Come down to the Woodland Art Fair this Saturday and Sunday, August 16 and 17,and check out our new Sheltowee Trace North map. We have a couple neat projects in the works and would like to hear your trail adventure stories.
Cover wrap of our new Sheltowee Trace Map. Click to enlarge.
Trails in the northern half of the Daniel Boone
We are now printing the Sheltowee Trace North map, which covers the ST and official trails between the Northern Terminus and Mckee in Jackson County, Kentucky. That’s 138 miles of ST and  130 miles of official trail. The map is same scale as our previous ST south maps, but the sheet size has been enlarged to 19″ x 27″ and packs down to 4.5″ x 6.5″. We will also offer a lamination and heat press service to make these maps bomber in the field.
Cover wrap of our new Sheltowee Trace Map. Click to enlarge.
A couple unique additions to this title might be useful for the serious trail enthusiast. The map is formatted to show the trail network of Cave Run Lake and Red River Gorge on single, separate sheets. The new ST reroute around Morehead and new trails in Cave Run are located. Groceries, public libraries, power lines, and pipelines are located. We’ve added 1,000 m UTM grid. What else? Lots of love and devotion for the trails of the Daniel Boone.
Overview
Low resolutions drafts of the press sheets (note these previews require Flash). These have been altered in final version. The only way to see the finished map is to hold it in your hand!
Northern Terminus
Cave Run Lake
Red River Gorge
Southern Gorge, Turkey Foot, and McKee
Just like the South ST map, when the ST leaves a sheet it has a letter in a red box as label to match the trail on the next sheet. Just follow A…B…C… for 138 miles.
Thanks for the input in correcting thre above drafts!
Photos and a block diagram of NE Puerto Rico
We recently visited Puerto Rico and explored the island’s public parks and forests. Spanish forts in San Juan are wonderfully preserved by the National Park Service and the El Yunque cloud forest is the only tropical rain forest maintained by the National Forest Service. These ares are public treasures and hard to capture by photography alone. You might have seen postcards with extruded maps of mountainous areas and tourist destinations. That’s the quick experiment here, but done just two-dimensionally.
Sample of custom guide for Lexington destinations
Imagine a lot of new people arriving to a downtown hotel and you need to recommend unique destinations for dining. I guess you could give a list that they could yelp, but wouldn’t a paper map add a nice, personal touch?
A small map of interesting places to eat and play
We have marveled at the growth of mobile maps that tap in largest collective database ever generated and, unfortunately, the subsequent loss of interest in paper maps. While mobile can help locate you in an unfamiliar city with GPS, the map data can be uninspiring and wildly inaccurate. The problem I suggest is the zoom, since we expect ever complex revelations with increasing zoom levels. We all know it’s a big bummer when you zoom into a blank screen, right? We think a static maps can better stimulate imagination and invite navigation into unfamiliar areas.
This is a small experiment integrating 3D maps, photography, and a few SketchUp models to give a quick sense of place and provide a simple navigation tool to explore the city.
3D map
A perspective view of trails and destinations in Lexington’s McConnell Springs park. This historic location host notable destinations such as the Blue Hole, The Boils, the Old Bur Oak, and the Final Sink. This map will be offered to park after some additions and modification, perhaps adding a more realistic model of the Science Center.
Campus pedestrian network
We’ve been visualizing campus paths with new GIS data provided by UK’s Facilities Information Services. Students have GPS mapped cut-through paths (they lovingly call cow paths) and other students have placed SketchUp models for campus town buildings. This is a preview of some of the data, so stay tuned for a featured analysis.
Outstanding Geography Teacher Award, 2014
Weekly graphs of weather variables
Cold Mountain in May
After a severe winter, the Cold Mountain webcam is back in operation. As we move into summer, we hope all cams remain healthy so we can collect and archive animated scenes.
What we have now is pure spring delight, so please enjoy.
Article by Jim Warren, Herald-Leader, May 4
If you ride a bike around Lexington, there are some places where pedaling with extra caution might be wise, a new study suggests.
“Mainly, they’re places where bicycle facilities change, such as where a bike lane abruptly ends. They seem to be the trouble spots,” said Boyd Shearer, a University of Kentucky geographer who led the study of bike-vehicle collisions in Lexington.
GEO 309, Fall 2013 Collision Analysis
Shearer and some of his students recently studied 396 collisions between bikes and other vehicles that occurred on Lexington streets and roads from October 2008 through October 2013. The five-year list included 293 wrecks that caused injuries and three that resulted in fatalities.
After collecting wreck data from police reports, the researchers analyzed the results using a computerized mapping system called GIS that can reveal underlying relationships, patterns and trends.
“I thought it would be an interesting project to do, and that it might help the city,” Shearer said.
A bicyclist himself, Shearer has worked with Lexington planners on other bike-related projects.
He said the new study shows the area around UK had the greatest concentration of bike-versus-car wrecks. That’s not surprising, he said, given the large number of students who ride on campus.
Perhaps more surprising was that 25 percent of the riders involved in collisions during the five-year period weren’t wearing helmets. Another surprise: 21 percent of the accidents were hit-and-runs.
Most notable overall, he said, was that riders often got into trouble in places where bike lanes ended abruptly.
“The bike rider is rolling along in a lane by himself, and that lane suddenly ends,” Shearer said. “You never win against a car if you’re on a bike.”
