Boone Avenue pilot shows safer street possibilities

By Brandi Peacher

Those white posts on Boone Avenue looked sil­ly. They also did their job.

I’ll say some­thing that may sur­prise some of my neigh­bors. I agree: those white plas­tic posts at Boone Avenue and College Street looked a lit­tle silly.

I live on this cor­ri­dor. I saw them every day. I cer­tain­ly would not advo­cate for a per­ma­nent redesign of Boone Avenue that con­sists of a col­lec­tion of white plas­tic posts. I was also part of the local team that helped bring this quick-build project to Winchester, and I think much of the crit­i­cism over the past few months has missed some­thing important.

The posts were nev­er sup­posed to be the final prod­uct. They were part of a test.

When the new pave­ment mark­ings first appeared on Boone Avenue, nar­row­ing the road­way, adding bike lanes, and defin­ing the cross­walks, there seemed to be rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle pub­lic reac­tion. When the ver­ti­cal delin­eators were installed, sud­den­ly social media lit up. The posts were called stu­pid and the project a waste of mon­ey. Some ques­tioned why bike facil­i­ties were being added when they rarely saw peo­ple bik­ing there. Others pre­dict­ed the posts would sim­ply get hit by drivers.

I under­stand why the posts got atten­tion. They dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed the way the inter­sec­tion looked. But that was also part of what made them useful.

It is also worth putting the invest­ment in per­spec­tive. The demon­stra­tion was fund­ed through a Smart Growth America grant as part of Winchester’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Complete Streets Leadership Academy, along with funds from Walk Bike Clark County.

It gave Winchester, in part­ner­ship with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, out­side fund­ing and tech­ni­cal assis­tance to test an idea on a small scale before con­sid­er­ing a much larg­er per­ma­nent invest­ment. This demon­stra­tion was mod­est in scale com­pared with the major road­way and infra­struc­ture projects our com­mu­ni­ty also needs, and it did not pre­vent those larg­er invest­ments from mov­ing forward.

For years, Boone Avenue has felt more like a through-route than a neigh­bor­hood street. Its wide, straight design gives dri­vers lit­tle visu­al rea­son to slow to a speed that allows them to notice and yield to peo­ple walk­ing or cross­ing. Yet this cor­ri­dor runs through neigh­bor­hoods and con­nects res­i­dents to Main Street, our schools, the pub­lic library, College Park and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty des­ti­na­tions. Families live here, chil­dren walk here, and cross­ing it has not always been safe.

The quick-build pilot project asked a prac­ti­cal ques­tion: What hap­pens if we use the pave­ment we already have dif­fer­ent­ly and make the road­way visu­al­ly narrower?

Instead of rebuild­ing an entire street based only on plans and engi­neer­ing draw­ings, tem­po­rary mate­ri­als allowed Winchester to try an idea in the real world, observe what hap­pened, col­lect data, and learn from the exper­i­ment before mak­ing deci­sions about per­ma­nent invest­ment. That is exact­ly what a pilot project like this is meant to do.

From where I stand as a res­i­dent, some­thing changed. My neigh­bors and I began expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing at Boone and College that we had rarely expe­ri­enced before: dri­vers notic­ing us. They slowed down. They paid atten­tion. They stopped and allowed us to cross.

I have stood at that inter­sec­tion with my fam­i­ly before and felt as though sim­ply get­ting from one side of Boone Avenue to the oth­er meant putting our­selves and our chil­dren at risk. During this pilot, I watched a semi truck stop to let us cross. Next, a quar­ry truck yield­ed to us. I could hard­ly believe it.

One of the crit­i­cisms I saw online was that the exper­i­men­tal white posts were going to get hit because dri­vers might not see them in time. Standing beside one with my young daugh­ter gave me a very dif­fer­ent reac­tion. The delin­eator is taller than she is. If we are con­cerned about whether a dri­ver will notice a bright white post in the road­way, then we should be even more con­cerned about whether that same dri­ver is trav­el­ing slow­ly enough and pay­ing enough atten­tion to notice a small child wait­ing to cross.

That, to me, gets to the heart of why this exper­i­ment mat­tered. The goal was nev­er to pro­tect plas­tic posts. The goal was to change the way peo­ple moved through this inter­sec­tion so that the peo­ple who live here, walk here, and cross here are more vis­i­ble and safer.

