Open Sesame: Yes, the Big Dig at 5th and Elm has been repaved and will open shortly.

Actually, 5th Street appears to be open now. Looking west (above) and north (below, with the Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats casting a long TIF shadow).

Now east, toward the site of the Great Barbershop Siege of 2016, and then ...

 ... a longer view from -- HEY WAIT, GET OUT OF THE WAY.

This is more placid.

Perfect spot for two-way traffic, wouldn't you say?

Here are a few corresponding views from various stages of what proved to be a two-and-a-half-month project. Let's hope the perennial subterranean problems at this intersection have been resolved for good.

But what about the subway station? Hope spring eternal.

ASK THE BORED: The Big Dig at 5th & Elm enters its 9th Big Week, with 33 more Big Days to come.

ASK THE BORED: The Big Dig at 5th & Elm enters its 9th Big Week, with 33 more Big Days to come.

The minutes of BOW's August 16 meeting tell the tale:

"We are still looking at about another 40 days," placing the finishing date for this project (originally estimated to take six days) somewhere around September 25.

That poor, poor barber shop ...

Memories ... of the Way We Were.

Big Dig secret revealed as Mayor Jeff Gahan presents ... the Break Wind Subway Station.

In the absence of the local chain newspaper, we turn to Loueyville media for excerpts from this breaking story.

 ... David Duggins, the city's Millennial Enfluffment Director (MED), told Busyness First that all due credit for the innovative Break Wind Subway Station goes to Mayor Jeff Gahan.

"Obviously, we have no subway in New Albany," said Duggins.

"I mean, an actual subway is your basic pie in the sky mass transit crappola, but the genius of Jeff Gahan is that he instinctively understands what millennials crave, which is the appearance of luxury without anyone's brains getting hurt trying to figure out how those validation machines work."

According to Duggins, the functionality of the Break Wind Subway Station is that it won't be connected to anything, but will serve as a mere symbol of the unattainable for those high-rolling hipsters expected to inhabit the highest-priced apartments in town.

"It's like our city-wide sharrows project," said Duggins. "We paint symbols on the street and declare victory. The intended users have such short attention spans that they never realize none of it leads anywhere or means anything."

"The Break Wind Subway Station serves the same purpose. It's an imaginary quality of life bonus, and it makes me proud to serve a mayor with vision of this magnitude."

Concluded Duggins, "Besides, shit like this is way easy to TIF."

There'll now be a city-wide contest to create a design for the imaginary Break Wind Subway Station signage. The contest will be restricted to whichever graphic artists are hanging out at Quills when Duggins stops in for his latte.

A few of the entries are pictured here ...

 ... along with the winning entry.

The July 19 BOW: All Chloe Allen's family has is Keith Henderson's word for it. No wonder they seek more information.

At this morning's Board of Public Works and Safety meeting, I asked again about the investigation of the Chloe Allen case.

From roadway bomb craters to pedestrian death investigations: This morning's Board of Public Works and Safety meeting -- with the undermanned newspaper AWOL.

Interestingly, what Police Chief Todd Bailey told me this morning differs from what I was told last week by an investigator in the prosecutor's office. I was told last week that the CART (accident reconstruction) file was closed, and Keith Henderson had determined no charges were merited against the driver.

However, Bailey said that the investigation remains open because state toxicology lab reports have yet to be returned.

This revelation is unlikely to change anything, but I'll stay on it. Might as well; I can't dance.

In my other comments, I relayed the concern of the 3rd district resident about the intersection of Elm and 13th, as explained in this morning's post.

ASK THE BORED: "People go WAY too fast and even turn up the wrong way on Elm. There needs to be a 4-way stop at this intersection before someone gets killed."

My thoughts were noted, and are unlikely to change anything, but (see above).

Other highlights from the BOW of July 19:

His Irvness
Irv Stumler was on hand to support efforts to clean up a hoarder's derelict property on Hausfeldt Lane, an ongoing process that board chairman Nash noted was hung up in court. Stumler encouraged the city to petition the court for permission to send in the backhoes.

Jeff Eastridge
A first-hand account of the Big Dig at 5th & Elm was provided. Amid a repair effort that has resulted in the pumping out of water 24-hours-a-day, five separate open stormwater lines have been found, and two water line leaks repaired.

