Here’s my column from the Sunday paper. If you’ve already read it elsewhere, please skip on down to the comments below. Thanks.

IT’S NOT YOU; IT’S THE BRIDGE

Alert reader Bonnie called the other day because she’d like to take a walk across the Lowry Avenue Bridge.

The Minneapolis bridge has been closed since April because it’s falling apart, but Bonnie says that she and her dog don’t weigh that much and would be unlikely to bring it down. Couldn’t the sidewalk at least be open?

The problem isn’t the weight of loads on the bridge, says Jake Bronder, a Hennepin County engineer; it’s that the bridge is unstable even when there’s nothing on it. If it decides to shift or give way, they don’t want pedestrians (or canines) going with it.

There’s not much boat or barge traffic underneath to worry about, Bronder said, but there are monitoring devices on the bridge, and the county keeps the Coast Guard updated.

BLACK AND WHITE

Alert reader Rob has been keeping an eye on the pavement, and he has a question:

Why are the white stripes encased in black on some of the freeways now?

Roadguy has noticed this phenomenon on the curvy part of Interstate 94 in downtown St. Paul:

Heather Lott, who’s in charge of signs and stripes on metro-area freeways, says white dashes don’t show up as well on concrete as they do on asphalt. So in some places, a black border — called contrast tape — is added to make the stripes easier to see.

Over the past few years, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has been putting the tape on east-west concrete freeways that get a lot of morning and afternoon glare, Lott said, and in places where the stripes don’t line up with the joints in the concrete.

PICKING UP THE TAB

Now that the route of the Central Corridor light-rail line has been decided, alert and emphatic reader Caleb has a question:

Do you know where the money is coming from for this project????

The short answer, Caleb, is you, the taxpayer. Here’s the breakdown for the $892 million line:

• $446 million from the federal government (50 percent)
• $268 million from the new county transit sales tax (30 percent)
• $89 million from the state (10 percent)
• $62 million from Ramsey County (7 percent)
• $27 million from Hennepin County (3 percent)

So unless Caleb moves to Wisconsin and hides from the IRS, we can thank him for helping out.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.