Sunday, March 6, 2016

Infrastructure redo

While the rest of the American infrastructure seems to be crumbling beneath our very feet (witness Flint, MI), little ol' Lexington suddenly seems to be a national leader in infrastructure renewal.

Three years ago we saw the Center Street bridges over Abbott's Creek at the south end of town and the one over Business I-85 at the north end of town undergo major face lifts. Both at the same time (see here). That was fun, wasn't it?

Prior to that, the Center Street bridge spanning the Southern Railway line was brought into the 21st century.

And now, another Center Street bridge, the one crossing over Talbert Boulevard, is currently getting its makeover. It wasn't too long ago that the bridge was plagued by a sink hole, so undoubtedly the new span was needed. I'm pretty sure nobody wanted to cross Talbert by driving through a sink hole to get under the bridge.

Waiting patiently for a new bridge to appear...
And, before too long, the Highway 8 bridge over Business I-85 will not only be rebuilt, but a whole new interchange will take its place.

Every time you turn around, it seems, a new bridge is replacing an old one. All this improvement has to make Lexington one of the most progressive places on the planet. A model of small town infrastructure reform.

The detours are tedious, of course. My wife works at an office, near the old hospital, that is within sight of the bridge construction. But this also requires rerouting traffic, and what used to be a simple five-minute drive from our house to her workplace parking lot has doubled in time.

With all the bridge work that's already been done in town, we should be used to it by now. Besides, we're running out of bridges to fix.

The detours do seem to be a small price to pay for the improvement that is coming. The projected completion date for the bridge is sometime in August — before winter —  so we seem to be moving right along.

Kinda feels neat to be a national leader, doesn't it?








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