These stormwater lines had slots cut into them, under the apparent theory that water would travel down into them, but when the lines were full, the water came up instead, loosening sand and dirt, and flushing them back into the line to be carried off.

Pilings have been driven onto bedrock. As soon as the water company finishes cleaning up its mess, the hole can be filled. MAYBE next week.

Upper Spring Street Road Diet 
Wes Christmas said all is going according to schedule, and the target date for completion is late September or the very beginning of October. Once finished, bicyclists will be able to enter this section of Spring from Beharrell, travel to Vincennes, then have absolutely no place to go.

The Jeffersonville Chain Newspaper
It sent a steno this morning. Film at 6. Yawn.

5th and Elm speed crater: Have we reached China yet?

If my math is correct, on Monday (July 11) it will have been 22 days since this stated 3 - 4 day project began. It probably took a week just to cut through decades of asphalt Band-Aids.

Whether or not this massive reconstruction project finally resolves a problem that's been around for decades, it must be said that we've gotten plenty of comedic mileage out of it. Clink glasses; rinse, repeat.

5th Street's 2015 paving, 2016 unpaving, and future repaving.

The best way to slow traffic on Elm at 5th would be to leave the crater alone.

It's a good thing we paved 5th Street eight months ago. It should last until 2023.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Glower (or, the 5th Street Paving Rumba).

Rosenbarger retains job by hailing city's invention of revolutionary Speed Dip at Elm and Fifth.

5th & Elm paving: Who knew the ADA mandates warning ramps for bocce ball crossings?

ASK THE BORED: It'll have to wait another week, sorry.

Once again, I have another engagement booked for Tuesday morning. Until next week, let's unite in hoping that the delayed repair work at 5th and Elm results in a newly invigorated street, ripe for calming into much needed two-way traffic.

5th Street's 2015 paving, 2016 unpaving, and future repaving.

It's holding up fairly well south of I-Spring Street. Northbound is a different matter entirely.

That's right. We paved this stretch in August, 2015.

5th & Elm paving: Who knew the ADA mandates warning ramps for bocce ball crossings?

The same 5th and Elm intersection in June, 2016:

The question remains: Why pave 5th Street in 2015, only to unpave 5th Street less than a year later owing to a known construction project?

The only conceivable answer is that especially in an election year, only Potemkin facades really matter.

The best way to slow traffic on Elm at 5th would be to leave the crater alone.

Back in March, NAC glanced at another of Pinocchio Rosenbarger's inadvertent street grid masterworks.

Rosenbarger retains job by hailing city's invention of revolutionary Speed Dip at Elm and Fifth.

Right there, by the Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats ... Elm Street, a drag strip leading from the post office to 10th ... a barber shop, already devalued by the one-way street, now further spat upon by cars constantly weaving lanes to avoid hitting John Rosenbarger's patented Traffic Calming Speed Dip, or bottoming out, or slamming on the brakes at too high a rate of speed, threatening the tailgating Kentuckian behind him ... and do we ever have conversations about the extent of the damage caused by the heavy trucks traveling these arterial streets at high rates of speed, which come to think of it, sounds pretty hazardous for walkers, too?

No, we don't have these conversations in New Gahania, but at least this week the city began the latest round of repairs intended to make this intersection smooth as a baby's bottom, so that drivers (they vote, you know) never have to slow down, ever again.

Because we wouldn't want slower traffic, would we?

Speeding down Elm Street to buy Irv Stumler flowers, the Claysburg Chronicle's Chris Morris provides readers with something that has utterly eluded the city's two-way streets campaign finance consultants -- namely, a time line of construction.

Elm Street and 5th Street will be closed beginning Monday, June 20, for crews to fix the dip in the road at that location. The work is only expected to take two or three days, weather permitting, but may last until Friday, June 24.

A bit of Breakwind work is concurrent with the city's deRosenbargerization.

It's a good thing we paved 5th Street eight months ago. It should last until 2023.

Shhh ... don't mention the war, and don't EVER mention 5th Street when the corporate attorney's in earshot.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Glower (or, the 5th Street Paving Rumba).

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why new words? Why not the old, familiar, comforting words?

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show the plebeians that you're brighter than them.

To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us who want nothing more than to grasp the need for a dog park in a non-walkable area atop a Native American ceremonial site, all we have is time -- and the opportunity to learn something.

