INDOT to make funding available for railroad crossing safety projects. The path to the amphitheater might be one of them.

Recently State Senator Ron Grooms passed along information of importance to downtown (below). First, some background.

Among the impediments (both real and imagined) to greater use of the amphitheater is one that largely has remained outside the city's control: a railroad track carrying passing trains.

Local folk wisdom holds that the levee acts as a sort of forbidding mountain range, dissuading riverfront use. For my money, trains are a far bigger safety concern, as well as a periodic roadblock: they'll queue to the west to leave the 6th Street automotive crossing open, thus blocking the pedestrian path from downtown to the amphitheater, often for a very long time.

And I'm probably not the only person who has witnessed people climbing over the couplers. It's very dangerous, indeed.

I chatted with Grooms yesterday at WANA's Political Social. Previously he had met with Mayor Gahan to discuss the railroad crossing, and then the new INDOT program arose. It provides funds to address railroad crossing safety through competitive match grant applications. I'm told that the city has responded favorably to this, and is dispatching John Rosenbarger for due diligence.

Let's hope something comes of it. If we can't have forward-thinking, multi-modal transport networks including a light rail stop at the amphitheater, and if we must tolerate freight trains, then crossing the tracks safely is job one.

Indiana to provide $125M for local railroad safety projects (The Republic)

CHESTERTON, Ind. — Indiana’s transportation authority will provide at least $125 million in matching grants to local governments that undertake railroad safety projects.

The Department of Transportation program will require local agencies to contribute 20 percent of the money for land acquisition and construction. The state would take care of the rest.

The plan is part of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s agenda to upgrade the state’s infrastructure. Holcomb signed a bill last year authorizing funding for the program, which was part of an infrastructure improvement plan approved by the Legislature that hiked taxes and fees.

Local communities may submit proposals from May until the end of August. INDOT is expected to hold several meetings this month to answer questions from local officials.

Grant winners will be announced starting in late summer.

ASK THE BORED: BOW directs handicapped sidewalk users into traffic lanes as downtown corner ramp replacements make a mockery of safety, but bolster campaign finance slush. Also, downtown RR crossing expenses.

If 2017 really is to be the year when the Downtown Grid Modernization Project transitions from the mere rumor of a long overdue, messy compromise of a typically botched Gahanesque half-ass measure, to these adulterated facets actually appearing in real life, then City Hall's favored minions at HWC Engineering, now safely ensconced in the same building as the sewer utility, making those dreamy stuffed satchel transfers easier than ever before -- though it isn't clear which way the largess is traveling -- should have long since moved past the stage of ensuring campaign finance rivulets flowing downhill like raging storm water from Summit Springs, straight into the mayor's aspirational State Senate coffers, and started the task of rendering our splendid Speck into adulterated sausage.

And then there's the ongoing "crosswalk corner concrete" demolition project, surely blocking your walk somewhere downtown.

As an aside, has there ever been a greater number of illegal street spam signs than Holy Family's current crop? Do Catholics have to follow the rules, too, or does the Sultan of TIF sell indulgences? 

On Facebook there was a substantive discussion about these lovely new corners, the likes of which seldom is permitted to break out at a Board of Works meeting, because lest we forget, the purpose of this and other appointed boards is containment, not illumination.

Bluegill leads things off with pesky facts.

1. The City of New Albany is tearing out and replacing handicap sidewalk ramps they poured new just a few years ago. There's no telling how many tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars we're needlessly spending. This is the second time in a few years that perfectly good sidewalk in front of our house has been torn out and replaced while the sidewalk on the side requires mowing and careful attention while parking to avoid tire damage. 

2. The excavation crew is way far ahead of the forming and pouring crew, but is doing both sides of the street so the sidewalk on both sides has been and will be completely closed to everyone, let alone anyone in a wheelchair, for days on end. Ridiculously bad (lack of) forethought and planning. 

3. The contracted company broke the small retaining wall in front of our house again. 

4. The entirety of city staff responsible for this sort of ongoing crap should've been fired a long time ago.

I added:

Also note that while baseball Hall of Famer Jim Rice, the HWC Engineering flak, told me that future traffic studies could be made to determine the eligibility of certain intersections for crosswalks, but only AFTER the two-way conversion was finished, now the ramps have been poured again prior to the retrofitting, matching those that were there before. So, it we're actually able to move leaden city planner and engineering asses forward, toward adding badly needed crosswalks, the ADA ramps won't match, and guess what -- they'll have to be redone yet again.

Bluegill replied:

Hell, the crosswalks and ramps we have now often don't match up or match each other, sometimes unnecessarily differing from corner to corner or from one side of a street to the other. And they're repouring them that way as we speak.

RC wrote:

I sure wish they would replace the really crappy sidewalk along our house, which has also needed mowing in the 11 years we've lived here.

Bluegill:

As I mentioned, none of this has to do with functionality, service to citizens, or even basic competence. It's purely a financial transfer scheme and Team Gahan is making the previous two mayors look like rank amateurs.

Speaking of which, in case you were wondering just how much the railroad crossing component of the two-street changeover was going to cost ... and bearing in mind the number of times in the past that luminaries like John Rosenbarger were overheard tsk-tsking the extreme expense of two-way streets owing to the railroad ... here it is: Two Progressive Pints shy of $203,000, or half of what Team Gahan subsidized Flaherty & Collins in sewer tap-in waivers to drag the Louisville skyline three miles closer to the saltwater pool on Spring.

Here are CSX-cerpts, and don't forget to nationalize the railroads.

Who do I invoice for weed whacking, the railroad or the city?

Damned if there isn't something in there. Wonder what it is?

It's the intersection of the alley and 15th Street, between Elm and Spring.

Still smarting from my rebuke at the hands of the pokeweed lumberjacks, I'm not letting this one go. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll tote my tools and start slashing. It'll be great exercise. There's also a "We Buy Houses" sign halfway up a utility pole on Spring.

I'll get that one, too, because I really detest street spam.

But listen, guys: If someone decides to pay me back for my citizen's initiative, can you just make out the check to the campaign?