"Business Lexington Editor-in-Chief Tom Martin recently sat down with Terry Garcia Crews, LexTran's general manager, to get the details on a proposed circulator route to serve downtown Lexington. The complete interview is available as a podcast at www.bizlex.com.
TM: Terry, thank you for spending time with us.
TC: You're very welcome.
TM: What we want focus on today are discussions about something called a downtown circulator. Can you tell us, first of all, what that is?
TC: It will be whatever this community desires. And I say that in an open-ended format because we will be doing public participation meetings to gather the appropriate information to develop the service that we think and the community thinks that they need. What conceptionally we envision would be a circulator service within the downtown area that would be connecting major traffic generators — for example, the University of Kentucky and Transylvania, and potentially some medical centers. So that is the vision. Frequency of service will be determined, the type of equipment will be determined at future meetings.
TM: There's a perception of downtown Lexington right now that parking is difficult — whether that's true or not the perception is there — and that getting around is difficult. I take it that trolley service would address these issues?
TC: ... We're looking at parking ride lots and using those to connect with our regular route service. However, within the downtown area, we're looking at running those particular circulators to help with the pattern of the traffic, the pedestrian traffic in particular, and looking at frequency. Frequency brings the people. If you have good frequent service and reliable service, then actually, (if) its quality service, then people will definitely take advantage of it.
TM: At this stage, what is the concept?
TC: The concept would be possibly a trolley or some type of smaller vehicle that would run down major corridors within the downtown. (It would run) around in terms of possibly during the lunch hour to help the restaurant establishments, maybe some of the entertainment in the evenings and on the weekends, also being kind of a compliment to that as well. I am so excited about those individuals who have shown up at the table. We have Harold Tate from the Downtown Development Authority, and he's also one of our board members. And we also have a representative from Transylvania as well as Bob Quick, Commerce Lexington; and Anthony Wright from the economic development area from LFUCG, representing the mayor's office; Randy Gonzalez from the Bluegrass Community and Technical College; Phil Holoubek; our Jack Connors as well as the transit planner; and Renee Jackson, Woodford Webb; and UK is represented as well. So you can see the major stakeholders in this community are actually showing up and saying, "You know what? We are interested in this project. We want to do whatever we can to help this project forward."
TM: That's a very strong group of people. Each and every one of those individuals is, in his or her own way, very passionately involved in the redevelopment of downtown Lexington, and I know from interacting with all of them that they are very much up to speed on what's going on. Many of those folks are keeping in touch with what's going on in similar-sized cities around the country and are very aware that we're behind the curve.
TC: Absolutely. And that same level of sentiment was shared at the very first meeting. ... At this particular meeting, we talked a little bit about the history of the trolley — what worked, what didn't work and why didn't it work. We also had a consultant share with us information about what other communities are doing as it relates to downtown circulators, so that we could capture some of those ideas.
TM: Among those stakeholders that you mentioned, I know there is a very strong and shared desire to be smart about how downtown develops. Where are you in your thinking with this system? Will there be some "green" aspect to it?
TC: I think that is one area that we can look at in terms of an opportunity, and if it's feasible, we may want to look at a hybrid trolley. They are fun vehicles to look at, to ride in, and it could really be a signature of the downtown area. Keep in mind that we also need to be fiscally responsible too, in terms of the cost of that particular vehicle. And there might be some grant monies that might help us, whether it be the congestion migration or quality dollars, some type of alternative fuel grant dollars that we can pursue as well.
TM: What do these trolleys actually look like?
TC: It's the whole gamut. Anywhere from the trolley that looks like the San Francisco trolley — you know, the typical wooden, beautiful, green trolleys — to smaller vehicles that look like a trolley on the exterior, but in the inside they are more comfortable riding, they are more controlled in terms of climate. I've done some trolley shopping, and you can buy on re-sale three trolleys for $93,000 up to a million dollars. And what I'm excited about is that it's not going to be my decision but collectively what the community and the stakeholders envision in their minds of what the service should be. We'll be doing a lot of public outreach and public participation.
TM: It's nice and tightly scheduled, so there is not a lot of lag time to allow the momentum to perhaps wane a bit.
TC: Right. You know, another interesting aspect is the technique that we'll be using. We were fortunate in getting a grant in concert with UK. We are coming together and using this technology that's going to give us instantaneous feedback through keypads. We will have questions about the service, the frequency of service, the cost of service, where it should go, and instantaneously people will key in what they think would be an answer from their perspectives, and we'll have that information. So when we leave that public meeting, we will start having service options and trying to design the service as the community sees fit. We are so hopeful and excited that people will come out and tell us what we need to do as it relates to this downtown circulator.
TM: Let's talk dollars and cents for just a minute. Of course it's going to come up at some point in this discussion and reasonably so. What do you anticipate? Is this something that could be handled within current revenues, or is it going to necessitate an additional revenue stream?
TC: We have kind of talked a little about this internally as well as with the first meeting with our stakeholders. There were various suggestions thrown out, even with maybe the private sector helping fund some aspects of the operational costs, and that has yet to be decided upon. And we will be trying to hone in on that once we decide what type of service we want to provide, how quickly and frequently we want the buses or trolleys to run, and start doing some projections of the cost. And once we do that, coupled with how much is the trolley going to cost, or whatever vehicle that we purchase — how much will that run? We'll combine that information and then we'll have a price tag. Then we can look at our budget internally and see if there're also outside sources to help fund it as well.
TM: Is there a seat at the table perhaps for a group like Arts in Motion, which is talking about the development of bus shelters as public art, using bus shelters as a medium for sculpture. In fact, the first one has already been awarded for a spot out on Versailles Road, and I think there might be a second one coming online pretty soon. This is, of course, an ad-hoc citizen's "street guerilla" unit that's trying to get this going, but it brings a certain element of fun and excitement into the picture, and it would seem to fit hand and glove with the idea of a downtown circular.
TC: It does. As a matter of fact, we just had a discussion with Yvette Hurt who is on fire for bringing arts to this community and using shelters and mass transit as a vehicle to do that. I just wish I could just bottle her energy.
TM: It's pretty amazing, isn't it?
TC: She's phenomenal, ... and I know this community as well as ourselves and Yvette will be so proud when we can drive by that particular shelter on Versailles and know the community came together in a very strong partnership and made it happen. We've been having some dialogue about what do we want to do within the downtown area, and so we've had some discussions about do they want to build a prototype that we can use within the downtown, possibly within the community? We've also had that discussion in our initial meeting with our stakeholders, making sure that we have some fun design and really kind of brand and market the whole trolley concept a little differently.
TM: Terry Garcia Crews, we really thank you for spending time with us today.
TC: Thank you for the opportunity, really appreciate it.