NewUrbanStreets

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.

Many issues were considered when the City of Houston wanted to change parking meters. The change was to be from a mixture of single/dual space meters on a single post along with modern multi-space meters–recently added in the Cotswold area of downtown–to the more sophisticated solar-powered, micro-processor controlled, wifi networked, parking meter. This first post about our conversion relates how we mitigated the issue of the meter’s high-tech appearance in front of a historic structure.  I will offer other posts about the transition as you may be surprised how many hot points can be touched by a parking meter debate.

One of our Cotswold projects anticipated removing many old street bricks. We found bricks in many streets but the street where they were to be saved for reuse was also where we were removing unused old railroad tracks and placing the new water, waste water and storm water lines. But, we did not find enough bricks to rebuild the planned two blocks of Commerce Street either side of Main Street.

Looking back on that disappointment I now believe that was a blessing. Not that it was a bad idea but that we did not have the contract requirements in place to recreate a pavement equal to what our forefathers built. We also did not have a consistent brick source. We did plan plan to install the old bricks on a concrete slab to support the heavier vehicles of today.

Concrete unit pavers in crosswalks make a distinctive pathway and adds a classy touch to the intersection. By using different colors and placement  patterns  they can be a memorable place-making amenity. This post and several others that will follow will address placement configuration and issues that drive up maintenance cost.

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.