Town Branch Trail

In light of the recently approved settlement agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency, Lexington should consider adding environmental standards to the contracts it issues, Van Meter Pettit told the Urban County Council on Thursday.

Pettit is president of Town Branch Trail Inc., which wants to create an 8-mile trail following the Town Branch of Elkhorn Creek from Masterson Station Park through downtown. He addressed the council about a towing contract that the council unanimously awarded to Bluegrass Towing Service on Thursday.

Under the contract, Bluegrass Towing, which operates on Manchester Street by the Town Branch, will be called to tow or impound vehicles at the request of the police, code enforcement and the parking authority.

Pettit said his issue wasn’t with Bluegrass Towing or the contract it was awarded. His concern centers on improving environmental standards.

There are grandfathered businesses and properties all along the Town Branch — which is one of the most polluted waterways in the state — that are operating under standards appropriate when they were developed, Pettit said. “At a certain point, a community has to raise its environmental standards.”

The city could incrementally improve the environment by including items in its contracts such as not allowing certain operations in a flood plain or requiring activities to be a certain distance from waterways, Pettit said.

Bluegrass Towing’s facilities have been inspected twice in the last 60 days by two different state environmental divisions, said Andy Alphin, president of Bluegrass Towing. Neither inspection turned up any environmental violations, he said.

The city needs to do everything it can to improve the environment and clean up the streams, said Councilman Tom Blues, whose district includes the area where Bluegrass Towing is located.

But Bluegrass Towing has complied with every local and state law and the city should move forward with awarding the contract, he said.

In addition to Pettit’s concerns, the contract awarded to Bluegrass Towing is being disputed by A1 Winchester Towing & Repair, which contends it should have been given the contract because its bid was lower than Bluegrass Towing’s.

The city could save $100,000 if A1 Winchester gets the contract, said Justin Morgan, an attorney for A1 Winchester Towing.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader Friday May 23, 2008
By Michelle Ku
MKU@HERALD-LEADER.COM
This post comes from www.Kentucky.com and the Lexington Herald-Leader

By Van Meter Pettit

Downtown Lexington is in the midst of a major comeback by just about any measure you can make.

We have produced more new housing downtown in the last few years than in many preceding decades. The Lexington Center-Rupp Arena Complex has been dramatically improved. The fine building stock of our historic urban neighborhoods has enjoyed a big boost in investment and a shift back to home ownership. Major urban stakeholders — schools, universities, churches and hospitals — have made major investments in staying downtown. It is a place full of life, with concerts, parades, footraces, sidewalk cafes and children playing in fountains.

Success has a thousand parents and probably as many people deserve thanks for downtown Lexington’s turnaround.

A dense downtown is an efficient economic engine for the whole state that can create a world-class quality of life while avoiding the negative affects of sprawl. This, in turn, will attract and retain the young talent needed to maintain and increase our economic vitality.

So how do we build on this successful pattern? How do we make Lexington competitive with an Austin, Portland, Boulder, Madison or Charleston? As Vice Mayor Jim Gray says, how do we raise the standards of our B-minus downtown to match our A-plus landscape?

There are no shortcuts. It takes planning, coordination and cooperation among all downtown public and private organizations and stakeholders — and significant public investment. This level of open and transparent team play can happen only with an inclusive government that welcomes civic engagement.

That engagement has happened recently with the creation of a Downtown Masterplan and a Newtown Extension area plan. An urban streetscape plan is in the works, and a citywide 2040 visioning process is under way.

But these great starts are undermined by a number of big urban projects that have been conceived behind closed doors, then unveiled as “done deals.”

These include the redesign of Bluegrass Aspendale and Ann Street; the new Rupp Arena proposal; the deal involving Eastern State Hospital, Bluegrass Community and Technical College and the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream Research Campus; and, now, the CentrePointe development.

Each one of these big projects has merit and is potentially beneficial to our city, but that is beside the point. They all were either specifically excluded from the Downtown Master Plan (for now obvious reasons) or they disregarded its recommendations. Public input has been minimal at best or came after the fact as a means of damage control.

Each time a big idea is foisted on the community without prior public input, it undermines the civic engagement and buy-in necessary to make downtown succeed.

We can’t have it both ways. If civic volunteers feel as if our most important projects are not open for discourse, they will lose faith in the process. Downtown needs significant public funding to spur the private investment necessary to grow our economy. With public investment (tax incentives included) comes real public oversight.

Downtown needs a permanent public-private oversight board to guide the area’s development. We will never take our city from good to great without a coherent and transparent process to make decisions large and small about downtown. Our economic future depends upon it.

In a survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders in 2002, homebuyers were asked to rank their preferences in buying a house. When asked about the importance of 18 community amenities, the highest ranking features were (with percent ranking as important or very important): highway access, 44 percent; jogging/bike trails, 36 percent; sidewalks, 28 percent; parks, 26 percent; playgrounds, 21 percent, and shops within walking area, 19 percent.