On Monday night at the city council meeting, I inadvertently stumbled across the magic, prize-winning words, mouthed sotto voce in the background, but with sufficient emphasis to merit a torso-twisting ... that's right, glower. The namesake of this weekly column glowered at me, and as such, I was gifted with a glower.

It was glowerful -- which is NOT a real word.

glower

glow·er (glou′ər)

intr.v. glow·ered, glow·er·ing, glow·ers
To look or stare angrily or sullenly: glowered at the rude patron. See Synonyms at frown.
n. An angry or sullen look or stare.

[Middle English gloren, probably of Scandinavian origin; see ghel- in Indo-European roots.]

glow′er·ing·ly adv.

Finally, a bit more on the northern origins of glower.

[C16: probably of Scandinavian origin; related to Middle Low German glūren to watch]

[1350–1400; Middle English (Scots) glowren to glower; akin to Middle Low German glūren to be overcast, Middle Dutch gloeren to leer]

Rosenbarger retains job by hailing city's invention of revolutionary Speed Dip at Elm and Fifth.

New pavement marks the future sinkhole.

Right there, by the Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats ... Elm Street, a drag strip leading from the post office to 10th ... a barber shop, already devalued by the one-way street, now further spat upon by cars constantly weaving lanes to avoid hitting John Rosenbarger's patented Traffic Calming Speed Dip, or bottoming out, or slamming on the brakes at too high a rate of speed, threatening the tailgating Kentuckian behind him ... and do we ever have conversations about the extent of  the damage caused by the heavy trucks traveling these arterial streets at high rates of speed, which come to think of it, sounds pretty hazardous for walkers, too?

Looking west toward Padgett Way.

No, we don't, because Jeff doesn't do details.

I played around yesterday with video, none of it worth saving, but potentially revealing. An hour in a lawn chair later in the week seems merited.

Today's statement of what should be obvious is prompted by this note passed to the Green Mouse. Thanks, and keep those cards and letters coming.

Any chance you can bring some attention to the extremely dangerous road condition at 5th and Elm? The road has caved in and has created an extremely large pothole-like area. Multiple fixes seem to have occurred, yet the condition remains the same. How someone has not had a serious accident yet is a miracle.

Better yet, try driving your car over the depressed area even at a slow speed and you'll see how dangerous it is, especially if you didn't know the road condition was there. I did stop at the street department last fall and asked about it and the cause has something to do with the sewer pipes underneath the road. They said they were working on it. Some work has occurred, but I see no change in the level of safety. Thanks so much.

A tale of two closed sidewalks in the 3rd council district.

On 5th Street, because we're replacing it.

On 3rd Street, because ... why?

Does the Americans with Disabilities Act mean anything to City Hall?

CM Phipps: Isn't ignoring the ADA a human rights issue?

Asphalt or jungle: A closer look at those storm drains at 5th & Elm.

Earlier this afternoon, we took a look at the new pavement at 5th and Elm.

Who knew the ADA mandates warning ramps for bocce ball crossings?

A reader suggested that the storm water drain on the southwest corner looked submerged in asphalt. Here's the wider view, showing the discarded ADA warning ramp. Look to the left of the photo, at roughly nine o'clock:

It's this one. There is very little clearance.

Here is the drain on the southeast side. There is more clearance, but the pavement is level with the sidewalk at this point.

Following are the northwest and northeast drains.

Again, it's better, and yet the photos clearly show almost even street and sidewalk levels.

Of course, there's this ...

New Albany to repair paving imperfections on East Main Street

At least no dishevelment-grade, beautification-only medians were installed on 5th or Elm, although perhaps the city has included sufficient cash in its corporate welfare incentive package that Flaherty Collins might include them.

If the flowers die, medians would be useful for mooring canoes.

5th & Elm paving: Who knew the ADA mandates warning ramps for bocce ball crossings?

We speak now of the 5th Street paving work completed this week, which includes a new surface for the section of 5th Street between Elm and Spring, which soon will be the domain of heavy vehicles used in the Coyle site corporate welfare ripple effect trickle down building project -- but this isn't the point.

Rather ...

Handicapped accessible sidewalk ramps (are) made mostly of concrete but with a nubbed, fiberglass composite insert. The slope of the ramp is designed to aid people with mobility issues. The texture of these nubs – officially called truncated domes – alerts the visually impaired that they are are approaching a crosswalk.

These are ADA-mandated, and also are referred to as warning pads or truncated dome pavers. You can see two of them here.

