Confirmed: Fleet Street uses water to pump water

I'd like to correct the record.

On October 1 of this year, while attending a drop-in Open House about the City of Ottawa's plans to rehabilitate the Booth Street heritage bridge (more on that to come in a future blog post), a City representative mentioned offhandedly that the Fleet Street water pumping station had been converted to electric pumps "decades ago", like in the 1950s.

One of the LeBreton Flats residents in attendance, echoing the sentiment of many, expressed dismay that he'd been telling people for years that it was a water-powered water pumping station. I, myself, had made this claim in my 2012 blog post 3D Through the Aqueduct (part 2).

While still at the Open House, I did a quick Google search on my phone, and found only unsubstantiated claims. A City employee working on a project about one of the aqueduct's bridges is a pretty compelling authority. My next step was to send out a Tweet calling on the crowdsourcing power of Twitter to confirm or deny these electric claims.

One piece of 'new' information supplied by Ian Izzard of the City: the Fleet St Pumping station has been fully electric powered (not hydraulic from aqueduct) since the 1950s. Can anyone confirm this? @HeritageOttawa #ottcity #LeBretonFlats

— Charles A-M (@Centretowner) October 1, 2019

That yielded nothing conclusive. There was a City report describing the pumping station as water-powered, but that report was prepared by the Councillor's office, not the water department.

I eventually (Oct 17) emailed Councillor McKenney, who sent the request down the bureaucratic ladder, and the very next day I got this wonderfully clear and detailed response from Paul Montgomery of the City's water department. (Emphasis added, slightly edited).

Mr. Akben-Marchand,

There are five water turbine powered centrifugal pumps at the Fleet Street pumping station; all are still used and in service. A small amount of electrical power is required, for automated controls, lighting and such, but the primary sources of motive power for the station's installed pumps is water and, of course, gravity.

Many people incorrectly assume that we use the river, at Fleet Street, to drive generators which would then drive electric motors and, in turn, to drive pumps. Rather, we use water powered turbines to drive mechanical gear boxes / speed increases to then directly drive the installed pumps.

Approximately 20m³/s of Ottawa River water flows, through a headworks control gate structure located along the shore of Nepean Bay, through the covered Aqueduct below the former Ottawa Street, to the Fleet Street Pumping Station and then down through the turbines. The approximate head, across the turbines, is 27 feet.

Treated drinking water flows by gravity, through a large buried watermain from the Lemieux Island Water Treatment Plant, to supply the five pumps at Fleet. At full capacity, the Fleet Street pumping station can supply approximately 200ML/day to the City.

Thanks,

M. Paul Montgomery, P. Eng.
Plant Manager, Water Production - East
Water Services, PWES

That settles that! I publish it here for posterity, and for the next person who hears rumours of the plant's electrification!

By the way, that "200ML/day" refers to Megalitres per day, or 200,000,000 litres! I discussed the underground Ottawa Street aqueduct in this 2012 blog post.

LeBreton Flats updates/errata

On the topic of corrections and updates, here are some to some previous blog posts about LeBreton Flats:

• In the 2012 post, 3D Thursday: 3D through the aqueduct, part 2 of 2, I didn't know the purpose of the wooden bracing on the Fleet Street Pumping Station building. A CBC Ottawa News video from 2013 says that the City was doing repairs to cracks that developed on both the pumping station and Pooley's Bridge following blasting at the site of nearby condo development on Lett Street.
• The tree featured in the 2014 post, The Lonely Elm was cut down in Winter 2014-2015 (literally: the two nearest photos showing the tree present and absent were on 2014-12-21 and 2015-03-28). The price of progress for LRT and, it would seem from aerial photos, the Combined Sewage Storage Tunnel (CSST) access shaft.
• Also in the Lonely Tree post, I referred to a section of Wellington Street as "Old Wellington", which was incorrect. It would have just been "Wellington".

I actually have a number of LeBreton Flats related blog posts in various stages of development that I hope to publish soon, including the results of quite a bit of research about Wellington Streets.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Bronson reopens for the last time

After two years of construction, Bronson Avenue reopens to through traffic today, whereas it had been closed between Laurier and Somerset (the headline of the linked PSA wrongly states Gladstone). I thought I'd post some snapshots to summarize the progress.

