Dear Editor:
Week after week, everyone who travels Washington Street is witness to the continual slicing, digging, and ripping up of our Main Street. Black top, pavers, concrete sidewalks, a tree, and curbs are being removed to reveal a network of decades-old pipes (even old rail ties) and anything else that was never removed in the past century so that we can update our infrastructure. Sometimes men are digging with shovels because they have no idea what is where and which pipe is really operational. I know this because I talk to the men working and ask them about the latest crater I am gaping into and I hear their adventures into the unknown. They have to be so careful with their surgery since they encounter a jigsaw puzzle below and open up a Pandora’s Box that sometimes results in pipes and conduits breaking due to age.
Ah, but this surgery has been overdue and although it is behind schedule, the patient is due to survive. The high current cost estimate of $17 million, which will likely increase when the project is completed, means that the finished project should be the best possible Main Street for our commuters, traffic and businesses.
This brings me to my biggest worry about the feasibility of the finished product, since they are going ahead with the untested curb extensions which will be going in at all intersections on all corners. Over the years the road has become incredibly unleveled due to the continual paving which has created a ‘mound’ effect in the center which causes the roadway to dip down toward the sidewalk curbs and all the rainwater collects there without going into the catch basins. Is the height of the curb extensions being considered in relationship to the (hopefully) eventual leveling of the road? Once the extensions are moved out into the roadway, all the catch basins will have to be moved toward the center of the street. This is an expensive and irreversible element of this project. Will all the water flow toward those displaced catch basins or will the water get caught in the crotch of the curb extensions?
I don’t believe there were any fluid dynamics experts involved in the decision of putting in curb extensions. Plus vehicular mobility will be limited and become time-consuming when traversing the curb extensions. Just because these extensions are the latest fad in road design does not necessarily mean they will benefit a city in the end. The forefathers of our little town were wise enough to allow such a wide main thoroughfare when there were only horses, carts, and buggies. So just imagine all that concrete extended out at every corner of every intersection from Observer Highway to 14th Street. That is a lot of concrete that is going to affect the mobility of vehicles and will redirect the water flow. This is a serious, costly mistake and should not be done all the way up Washington Street. Don’t do it.
Mary Ondrejka
