Democracy on the Front Lines
City Administrator’s Blog
Walter Denton
July 30, 2009
Summer is normally a big construction period, but I have not yet posted any blogs on construction projects. That is because we have not had any big projects this year due to our revenue shortfalls. The federal and state government may have received economic stimulus money for infrastructure projects, but we have not seen a dime.
However, we recently began a project on Wesley Drive. We closed Wesley last week to replace the storm drainage culverts. Not only were the culverts undersized but were failing and endangering the road. In addition to the larger culverts, we are replacing the water and sewer lines and dredging the sedimentation pond on the south side of Wesley. When the project is complete, stormwater should flow more easily from the south into Fairwood Lake. We plan to have Wesley back open before school starts.
Some people have asked why we are doing this project rather than drainage projects in Presidential streets or other areas. The reality of drainage infrastructure is that you need to improve conditions at the bottom of the watershed before you fix the upper end of the watershed. All of the water from the eastern Presidential streets flow north under Wesley, into Fairwood Lake, and ultimately to Engle Creek. The Wesley project removes the bottleneck and drainage should improve.
That being said, we still need to improve the Presidential streets and we have an engineering plan. Unfortunately, it is very expensive and we only have so much money to spend.
In other construction news, water tower work continues. It seems like they have been painting the Kyle Road water tower for a long time, but they are applying the second coat of white paint. The steel on the Pausch Road water tower has been installed.
Three sidewalk projects are currently underway. One is the annual sidewalk and concrete repair program that fixes various sidewalks throughout the city. In addition, there are two sidewalk extension projects that will improve pedestrian access to schools: an extension on Seven Hills Road north to the new Carriel Junior High School and an extension from the Brookside subdivision to Westbrook that will allow better access to Hinchcliffe Elementary School.
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