NewUrbanStreets

Historic street brick have been reused in the newly re-programed, re-built and opened Market Square Park. The history and art in the previous incarnation was preserved and expanded while adding a lot more to do.

In my opinion the key to a long-life concrete or brick unit paver surface–assuming the foundation structure is properly built–is re-sanding. As discussed in other articles at this blog the sand is the “glue” that “locks” the individual pavers together.

During the eight years of street reconstruction in downtown Houston Texas we found many historic street bricks that paved the early streets of Houston in the mid-1800s. The City’s policy was to save the bricks for use in future projects. Two projects have been identified and so there was a need to sort the stored bricks and finally return some of them to service.

Concrete unit pavers are getting a bad reputation in some circles as they have not provided a care-free pavement. But, there is no such thing as care-free pavement. Some just need more care than others and that is the case with concrete unit pavers–particularly in high traffic situations in a wet environment. Ironically loose sand is what holds them together.

Concrete sidewalks can become an addition to the streetscape rather than just a gray strip that contributes nothing to the experience. Replacing the entire sidewalk is usually not feasible. We tried something new that uses the existing sidewalk as the framework and only replaces a uniform area that can be easily removed and filled to create a classy, customized feature.

You need to seriously consider the type of traffic the concrete unit pavers in crosswalks must support. Keep in mind that in many urban streeets the right-side curb lane is used by buses and face a much greater range and frequency of heavy loads than do the other lanes. In addition, I believe, the crosswalk on the approach side of the intersection experiences a greater load from the buses–and to some extent cars–because when the signal changes to green the vehicles are accelerating harder as they cross over those pavers than when they cross the paver crosswalk on the other side of the intersection.