Original Name: “LL” branch of Louisville Southern (Lexington to Lawrenceburg)
Date Constructed: 1888-1889
Length: 24 miles
Location: The line runs through Fayette, Woodford, and Anderson counties.
Highlights: Starting behind Rupp Arena and the Newtown Pike Extension, beside Town Branch Creek and the James E. Pepper Distillery, travels through beautiful thoroughbred horse country, behind Keeneland Race Course, through the village of Pisgah, to Versailles, crossing the Kentucky River on a breathtaking1659 foot long, 280 foot high structure at Tyrone called Young’s High Bridge, passes beside the Wild Turkey Distillery and ends in Lawrenceburg.
Historic highlight: Hauled thoroughbred horses in specially equipped cars to Keeneland, Calumet, and King Ranch.
Current ownership and conditions: The western-most 3 miles were in service until recently for the Austin Nichols Distillery (Wild Turkey) from Lawrenceburg; Young’s High Bridge has been closed to train traffic since 1985; a 5.5 mile “middle stretch” from the bridge running to Versailles has been operated by the Bluegrass Railroad Museum since 1987. The eastern-most 15 miles from Versailles to Lexington is actively owned and operated by RJ Corman.

Below is a history created by Emmett Bell:

The Louisville Southern (LS) began construction of its new railroad in Louisville, and proceeded in a east-southeast direction through Jefferson, Shelby, and Anderson Counties, reaching Lawrenceburg in mid-1888. Late in the same year, surveyors began plotting out a tortuous route (compared to the rest of the railroad) from Lawrenceburg, eastward towards Lexington. The last 24 miles of the railroad would require two large bridges, including a 1659 foot long, 280 foot high structure over the Kentucky River at Tyrone, as well as numerous steep grades, cuts, and sharp curves. LS president Bennett Young hired the Union Bridge company of New York to build the Kentucky River bridge, which had required Congressional approval to construct, and to oversee the project personally. Young was a well known person during this time, and was a highly regarded hero from the Civil War. He had planned and led one of the northern most actions of the war, when his band of raiders robbed a bank in St. Albans Vermont. After the war, Young became active in Reform politics in Kentucky, and was named the president of the Louisville Southern because of his numerous successful business ventures and political actions.
As construction on the Kentucky River bridge (now named Young’s High Bridge) continued, track crews pushed the line steadily towards Versailles, and a connection with the Versailles And Midway (V&M), which built a line between those two cities, and a branch to Georgetown, in 1885. The LS Finally reached its goal in early August when it established a connection with the Cincinnati Southern (Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific) in Lexington. On August 21st, 1889 a special train departed Louisville and made it’s way to the east end of Young’s High Bridge, where the ceremonial last spike was driven, and then proceeded to Lexington with Federal, State, and local officials on board. The Louisville Southern was finally a reality.
Shortly after completion, the LS acquired the V&M, and began making improvements on the hastily constructed mainline. Not unlike many of the new railroads of this era, the LS started to suffer from financial woes, and ended up in receivership in the fall of 1889. The line was leased to the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago (MONON) on October 14, 1889, and this would prove to be the first of several different reorganizations of the railroad. After a stockholders revolt, the line came under the control of the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad (ETV&G), which was later absorbed by the Southern Railway in Kentucky, and finally the Southern Railway System.
The line prospered, with several scheduled passenger trains a day, and an ever increasing amount of freight traffic. The Southern Railway took over operations of the CNO&TP between Cincinnati and Chattanooga, and began running regular passenger trains between St. Louis, Louisville, Lexington and points South.
As traffic increased, the portion of the railroad between Lawrenceburg and Lexington began to be a bottleneck, with its uneven topography and curves, and the Southern began construction of a upgraded line from Lawrenceburg, south through Harrodsburg, to a point north of Danville (SJ Tower) where it connected to the CNO&TP. All passenger traffic, and most of the freight traffic was routed via the new “Lawrenceburg cut off”, and the 24 miles from Lawrenceburg to Lexington became the “LL” branch. Traffic remained moderate over the line for the next several decades, with large amounts of coal being brought to the Kentucky Utilities steam plant at Tyrone, and other local traffic for online customers. Thoroughbred race horses were also handled across the line in specially equipped cars, being moved in and out of the Keenland race track, and from Calumet and other horse farms near the railroad. A special spur and loading ramp was constructed at Kings Ranch (MP 20.0LL), behind Calumet Farm to serve this business.
In the early 1980’s, coal traffic began to decline, and was suspended in 1984. The loss of the coal business, plus the ever worsening condition of Young’s high Bridge and the track in general, forced the closing of the “middle” 5 1/2 miles of the branch. The last train crossed the bridge in August of 1985, bringing to a close 117 years of continuous service on the old LS.
The western 3 miles of the line were left intact to allow service to the Austin Nichol’s distillery (makers of Wild Turkey Bourbon Whiskey), and the out of service portion between the east end of the Kentucky River bridge and MP 9.0LL was sold to the Bluegrass Railroad Museum in 1987 for tourist train operations. Norfolk Southern still retained the eastern 14 miles between Versailles and Lexington to serve several customers in Versailles. NS train K-21 and K-22 made the trip to Versailles 5 days a week until the traffic levels became too low for NS to justify operation. The line was sold to Gulf And Ohio Railways, and on May 11th, 1996, a newly formed G&O subsidiary, the Lexington & Ohio Railroad began operation of the line.

History compiled and written by Emmett Bell.

Lexington’s Town Branch Trail has recently received (April 2004) environmental authorization to proceed with construction. Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), any project receiving Federal funds must undergo an analysis of potential impacts to the natural or human environment. After a survey of the trail area by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet – Division of Environmental Analysis, the Federal Highway Administration determined that the Town Branch Trail posed no significant impact to the environment (e.g., no federally listed endangered plant species running buffalo clover was found). As a result of this approval, the Town Branch Trail takes another step forward.