As with last year, the reopening isn't necessarily something to celebrate, as Bronson will no doubt return to its status as a traffic sewer for hasty drivers with little or no connection to Centretown, the roadway is the same width as before the reconstruction (despite the Community's strong desire to get it rebuilt otherwise), but without all the potholes to slow them down. There will hopefully be some degree of relief on the side streets which have been host to cut-through traffic when Bronson was closed.

Recall how disruptive the closure was to road users of all modes. Not only did it disrupt the patterns of people who were just passing through, but when the intersection of Somerset and Bronson was closed, bus riders had quite a walk to get to the nearest bus stop. Customer traffic to the businesses along Bronson slowed to a trickle when Gladstone was closed. There were some attempts to maintain temporary sidewalks for pedestrians also, as seen here in the muddy mess of a street, looking north along the former east sidewalk:

3D Thursday: Hydro pole hole

In advance of the upcoming reconstruction of Gladstone Avenue starting this summer, Hydro Ottawa is replacing the hydro poles along Gladstone from Cartier to Bank. Here, five buckets hoisted by three cherry picker trucks are holding workers as they anchor the fixtures for a replacement pole at O'Connor:

It's a tricky job, because they need to put the new pole in right next to the old one, dodging the wires along the way. To do this, they need to dig a hole for the new pole, using a big 'badger' vacuum truck. I took a 3D photo looking down into one of these holes:

Source photos for the 3D images:
Left, Right

In case you're wondering how deep those wooden poles go beneath the ground, here's a pole on Wellington West in Hintonburg where they dug out underneath the sidewalk, leaving the pole and sidewalk in place:

Since I know you're wondering, construction on Gladstone isn't supposed to start until mid-July at the earliest.

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images. 3D FAQ]

Bronson and Somerset still closed

Construction on Bronson Avenue resumed a while ago, with the Somerset and Bronson intersection closed from the beginning of April to the end of May. Other work has also been going on, such as the finishing touches of the segment south of Somerset, in particular the sidewalks and landscaping between MacLaren and Gladstone (which Eric Darwin has recently blogged about). The impact on Chinatown can be expressed in this single photo:

This next picture gives a bit of an idea of why the intersection has to be closed for so long. There's a mess of stuff underneath that needs to be replaced. It's a three-dimensional soup of cables, wires, pipes, drains, and sewers (much of the latter were installed late last year and over the winter).

Vertical mess, Preston and Albert

There's something about massive amounts of utility wires on a streetpost that compels me to photograph them, so indulge me for a moment on this one. Backed by a clear blue sky, the wires, while numerous, are clean and tidy, and clearly was installed relatively recently (as was the still-green wooden pole they're suspended on).

Three corners of the foreground are occupied by an OC Transpo bus flag for the #16, a Preston street name sign, and a Little Italy-style pedestrian lantern. These provide a sense of place to the photo, identifying the corner as that of Preston and Albert. The fourth quadrant is filled in by a street light and a traffic control signal post, providing some balance. Lastly, the green of the leaves on the right provide some reassurance that this isn't some desolate concrete jungle but a place where a long presence has allowed the trees to grow high.

That photo was taken back in October when a group of DCA members went on a walkabout with City traffic engineers as part of Public Advisory Committee (PAC) discussions on pedestrian safety for the redesign of Albert Street (to be implemented only after LRT is complete in 2108). From the same set is this shot of the group itself.

Since I'm already being a bit poetic on the photo descriptions today, I'm including this next one for a reason, too. The literal description is that the group is standing on the south sidewalk of Albert Street at the pathway connecting to Walnut Court, about a block west of the photo above, taken on the same PAC walkabout.

The curiosity here is more of a tongue-in-cheek metaphor. Note that everyone in the group is circled around Eric Darwin, the voluminous blogger behind the popular blog, West Side Action. Eric is facing the City engineers, and the community members are standing behind him (and I'm in the middle of the road behind a camera—which could also be interpreted metaphorically a few ways, ha!). This arrangement is almost like a literal illustration of how the community consultation process often seems to pass, as described by Eric himself via David Reevely's blog. Of course Eric isn't the centre of discussions at all PAC meetings, but being retired, he has a lot of time to come up with ideas and share them, and if by sheer volume there are enough good ones that people often listen.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]

Monday of the new year

It's Monday. The holidays are over, the city rediscovers its regular routine, and Ottawa's winter continues to hit us with its full arsenal. I find that the cold and dark of autumn wears away at me until the snow falls, when the thrill of biking in the snow keeps my spirits up until the holiday season. In January, after the holidays, the fun of the snow wears away, and I find don't start to cheer up until the canal opens, giving me a reason to enjoy winter again. (Someone from a rainier part of the country once observed that Ottawans tend to get cranky if we go more than three days without sunshine)

But as miserable as this time of year can be for me, at least I can take refuge in the office. The garbage collector operating this truck had a breakdown along Gladstone in last week's snowy weather and needed to get towed. Then, presumably, he had to get another truck and continue fishing out people's trash bins from the snowbanks. In the dark.

