The Recession Must Be Over

I found a notice from the city hung on our front door knob this morning. They're planning on installing sidewalks on both sides of the main road past our house.

The road, when originally built, was two lanes in each direction with a large median separating oncoming traffic. The lane widths, however and in keeping with the typical cheap design of the entire town by the original developers*, were too narrow, although technically legal (the best kind of legal) which meant cars traveling in the same direction, if one tried to overtake the other, would literally come within inches of each other in the process. And this was before SUVs. Forget about trucks.

In the case of our road, a decision was made** to make the next-over parallel through road into the major thoroughfare and to remove a lane in each direction from our now-secondary street. The remaining lane was widened and the leftover paved right-of-way was turned into bike lanes.

Now they're going to put in sidewalks, although the few people I see out walking around use the bike lanes without any conflict from the (just as few) bicyclists. Still, considering the amount of rain we've had recently and the soggy condition of the ground, a hard surface to walk on further removed from traffic might be a good idea.

In fact, the major problem I see is the continuing rain. We had a couple of glorious sunny, low humidity days right at the equinox. Since then it has been continuous overcast and downpour without sight of the sun. The ground is mush and our swale is a fully qualified moat. Any digging the road crew does is going to have to be between the swale and the road and is still going to be all mud. I can't imagine any concrete they pour is ever going to set properly before mid-winter.

In any event, it will keep the city workers busy and our driveway doesn't open on to that street. Also, I think the palm on the corner is far enough back (our side of the swale/moat) to not be affected by the construction. So have at it!

*Many of the major roads have since been widened but the bridges over the canals, being much more expensive to upgrade, are still the original width and can cause quite the adrenaline rush when multiple vehicles attempt to use them at the same time.

**This happened when the powers finally admitted the entire city's transportation infrastructure was completely inadequate for the population and bulldozed a limited access crosstown boulevard clear through the city about a 1/4 mile south of us. The next street over got the full intersection and traffic signal, we got a westbound only entrance/exit and no light.