most carbon-burning car trips.

Divesting from brand Lexington

Fayette Urban Countiers unite!
A Creatives for Common Sense position paper

“The city now known as Lexington, KY, is built of the dust of a dead metropolis.” George Washington Ranck, History of Lexington Kentucky: Its early annals and recent progress (1872)

The Lexington brand is dead, its meaning long since blown on Entertainment and Bourbon districts, Rupp Arenas and Horse Parks. Lexington is the home of land barons and great compromisers, slave markets and horse markets. Its public statues enshrine regressive losers who, during a centuries-old civil war, skulked hardscrabble Bluegrass farmers out of meanness, and the preservation of slavery. Its signature sport team’s most signature sports moment (UK v. Texas Western) stands 40 years later as a defining symbol of the racist, defeated, loser all-white aspirations held by many in the country who fought viciously against the Civil Rights movement.

In Lexington today, Middle-Eastern Sheikhs and poorly-dressed white Euro-trash trust fund adults make big equine deals so we can all blissfully watch tiny Latinos ride million dollar horses around a track; pasty Midwestern coal lords under-write the sinewy grandsires of black jockeys provided they can run up and down a basketball court to the cheers of 20,000 mostly white, mostly wealthy fans, in an arena named for no less a man than college basketball’s moral equivalent of Jefferson Davis (another “man of his times” who also, it turns out, has Lexington ties). Brand-wise, the city’s image relies heavily on attracting old crusty boring awkward white people, most with money, who get off garnishing themselves with just enough color for proper aesthetics.

Unfortunately, that shrinking demographic is highly-sought after and comes with expensive upkeep. Consequently, maintaining the Lexington image is costing us shit-tons of money. Lexington has chosen the worst time possible to pay for remaking itself as a city—at the height of a global urban development boom. Here as in other places, urban land and nearby “unique” pastoral farmscapes carry the most costs and require the most capital to secure and develop. Thirty years ago, when Lexington went suburban-gentry, urban branding offered big returns. Few did it, so the act stood out. Now, everyone does it. By buying in late at the height of the city bubble, branding Lexington as a world class city requires greater resources and offers lower (if any) rates of return.Put plainly, not only is brand Lexington culturally outdated and currently uber-expensive, it’s also a bad business investment: it returns very little on the very large public investment needed to feed it.

Creatives for Common Sense believes that the time is now to divest from our city brand, that narrow, middle-finger-like sliver of land surrounding Main Street (and the high-priced farms dotting the spaces beyond) that leaders have branded “authentically us.”

We must turn Lexington under, let it sit and rot itself back into the earth for some future use. Our lone remaining obligation should be simply on occasion to piss upon it, for the nutrients, and to reimagine ourselves as something better.

In its place, CfCS suggests the demographically, geographically, geologically, culturally, economically, botanically and hydrologically more diverse and inclusive “Fayette Urban County” (FUC) as our collective brand-identity.The FUC brand has a number of things going for it. In terms of coverage, it is a brand that actually accounts for all of us. Aesthetically, the FUC horse head (the general shape of our county) is an infinitely preferable footprint than the Lexington “middle finger” our leaders have embraced. Regionally, identifying as a FUCer is more in line with the rest of the state, which tends to identify by county and not city.

And let’s not forget, in choosing FUC, Lexington’s historical brand transgressions can be wiped clean, the image equivalent of urban renewal. Where does that $5 million dollar asshole coach live who is leading the college basketball race to the bottom? Where is the flagship state school that most Kentuckians can no longer afford to attend? In what city is that great statesman whose compromise allowed slave trading to continue for another decade down the street from his estate? Where was that joke of a World Horse Olympics? What city’s airport allowed Bin Laden’s super-rich family to fly on 9.11 when the rest of the country’s airports were shut down? Brand-wise, these places and those assholes are all tethered to Lexington, KY, not Fayette Urban County.

