Back in July, we brought you a story about new bike lanes and associated improvements on 52nd street in Midtown Indianapolis.
Recently, more action was taken towards finishing this project. For the last month and a half it has had a single layer of pavement over the prior removed roadbed. Crews moved in and started reconstructing the old and broken sidewalks. Normally, I would call this a cause for celebration but in this case, I am not so sure.
If we backtrack just a bit to the last post I made on this topic, I reported that Indy Hostel had started an online petition to urge the city to do something about the utility poles that line the south side of the street, and also which lie directly on the sidewalk.
Apparently, that has fallen on deaf ears, or been completely disregarded. I can only think that this happened because of the great expense of utility relocation. I will not say much more on this and instead let the photos do the talking as they do a good enough job of illustrating what is going on here. One last comment that I would make is this. If the Department of Public Works goes out of it’s way to install rumble strips at each cross walk, an ADA compliance design, they why too are they not required to remove poles that lie directly in the middle of a sidewalk? Are they not dangerous to disabled pedestrians; Or for non-disabled to simply have to navigate around them? Is there some sort of law that has some fine print which allows them to circumvent the relocation of these?
“Love” the fire hydrant location in the first pic. There’s no way a person in a wheelchair or motorized cart could get around that.
A much simpler and cost-effective solution would be to put the sidewalk against the building (where it should be) and have a grassy section separating it from the street where the poles could stand in peace. Is that too much common sense?
That would work in some places but the entire street doesnt have as much room as the building in these pictures. The closer you get to College Ave, the less space there is. I agree that its the right thing to do though.