Another thought about the proposed Columbia Terrace Improvements
My travels this weekend took me down Columbia Terrace several times, and what stood out more than anything and what gives the area between University & North the ‘blighted’ feel are the utility poles and wires. On the south-side of the street, there is a utility pole infront of nearly every house, with wires running between them, to the houses on the same side of the street, and more wires crossing the street to each house on the opposite side.
These same utility poles, some of which are leaning and look horrible, hold up the old industrial looking streetlights.
The proposed plan, as the news reported it, is for new curbs, sidewalks, lighting, and traffic signals. There is no mention of the ultility lines being buried or moved to the alleyways. To me, it’s the utility poles and lines that make that stretch of Columbia Terrace look so bad, not the curbs and sidewalks, and certainly not the traffic signals. Columbia Terrace in the Uplands doesn’t have utility poles in the streets, nor does Randolph-Roanoke.
It seems to me that anytime major improvements are made in an older neighborhood or street, utility cables get buried. I am going to go out on a limb, read between the lines, and say getting rid of the utility poles and the wires that criss-cross the street is part of the plan, but just wasn’t reported.
Hopefully.
December 24th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
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End ^) See you