Shovel Ready
Jul 4, 2014
It's an important project, replacing century-old water mains underneath this stretch of Kater Street near us. It's also been a crazy dragged-out project, beginning last fall and not quite finished yet.
In the wintertime, the digging had exposed the water main and also the connecting water lines that served houses all up and down the street. Of course the pipes froze. Repeatedly. Ice and snow interrupted the work, repeatedly, often leaving our neighbors with no water.
In the springtime, the neighbors enjoyed the noise of heavy equipment at their doorsteps, all day, every day. All but one of the trees on the block were cut down. There was mud when it rained and dust when it didn't rain, and of course no parking.
Now it's July, and the workmen have closed their hole back up and are finally preparing the block for new asphalt and curbs and sidewalks. They promise new trees next fall.
All along, the work has been hard: cold, hot, and dangerous, with people living right there in the construction site. The street is so narrow and the houses so close to the hole that the excavator has to back up all the way to the end of the block to turn around between scoops of dirt.
As hard as it is, it's critical work for our children's future. We need a whole lot more investment like this, or our problems will no longer be the first world sort of problems.
Happy birthday, America.