I feel sorry for the guy; I think we've all had one of those days where one thing goes wrong after another. Hopefully your Monday is going well by comparison!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

3D Thursday: 3D through the aqueduct, part 2 of 2

Today's 3D blog post continues our journey through LeBreton Flats' aqueduct, which began with part 1 last Thursday.

We left off last time on the outcropping over the bridges spanning Lloyd Street and Lett Street, just north of where the Transitway turns toward Albert Street. The Claridge condos are visible in the background for reference. In the foreground is the top of the second, newer aqueduct ("newer" being 1908) under what used to be Ottawa Street:

To further get our bearings, here's a winter shot from atop the cliff at the North end of Bronson Avenue, taken in March 2011 (I had a 3D photo of a similar angle at the top of Part 1). Here we can see the Lloyd-Lett bridge at the upper-left, the grassy area past the stone building. J.R. Booth's trains ran diagonally over this bridge, then through the 20' wide curved alignment along the aqueduct's far embankment, just behind the stone building. Beyond the bridge, we can see the aqueduct, following roughly along the Transitway, before the two split, with the aqueduct heading underground toward the river on the right, and the Transitway heading left toward Bayview. In the foreground we can see Pooley's Bridge, which was narrowed significantly during its restoration in 2001. More on that below.

Peds on Weds: Juliana sidewalk replacement

This hill on Bronson Avenue is looking south from Queen Street to Albert (where the bus is going), across to Slater and up Nanny Goat Hill to Laurier. In the immediate foreground on the right is 100 Bronson, the Juilana Apartments, built on the site of Henry Bronson's mansion in the 1960s by Douglass and Ross, as described in the latter part of this URBSite post.

I'm more interested in the sidewalk in front of the luxury apartment building. The little white arrows are telltale signs that those broken concrete squares of sidewalk will soon be replaced.

Looking north from Albert Street, back in the other direction, we see the other end of the imminent repairs. The white arrows were added in early August.

In late September, the City replaced the concrete sidewalk. It wasn't done all in one pour, there was some left at the Albert Street end of the stretch when I stopped by:

The stretch of sidewalk that was replaced only extended as far as the stairs to the apartment building.

That black patch of asphalt was actually put there not by the City but by Enbridge, which also put down that square of asphalt across the street after some work they did in the roadway. Since Enbridge dug it up, it's up to Enbridge—not the City—to replace it.

On the one hand, it's unfortunate that the sidewalk couldn't have all been replaced in one go by whomever got there first, but all told this is probably the simplest way. An alternative would have the City paying to reinstall the sidewalk that Enbridge dug up, and either footing the bill (at the expense of other needed sidewalk projects) or administering the paperwork to pass the bill along to Enbridge.

In the end, the broken section of sidewalk will have been replaced and that's what really matters.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]

Peds on Weds: Bay on the crosswalk at Bay

The next Walk Ottawa meeting actually won't be tonight, but next Monday, September 17, 2012, 7pm at Ottawa City Hall (Richmond Room). Nevertheless, it's a Wednesday, which means it's time for the weekly Peds on Weds post.

This one actually caught me by accident. At first, I thought it would be a quick post showing this crosswalk puddle along Gladstone Avenue at Bay Street last weekend. Bell did some digging at this intersection a two winters ago, so I figured I'd blame them for a lazy job of replacing the road they dug up, creating a puddle that just happens to be deepest between the crosswalk lines. But on closer investigation it might not actually be Bell's fault...

...because the puddle is concentrated in the part of the crosswalk that wasn't dug up by Bell. You can see the outline of the hole where they had worked in this photo from March 2011:

On the other hand, when that second photo was taken, the concrete section of sidewalk at the corner hadn't been torn out and re-poured yet, so it's possible they did create the puddle.