But the one on the southwest corner of 5th & Elm is gone.

Look -- here it is, tossed over the fence.

There's a metaphor luring here somewhere. I just can't put my finger on it.

ON THE AVENUES: Better access, quality of life, public safety, and various other Orwellian aspects of the New Albanist’s experience.

ON THE AVENUES: Better access, quality of life, public safety, and various other Orwellian aspects of the New Albanist’s experience.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Author's note: The bountiful holiday harvest of sheer and unrequited bile brings you today's early edition of ON THE AVENUES, including links to previous editions of our New Albanist's Dictionary (see below), as well as the annual Thanksgiving column tomorrow. 

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If you do not speak up when it matters, when would it matter that you speak? The opposite of courage is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.
-- Jim Hightower

Last week, New Albany’s Board of Public Works acted with unaccustomed principle and bold decisiveness to address the perennial dysfunction of New Albany’s one-way arterial street grid, courageously braving the wrath of almost one potential voter in unanimously approving the reconversion of East 5th Street to two-way traffic.

In doing so, the board and its chairman, former mayor Warren Nash, heeded the testimony of city engineer Larry Summers, who described the action as necessary because it would result in “better access.”

Before assuming “better access” to signify a universal concept, it might be informative to ask: Better access to what?

Primarily, to VFW Post 3281, which in itself would be a matter of supreme irony to city officials if they actually paid attention to the real world outside, given that last winter the very same VFW post didn’t give a nanosecond of a tinker’s damn about “better” pedestrian “access” to sidewalks, which were piled high with snow removed from its vast and largely unused parking lot by clueless flunkies.

Of course, back then a typically somnolent Board of Works was unable to muster a coherent response when “better access” meant walkers and their sidewalks stupidly blocked with someone else’s snow, but in the aftermath of the Main Street Disprovement, Deforestation and Semi Trailer Non-Diversion Project’s installation of a median directly in front of the VFW’s traditional Main Street entrance, and with 5th Street forever inaccessible via Main by virtue of it being pointed one-way south … well, then the wheels turned with lightning speed, and the pieties and hypocrisies dutifully were glue-stuck into place.

It is either amusing or tragic that the Main Street project’s $2 million or more in largesse was completely spread among its various intended political orifices before anyone stopped to consider the VFW’s driveway, and now we’re left with “better access” as a selective imperative for the VFW’s aging membership, probably since these same folks have been observed periodically to cast ballots.

Thus, the city acts with unprecedented haste to preclude one wastage of time and gasoline caused by driving unnecessarily around the block, while staring dully at passing tumbleweeds as other examples of precisely the same phenomenon are never addressed.

For instance, there’s the notion of “better access” from Elm Street to Dragon King’s Daughter, Larry Ricke’s firm, Uptown Arts, the Carnegie Center, Fox Law Office and Bank Street Brewhouse. Why should visitors to these establishments be forced to drive all the way around the block?

Here’s a hint, Warren: Reconfigure Bank Street to two-way traffic.

Or am I being too technical for you?

---

Hence, the recurring problem with city officials delightedly settling on the repeated deployment of cute little buzz phrases they’ve spent all of 35 seconds considering in terms of their potential implications, and also why the pesky meaning of words in the English language bedevils them so.

Consequently, “better access” now takes it rightful place alongside “quality of life” and “public safety” as trite hack phrases rendered utterly nonsensical by the Gahan administration. It’s only a matter of time until classic Orwellian doublethink gems are resurrected as local Democratic Party campaign slogans:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength.

I’m sure all former Democratic mayors can endorse these solid administrative dictums, if not their irony.

---

Mayor Jeff Gahan apparently considers Nash to be a grandfatherly guiding light and party elder worth heeding, hence Nash’s position of weekly civic obfuscation at the Board of Works, where he does quite little save running interference for the ever-deepening conceptual muddle that has characterized Gahan’s disappointing term in office.

What’s interesting about this symbiotic attachment between Gahan and Nash is that they share a distinction as the only two Democratic mayoral candidates in a half-century (or more) to capture 60% of the vote in winning office. Gahan took 64% against a split Republican effort in 2011, and Nash scored 60% in 1971 in deposing the “All-American” Tuffy Inman.

Ah, but it gets even better.

