This post is for the purpose of celebrating the generations of people who have worked for many years in our urban places long before the term urban was used and blogs were read. Our reconstruction/revitalization of the historic end of downtown Houston dug through some of the oldest soil in the city. When we rebuilt Commerce St. at Fannin St. we were only a few feet from Allen’s Landing where Houston began. 
Anyone who rebuilds a street and sidewalk has faced the issue of making the new installation meet the ADA requirements for accessibility.
The challenges are not exceeding the maximum slopes at the crosswalks and entries into buildings while also meeting the elevation of cross-streets and making sure the gutter slopes are adequate so the area drains to the inlets. (more…)
This p
ost is to relate the process we went through to remove ATT’s cable draped between short poles from the sidewalk. If you are considering a similar improvement be warned that ATT is only one of the communication companies that often have cables on poles. Removal of each cable will take you through a similar process but each company will have its own quirks.
The process for the relocation on Crawford Street from Preston to Commerce (map) was as follows. (more…)
Today is December 1 and that has always been a special day for me as it is my father’ birthday. He is 88. Forty-one of those years was spent as an engineer for the telephone company. A lot of what he worked on was overhead “plant” as he called it–the wires and poles that line streets, highways and country roads.
All urban places these days want to remove those poles and wires that is now large fat cables or nested small fiber optic cables. That can be done but as usual the only way is with a lot of money.
The first question though is where to move it. (more…)
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