But whatever the case is with the asphalt in the crosswalk, the real boneheaded design issue here is that the curb cut, used by people with wheelchairs or strollers, is right at the corner, almost entirely outside of where the crosswalk lines are. This is very clearly not Bell's fault; their contractor simply rebuilt the sidewalk the way it had been before, installed by the City.

Here's a shot of the same corner in April 2010, as built by the City when this stretch of Gladstone was reconstructed a decade ago. Spray paint markings indicate the location of Bell's existing conduits prior to the digging:

The preferred situation here isn't to repaint the crosswalk; that wouldn't really change where most people do or don't walk, which is in a straight line exactly where the lines are painted now. Rather, the curb depression should come around the corner so that the most vulnerable users (adults in wheelchairs, elderly people with walkers and children in strollers) aren't forced into the intersection.

Better yet, raise the whole intersection to the sidewalk level. I haven't done a post yet on raised intersections, but they would slow the traffic (which would be a boon to cyclists crossing Gladstone, which has no stop signs or lights at Bay) while also avoiding the little matter of where the sidewalk meets the road surface, the crosswalk, and the water.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]

3D Thursday: Bronson press event

A couple weeks ago, the City's Infrastructure Services Department held a press event whereby they used Bronson Avenue as an example to showcase the many things that go on beneath the surface—literally—when the city rebuilds a road. Being dug up, it was opportune to demonstrate the watermains, feedermains, hydro, sewers, Bell, Rogers, gas, and other utilities that all have to squeeze under the street. As it happens, the media briefing was scheduled for the same time as Premier McGuinty's keynote speech at the AMO conference and most of the City Hall press corps was covering that.

Still there were a handful of journalists there and some stories came out of it, including two in the EMC and the Metro.

I went along to check it out, and managed to get a 3D photo of the journalists interviewing the City's engineers. In the vests from left to right are Ziad Ghadban, manager of municipal construction projects on the east side* of the city; Wayne Newell, General Manager of Infrastructure Services for the City; and Bruce Kenny, the project manager for the Bronson Avenue reconstruction project.

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

As it happens, just a few days before this media event, Ottawa Citizen columnist Kelly Egan wrote a column in which he rhetorically asked why it takes so long to build a road, given the length of time and the extent of disruption that has been caused by the Bronson Avenue construction on the street's businesses. I say "rhetorically" because he didn't bother to wait for an answer and instead assumed, without knowing the scope of the work, that the project could have been finished many times faster.

(Aside from living and working within two blocks of it, Bronson Avenue is one of the files I work on in Councillor Diane Holmes' office, and prior to working in her office I was on the Public Advisory Committee as the CCCA representative, so I'm rather familiar with the back end also. There are many legitimate complaints about ways the City or the contractors have screwed up in terms of communication, but the underlying work has many many constraints that make this a difficult job for any crew. Incidentally, nobody from the Citizen, including Egan, came to the Bronson Avenue media briefing.)

I had written back in January of 2011 about the former gas station at the southeast corner of Bronson and Gladstone, Norm Egan's Esso, and I suspect that's a clue to why Kelly Egan's attention is drawn to Bronson Avenue.

It's a pity that Egan put out that uninformed column about the construction process, because it took away from the more important story about the plight of the businesses on Bronson Avenue. He wrote such a column back in July focusing on this issue.

Bronson Avenue's businesses are at a disadvantage because they depend on passing traffic (both vehicular and pedestrian) for customers, and they don't have a BIA like most of the other commercial streets in Centretown do to promote the street with advertising campaigns. They're nearly all owner-operated. Many places have had to cut staff and reduce their hours, and most business owners are squeezing by, worrying about how they'll make the next mortgage payment on their house. The Quizno's has closed and is being renovated into a new restaurant.

The Bronson construction has an impact on everyone, from the noise endured by residents and business owners, to the detoured traffic cutting through neighbourhood streets, to the occasional disruption of water or power, and of course the massive drop in customers suffered by the businesses. The appearance of the street will improve significantly when the work is all done and the new landscaping is in, but the businesses will need to make it to that point if they're going to reap the benefits of a nicer street. Whenever you can, please visit some of the many restaurants, takeout places, hair salons and car shops along Bronson Avenue.