When Nash ran for re-election in 1975, he became perhaps the only Democratic mayor in the history of New Albany to see a 60%-plus share for a second time. Unfortunately for Nash, it was his opponent Bob Real’s victorious tally, not his own.

1975: Republican challenger Robert Real defeats Nash, 9,264 to 4,763.
Total votes: 14,027
Percentage: 66 - 34

Whoa! And to think we regarded the election results of November 4, 2014 as an epic beat down. Even Mark Seabrook didn’t win this year by a 66-34 percentage -- although he came tantalizingly close.

Note that as a political insurgent, I’m not complaining at all. The Board of Works may do little or nothing to address real infrastructure issues, and city officials can continue to merrily butcher the beauty of the English language – just so long as Gahan continues to model his political career on Nash’s.

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Several years back, in the newspaper, when it still covered New Albany, I published two installments of the New Albanist’s Dictionary.

A New Albanist’s Dictionary (Oct. 15, 2009).

A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Volume 2 (Jan. 6, 2011).

Granted, almost four years have passed, and certain of the topical references are quite dated. It may be time for an update, and the three favored civic bullshit phrases considered here today occupy the top of the list.

Better access
Quality of life
Public safety

Readers, any thoughts on simple definitions for these?

You needn’t over-think them; after all, the current occupants aren’t, either.

"Better access": City boldly affirms street grid reform with 2-way conversion of E. 5th, then heads to the Roadhouse for some ice cold longnecks.

On the very same day that David Duggins, the city's presumed economic development director, informed a room filled with downtown merchants that they needn't be interested in piddling infrastructure concerns when the customarily disjointed, uncoordinated "special event this weekend" marketing efforts aided scantily (if at all) by his crack team of One Southern Indiana oligarchy-fluffing veterans seem to be going so very swimmingly, there was a Board of Public Works meeting.

Downtown business owner: "Without the city itself doing more, we can kiss (revitalization) goodbye."

After reciting the pledge of allegiance to what remains of the local Democratic Party while facing a portrait of Walt Disney, a lapdog board displaying no visible signs of fatigue following a physically demanding weekend of prayer breakfasts approved an earthshaking street reform that caused puzzled observers to wonder: "Why pay Jeff Speck when they can retrofit East 5th Street with some spray paint and leftover stop signs?"

Nov 18 New Albany approves two-way conversion for East Fifth Street, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — One way versus two-way streets has been a hot topic of discussion in New Albany over the past year.

Though not on as large of a scale as what some have called for, the city moved Tuesday to convert one street to two-way traffic.

To coincide with improvements made to East Main Street, the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety agreed to switch East Fifth Street to two-way traffic from Culbertson Avenue to Main Street.

City Engineer Larry Summers suggested the conversion in order to “better provide access to the businesses, clubs and residences along E. Fifth Street.”

The three-member board of works — which is appointed by the mayor — approved the request without much discussion.

Larry surely did not intend to do so, but he has nonetheless contributed yet another mysterious phrase for examination by those of us who genuinely care about words, their meaning, and the primacy of ideas: "Better access" now takes its place alongside "quality of life" and "public safety" as concepts the Gaha administration is utterly incapable of defining coherently amid their all too frequent use.

But the entertainment doesn't stop there.

Main Street is already a two-way route, and the bulk of improvements to the road including the addition of grassy medians were recently completed ...

The board took under advisement a $289,141 change order for the work Tuesday.

Wes Christmas, an engineer with the city-hired firm Clark-Dietz, said the additional costs were for the removal of an abandoned railroad track discovered during construction, added paving expenses and the complete reconstruction of Main Street between Vincennes Street and 16th Street.

What the hell. A few hundred thousand here, a few more there ... and then there is Mr. Christmas, who contributes a wonderful aside.

Christmas said he reviewed the change order with city legal staff “ad nauseam”, but added he had no issue with the board of works taking extra time to review the proposal.

Really, Wes?

Ad nauseam? I'll give you a better usage than that:

"City officials and Clark-Dietz have insisted ad nauseam that the Main Street Project would achieve its desired ends, but they lied through their collective sets of teeth."

Take it away, JeffG.

You gotta love the Main Street Project. City officials promised commercial trucks would not be diverted to other streets and that traffic would slow down. A couple million dollars later, trucks have been diverted and the remaining traffic is speeding along as usual. In New Albany, that's batting a thousand.

Maybe it's time we all checked into those U-Haul prices -- or a treatment facility.