One such spot, according to Shearer, is near where Winchester Road, East Third Street and Midland Avenue come together. A bike lane along Winchester Road ends at Walton Avenue, and an extra traffic lane for cars opens up between Walton and Midland, he noted.
“Bikers kind of get squeezed,” Shearer said.
He and his students also identified “critical segments” of four streets — mostly near UK — with high numbers of bike-car crashes during 2008-13.
They were: South Limestone north of Virginia Avenue, six wrecks; Euclid Avenue east of Woodland Avenue, five; Winchester Road near East Third Street, four; Rose Street from Euclid to Columbia avenues, four; and Rose from Columbia to Huguelet Drive, three.
Ultimately, Shearer said, he hopes to see Lexington’s bike trails linked together, which would allow riders to bike long distances sheltered from vehicular traffic.
“The Town Branch Trail isn’t connected yet,” he said. “But if it reaches downtown and the Legacy Trail is linked with it, riders could use them in lieu of streets to get in and out of downtown, not just for recreation but for real bike commuting.”
Analysis of all bicycle collisions up to May 5, 2014 with focus on fatalities and injuries.
Scott Thompson, Lexington’s bike and pedestrian coordinator, said planners were looking at ways to “separate bicyclists from traffic,” whether that’s through more bike lanes or putting small barriers between bike and traffic lanes.
Jim Warren: (859) 231-3255.
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/05/04/3227487/analysis-of-bicycle-accidents.html#storylink=cpy
Winter to Spring in Satellite Images, 2014
After an unusually long and cold winter, Kentucky has finally emerged to full-blown spring weather. These five images show the clearest, cloud-free day for each month from January 1 to May 5. Snow is clearly seen in the first two months and it’s striking how defined the snow lines are, perhaps 20 miles. You could have heavy snow in Lexington, but snow free in Richmond.
In the January image, we can see the hemlock and pine forest in the Red River Gorge and recently mined ares in eastern Kentucky. In the February image, Cave Run Lake appears frozen.
Another interesting observation is the rate pastures and forests leaf out. Kentucky’s pastures became green in early April, while the forests leaf out by the first days of May.
March is my favorite image. The sun is the highest while the vegetation is at the minimum. Â Soon, the explosion of photosynthesis will sweeten the earth with life.
No wildfires are seen (maybe one in April image in eastern Kentucky).
On the day after Thanksgiving, the eye in the sky from MODIS shows heavy snowfall in southeast Ohio and in the highest Kentucky and West Virginia mountain locations. Contrails fill most of Kentucky’s northern skies.
MODIS images of changing seasons in Kentucky, 2013
These satellite images are from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on two satellites, Aqua and Terra. MODIS captures 36 electromagnetic wavelength bands to measure atmospheric water vapor, ozone, aerosols, land fire, surface temperature, and many other important variables of global climate. These images are visible light and clearly show the change in deciduous canopy cover within roughly a month of time. Spatial resolutions are between 250 m to 1 km.
Online Oral Histories
Between 1996-1998, I completed about 30 hours of oral histories about once-segregated black parks in Kentucky. About six hours are available online at the University of Kentucky Louie B Nunn Center for Oral History. They’re missing my interview with John Will “Scoop” Brown, a Lexington park programmer and raconteur of zoot suits in Douglass Park. More to be available to be sure.
Here’s the oral history index: The Daily Aesthetic: an oral history of a southern city’s black park system, 1916-1956
“This project focuses on African American culture during the time of segregated park systems in Lexington, Kentucky. These interviews, originally conducted by Boyd Shearer, Jr. for a multimedia presentation, contain descriptions of African American park activities, particularly in Douglass Park. Activities ranged from doll shows, to carnivals, to sports programs. This community also celebrated the visual arts, music, and holidays such as the 4th of July and Easter. The focus of this collection is not discrimination experienced by African Americans at this time, but rather how the park provided a place for them to come together and cultivate a sense of identity and community.”
For an audio documentary using some of these interviews, visit:Â http://www.outragegis.com/trails/2001/08/08/at-leisures-edge/. The documentary can be downloaded or viewed on SoundCloud. A complete audio script is available.
A paper from this research was produced:
index:Â http://www.uky.edu/Projects/TDA/archive/TableofContentsandAbstract.pdf
main body: http://www.uky.edu/Projects/TDA/archive/TDA.pdf
Boone Trace from James Boone Gravesite Marker to Fort Boonesboro
We’ve been working for a client developing a Boone Trace map and guide requiring maps at a few different scales. One scale is the “big picture” map and we selected a 3D basemap for this overview, letter-sized map. I spent only a few hours labeling the map, but with a little more work, I think it will look good. The color intensity might need to be reduced, if it’s decided to use the 3D map. It be more appropriate to make a simple line drawing map, in a nod to older map markers and the historic nature of the subject.
Interactive map legend
Many more hours were used to develop the driving tour basemap. Bringing in Kentucky state GIS data, the map was developed and labeled with shapefiles in TileMill. The idea is to build a good basemap for the client using online proofing and updating. After the production format and scale are chosen, we’ll create bounding boxes and clip out the print pages. TileMill styling and label placement can easily be transferred to Illustrator and with the goal of quickly designing a final proof.
Works in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and IE8. You’ll need to run compatibility mode if your browser is IE9 or greater.
You must be logged in to post a comment.