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images]

Deep Bronson

Since the end of March, anyone who lives or works within a block or two of Bronson Avenue has had to endure the nearly constant hammering of the bedrock under the street by the excavators as part of the Bronson Avenue reconstruction project. This photo shows why: the feedermain is a considerable distance under the surface. The bottom of the pit is at least three times as deep as these two workers are tall:

The feedermain—that black-sheathed concrete pipe—isn't what splits off to bring water to each property, that's for the regular watermain. The feedermain is the spine of the water system that feeds the watermains. This one that runs under Bronson is installed in precast segments about four feet in diameter, and delivers water at high pressure, eventually, to the south end of the city.

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 13: O-Train Pathway — Cantilevered Boardwalk

This is part 13 in the 15-part series on last year's reconstruction of Somerset Street West. Last time, I showed the construction of the tunnel that was built under the Somerset Street viaduct for the O-Train pathway.

In order to retain pedestrian connectivity while Somerset was completely dug up, a temporary boardwalk was installed off the side of the viaduct.

The bridge's railings were temporarily removed to provide access. You can see the oval-shaped railings sitting on the sidewalk here, with some connecting pieces standing on their ends in a couple of piles:

The mere removal of the railings—in another context—was a significant behind-the-scenes controversy in its own right, which I'll cover in the next post in the series.

While the boardwalk was being prepared, and before the hole was excavated, pedestrians crossing the bridge were directed by two rows of fencing to the middle of the roadway, which was closed to cars.

Lake Florence

During last week's February thaw, I decided to go out clearing some storm drains to let the puddles drain before things froze up again. There were a couple on Florence that weren't draining, though, like this one:

The result was a puddle on the sidewalk, which didn't make for good walking conditions, now or when it freezes into solid ice.

There's another one that's so bad you can't even see it under the puddle. The grate is behind that car that's sticking out:

When the water doesn't drain, it can freeze into ice when the mercury drops. This is a hazard for pedestrians and vehicles, but it also seeps into the pavement and expands, creating potholes. That's why it's best to clear the snow and slush away from the drain when it's warm.

Fixed! Streetpost at Bank and Queen

Riding around town on December 30, I was standing at the corner of Bank and Queen streets, and noticed that the lamppost was crooked at the north-west corner. It looked like there was a kink in the post behind the poster collar, dangerously threatening to fall into traffic on Queen Street.

I don't know how long it had been like that (or if it had been previously noticed and reported), but I phoned it in to 3-1-1 anyway just in case. By January 5, when I was next around there, it was already replaced with a brand new post:

Nice to see the prompt response by the City over the holidays.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Sens Mile 2010

The first time they did Sens Mile on Elgin street (when the Senators were in the semi-finals), every time the Senators won, you couldn't get to sleep if you lived on a major road (Somerset, Gladstone, etc.) because people would honk their car horns as they drove the first few kilometres from Elgin Street--as late as 1 am!

Thankfully things were quieter after the Sens' 5-4 win last night, possibly because it was a week night.

The above is a photo of City crews installing a "Sens Mile" street sign on the South-West corner of Elgin at Somerset yesterday. Today they were installing the one at the North-East corner (among many others, I'm sure!).

Whether you like it or not, Elgin is very definitely Ottawa's Hockey Street.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Bank Street Phase III, Intro and part 1

Last year, I posted a single post on Phase II of the Bank Street reconstruction project, between Laurier West and Somerset West. This year, there's much more to post about: The new bike racks are up, and there are so many more blocks of construction to blog. I already blogged about the streetcar rail ties dug up from under Bank Street back in May.

While paring down last year's set was hard, I took many more photos of this year's work. In September, I selected the best photos, printed out thumbnails, and sorted them into groups over a cup of Earl Grey at Bridgehead:

Then I got busy, and by the time things had died down, I had taken many more photos that I wanted to incorporate into the series.

I've finally gotten around to sorting them out for posting. Click below to go to the relevant post:

• Part 1: Sidewalks (below)
• Part 2: Lights
• Part 3: Trees
• Part 4: Benches
• Part 5: Surfaces
• Part 6: Bike racks
• more to come....

Part 1: Sidewalks

Old sidewalks meet new on Bank near Catherine Street in this photo from last week. In the background is the Bank street Queensway underpass:

Here's a reminder of what the sidewalks looked like on Bank before the recent reconstruction. This shot looking South from Bank and Gloucester in front of the Tim Horton's shows a rather rather cluttered, claustrophobic, uncoordinated corner--and that's after they moved the newspaper boxes away shortly before this photos was taken in October 2007. Many intersections had an engraved stone block with the name of the intersecting street laid into the pavement. The one at this intersection had long been removed and filled in with asphalt. Another at Gladstone (photographed in this post) had been broken up through wear and tear.

