Partial closure of popular Lexington trail causes uproar, prompting council review
Several Lexington council members want to know more about how and why a section of the popular Legacy Trail was closed to cyclists and pedestrians and how to avoid future shutdowns of trails.
A section of the Legacy Trail, which spans from downtown Lexington to the Kentucky Horse Park, has been closed from Nandino Boulevard to Newtown Springs since mid-July. The closure was necessary due to the construction of a new Amazon facility on Newtown Pike. The section, which some cyclists use to commute to work, is expected to reopen by Aug. 30, city officials said this week.
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Councilman Chuck Ellinger Jr., a cyclist, said he was inundated with phone calls and emails from cyclists about the closure in mid-July when the council was on summer break.
“Why wasn’t this communicated better?” Ellinger said during a Tuesday work session. Ellinger also questioned why the city and Amazon couldn’t have come up with a possible detour. Cyclists and pedestrians now must go on Nandino and then on the busy shoulder of Newtown Pike to get around the trail closure, he said.
That’s not a very safe alternative, he said.
“We could have communicated better,” said Kevin Atkins, the city’s chief development officer, during Tuesday’s work session.
Because of where the water and other utility lines are on the property, rerouting the trail or a possible detour was not possible, Atkins said.
City officials are pushing to make sure the utilities are in place and the trail is reopened by Aug. 30, Atkins said.
Vice Mayor Steve Kay said he was also concerned why protection of the trail wasn’t fully vetted when a zone change for the Amazon property was approved by the Urban County Planning Commission in November 2020 and later by the council. The Amazon building is expected to open later this year.
Kay said in a later interview he has been told the Metropolitan Planning Organization, a regional transportation planning group, wanted to put a condition on Amazon’s development plan that the trail would not be impacted by construction.
“It didn’t happen,” Kay said.
During Tuesday’s council work session, Kay put the issue of the trail and its closure into the council’s Planning and Public Safety Committee. It’s not clear when the committee will take up the issue.
“We want to make sure in the future this type of thing doesn’t happen again,” Kay said. Kay said he, too, received a half dozen emails from angry cyclists and pedestrians about the temporary closure.
Larry Wheeler, an avid cyclist, said the closure is the latest problem on that section of the trail. Wheeler said a pedestrian bridge in that area is needed.
“I don’t know why they put that trial there when they knew there was going to be so much development,” Wheeler said. Wheeler said the city needs to do more to protect cyclists at the intersection of Newtown Pike and Citation Boulevard, where the trail crosses over Newtown to Citation.
“I’ve nearly been hit there a few times because cars will turn on red and not see you,” Wheeler said.
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 6:46 AM.