Most importantly for Creatives, the county approach has the potential for off-the-charts growth in regional and national brand identity. While locales the world over compete on the expensive and crowded “best city” market, few places embrace their county heritage. Lexington, re-branded as Fayette Urban County, can be the standard-bearer for this new, as of yet untapped, market identity. Not only might this potentially save FUCers money when they pimp themselves to “the world,” but it might allow more of us—those without the means to pay into the high-rent Lexington brand—more opportunities to benefit from our government’s marketing opportunities.

We say it proud. We are not Lexingtonians. We are FUCers. And we invite others who have any common sense about them to join us and be FUCers, too. Brand-up, Creatives.

Fayette Urban County Knacker: A position paper

The re-legalization of horse slaughter houses within the United States presents a wonderful regional opportunity for public/private partnerships. Fayette Urban County should capitalize on its brand image as the horse capital of the world and create a new publicly elected office, the Fayette Urban County Knacker (FUCK), to manage the slaughter of the region’s horses. Not only will this provide local oversight in dealing with the very real problem of abandoned, sick, and/or dying horses (a potential brand killer), but if handled correctly, a knacker could also unlock an entirely untapped commercial market—the post-mortem market—with great potential to provide new revenue streams for a struggling equine industry.

With this in mind, Creatives for Common Sense calls upon the city and its leaders to create a position of Fayette Urban County Knacker. The ideal FUCK candidate should be proficient in, or willing to learn, a zesty variety of techniques, dispositions and orientations. These include skills related to:

**Product transference: Ability to slaughter, disembowel and segment horse into needed or desired cuts. Preference given to candidate demonstrating commitment to wise traditions and cutting edge emerging global trends regarding best practices in meat-slaughter, environmental, health code, etc. etc.

**Product development: Develop, test and create new saleable product forms. Such forms might include a Kentucky prosciutto, bratwursts, roasts, backstrap, hoofers, tongue. For inspiration, ideal candidate will have historical knowledge of bluegrass region and its culinary traditions, and of the many global histories (not to mention current trends) of horse meat consumption. Products should reflect renewed interest in funky, quirky and hip.

**Marketing: Be the FUC face of Equine Butchery. Promote horse slaughter as public service. This could be messaged specifically to the horse industry, for example through public presentations detailing the horse’s history as a commercially tradable object, or, more parochially, of the local knacker’s beneficial relationship to abandoned and abused horses in the state. Promotion could be scaled up to include the entire ag/food industry , with FUCK takes on industrial agricultural, CSA’s and CSK’s, vacant lot gardening, agriponicos, goat and milk cow economies, etc etc. Outreach opportunities might include: a float in the fourth of July parade, a Bullhorn Will video, children’s demonstrations at the farmer’s market, partnerships with schools and parks, national product placement (ie, Food Network/Iron Chef “horse meat” cook-off held at the newly constructed, public funded, Alltech Pavillion), and/or cooking show on KET. Ideal FUCK candidate will be charismatic, able to demonstrate an ability to lay it on hard for the cameras.

**Commercial Insertion: Establish clear slaughter-to-fork policy. Begin to create legal, ordinance, health, etc etc. infrastructure to create better knacker market conditions. Sell product to local businesses. Develop and distribute own unique FUCK brands (horse-burger, burgoo mix, breakfast sausage, dog-food) to sell to local venues as chic regional meat. We want FUCK to be our YUM.

Creatives for Common Sense proposes that the position be publicly elected, publicly funded, and come with a part-time aid and access to onsite house at knackery. In terms of allocated funds, we propose that the annual salaries of the knacker and aide not exceed a combined $60,000. In order to get the FUCK up and running, we also propose 1-time outlays of $150,000 for knacker lot and house purchase, and a figure not to exceed $200,000 in knacker-related supplies (knives, cleavers, clamps, sanitary infrastructure, etc. etc.).

Potential income growth areas in product sales, branding, media productions, festivals, etc. etc. should provide revenue streams that project enormous growth potential, with possibilities for the city to realize significant returns on the publicly elected investment.