Construction on Phase three of the five-phase Bank Street Reconstruction project began a year ago this week, with the removal of the sidewalk at the plagued South-East corner of Somerset and Bank.

Most of the other sidewalks down to Catherine survived until the majority of the utility work under the roads was complete. These squares of sidewalk in front of the James Street Pub were being delicately removed in late May.

Once the old sidewalks were removed and a bed of foundation gravel was laid at the right height, the new sidewalk was outlined with a guide rope suspended from a series of posts. In this mid-August photo at Bank and Gilmour, the bulbout outline is clearly visible, and guarded by yellow caution tape. The spool for the rope is visible in the foreground.

The wire is used to line up the wooden concrete forms, as shown here on Bank and MacLaren in front of the Quizno's restaurant. A gas-operated tamping machine is used to compress the gravel underneath to avoid damage to the sidewalk caused by settling.

On long, straight sections of sidewalk, they don't use wooden forms, but instead a curb-laying machine such as this one in front of the Rogers Plus store on Bank and Gilmour. It's faster, smoother, and more consistent. Eric Darwin has photos of one of these machines in use on Preston Street over at West Side Action.

Here's a closeup of the working end of the machine:

Here's the old sidewalk in front of Hartman's, looking South from Bank and Somerset. This was always a narrow block to walk down, especially where the Bank Street BIA's big black advertising box occupies a good portion of sidewalk real estate. (The old round Bank Street Promenade sign is also visible on the post in the foreground, and others are visible in the background in various rotations) This photo was taken in early December 2008.

During construction, the sidewalk had been removed. By mid-August, you can see some wooden stakes beginning to mark the new sidewalk outline on the other side of the Modu-Loc construction fence.

At the end of August, the curb was poured, and another tamping machine sits in this nighttime photo waiting to compress the gravel under the sidewalk to be poured.

Two days later, forms have been installed for the sidewalk, and a moving assembly line of Local 527 workers pour, level, and smoothen the sidewalk. The worker in the blue helmet is holding a paintbrush, which he's using to add a border around the street lamp.

And here's the finished sidewalk. The traveled portion of the new sidewalk is as wide as the entire old sidewalk, and there's an extra section for furniture to be installed. On the North half of the block, it's even wider. A new bus shelter was installed in the wider part of the sidewalk in the last couple days, which will be welcome to the many, many people who wait at that stop. Grooves increase traction at the intersection, and double as a guide for the visually-impaired.

I think the construction process was refined over last year (Bank will reopen two weeks ahead of schedule). For example, the section pictured in the photo below shows some squares of sidewalk yet to be poured in the Phase II part of the project between Laurier and Somerset. There's an earlier photo of that block in the aforementioned post from last year, showing just how many people walk through this block looking North from Gloucester:

These squares of sidewalk hold the foundations for the street lamps, and are reinforced with steel rebar. The sidewalk in front of Hartman's doesn't have rebar, and the squares with the lamps are poured at the same time as the rest of the sidewalk.

But the really peculiar thing with this stretch is that temporary wooden pole in the middle of the street!

Here's another peculiarity I spotted yesterday: six sewer grates are built into the sidewalk across from Lewis street. Six. One presumes a lot of water collects at this corner during storms. This in-curb design is great (pun unintended) for cyclists, because you don't have to swerve around them into traffic. Since they aren't in the asphalt portion of the street, cars don't run over them and break apart the surrounding asphalt, meaning they don't require repair nearly as often, meaning less patchwork of asphalt to be broken up. Sewer grates on the roadway make for vicious cycling.

All in all, the new sidewalks are much wider, fresher and cleaner than the old ones. Here's another old-and-new shot of the sidewalk in front of Herb & Spice at Bank and Lewis, December 2008:
And September 2009. Finally there will be room for adequate bike parking!

The Google Street View car went down Bank street in March, before most of the work was started. Pop a step or two down the cross-streets for a later view. While you're waiting two days for the next post, why don't you take a few minutes to check out what Bank Street used to look like on Google Street View, then take a stroll down Bank Street and notice the difference.

Tune in Tuesday for the Part II: Lights