Critics also said, “Nobody bikes there.” 

During the pilot, I did not see many peo­ple bik­ing and that may be part of the point. I would not choose to ride Boone Avenue with only a paint­ed stripe sep­a­rat­ing me from traf­fic, and I would not expect a child or less-con­fi­dent rid­er to feel dif­fer­ent­ly. The ques­tion is not whether a tem­po­rary paint­ed bike lane should become per­ma­nent. It is what this test tells us about how that road­way space could work better.

Reimagining Boone Avenue

What could Boone Avenue look like per­ma­nent­ly now that this exper­i­ment has shown us there may be anoth­er way to use this stretch of pavement?

Maybe the ulti­mate answer is not paint­ed bike lanes at all. Imagine nar­row­ing the road­way per­ma­nent­ly and using some of that space for wider side­walks or a shared-use path where chil­dren, old­er adults, fam­i­lies, and peo­ple with mobil­i­ty lim­i­ta­tions could com­fort­ably walk, bike, or roll.  Imagine safer and more vis­i­ble cross­ings, trees along the cor­ri­dor, and pedes­tri­an-scale or dec­o­ra­tive street lighting.

For me, that pos­si­bil­i­ty is per­son­al. I have a young daugh­ter, and I would love for Boone Avenue to become a place where she can some­day ride her bike with­out fast-mov­ing traf­fic just a foot away. When she is old enough to attend the junior high down the street, her trip from our neigh­bor­hood will be only about a mile. I want her to be able to make that trip safe­ly and inde­pen­dent­ly — whether she walks, bikes, or catch­es a bus.

But my daugh­ter is only one rea­son this mat­ters. There are many chil­dren and fam­i­lies in our com­mu­ni­ty who could ben­e­fit from hav­ing a safe, com­fort­able way to reach school, the library, College Park, Main Street, and one anoth­er. A short trip should not auto­mat­i­cal­ly require a par­ent to get in a car sim­ply because we nev­er cre­at­ed anoth­er safe option.

This is the kind of Boone Avenue I would like to see emerge from what we learned: not a street per­ma­nent­ly lined with white plas­tic posts, but one that gives chil­dren more inde­pen­dence, fam­i­lies more ways to move around their neigh­bor­hood, and still works well for peo­ple who dri­ve it every day.

A safer Boone Avenue should work for the per­son dri­ving to work, the child walk­ing to school, the fam­i­ly head­ing to the library or park, the per­son rid­ing a bicy­cle, and the neigh­bor sim­ply try­ing to cross. Moving cars is impor­tant, but it is not the only pur­pose this street serves.

The white delin­eator posts are gone, and now the City is ask­ing res­i­dents to weigh in on what the pilot taught us and what should come next. That makes this the moment to move beyond whether we liked the white posts and talk about the street we want Boone Avenue to become for everyone.

Do we want safer cross­ings? Wider side­walks or a shared-use path? Trees and bet­ter light­ing? Better con­nec­tions to school, the library, College Park and Main Street? Which parts of the pilot worked? What should change? What should we leave behind?

That is how a demon­stra­tion project should work: try some­thing, mea­sure it, lis­ten, adjust, and then inform future invest­ment based on what we learned. I am grate­ful that the City of Winchester and KYTC were will­ing to test an idea on Boone Avenue before com­mit­ting to a per­ma­nent redesign.

For those of us who live here, Boone Avenue is not sim­ply KY 627. It is part of our neigh­bor­hood. A safe route to school should not be a lux­u­ry. Being able to cross a neigh­bor­hood street should not feel risky. And cre­at­ing a street that works for peo­ple of all ages and abil­i­ties, whether they are dri­ving, walk­ing, bik­ing, rolling, or sim­ply try­ing to get from one side to the oth­er, should be a rea­son­able goal.

So yes, the white posts looked sil­ly. But they did their job. They gave us some­thing real to test, some­thing real to react to, and infor­ma­tion we can use to make a bet­ter long-term decision.

Now the City is ask­ing what we think. I hope res­i­dents, whether they loved the pilot, dis­liked it, or land­ed some­where in between, will take the Boone Avenue Survey, share their expe­ri­ence and help shape what Boone Avenue becomes next. The tem­po­rary posts may be gone, but the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a safer, more com­fort­able Boone Avenue is still very much in front of us.