Sidewalk details

WARNING:  Long and boring, unless you are interested in sidewalks.

Sidewalks are no place to ride bikes.  It's actually against the law (I think) to do so.

Speaking of which, next time you're walking downtown in front of a large-ish building built since the '70's or thereabouts, imagine the following: in the months prior to the beginning of construction, one of the many meetings in the city between the design team and the bureaucrats focused on the sidewalk in front of the building.  Such a mundane strip of concrete, nary a thought as one traverses it.

Eighteen of us convened today in a 2 hour meeting to discuss the interface between building (private) and street (public), a meeting which crystallized in my head the rampant territorialism between agencies and within agencies, and the inherent conflicts between owners and their design consultants as we muddled through a "Preliminary Design Review Meeting" of the streetscape in front of a 130 unit mixed use commercial/residential project on the upper portion of Georgia Avenue in D.C.  The details are dry and boring to all except the 18 of us who staked our claims in various ways.

The more interesting aspects of such boring get togethers are the moments of visceral tension that occur when people act human and drop their business masks.  We got off to a smashing start when the coordinator of the meeting frostily stated that he couldn't hear a question "because of the cellphone" that someone was using AT THE CONFERENCE TABLE, only to be followed by a statement that this was going to be a complete waste of time because the preparatory materials were not adequate, but, since we're all together now let's just have this meeting.  Great start.

Two hours later, despite our consultants' "lack of materials", we came away from this with a load of new design problems to resolve and the prospect of a looming battle between the Department of Transportation and the mother of all monopolies, PEPCO.  DOT:  "Where did PEPCO want to put the electrical vault?  In the roadway?  Hello, it's OUR roadway."  Direct quote from the meeting coordinator dude, who couldn't be snarkier if he tried.  Despite the attitude, I've gotta recognize that he did a good job re-directing the meeting and handling the dozen or so agencies that had to dip into this mess, like street trees, lighting, parking meters, curb material, sidewalk paving patterns, etc.  Things we see everyday but don't even think about.

Since this meeting was unplanned (last minute request that I be there, and am I glad I was there), it blew my afternoon apart.  Upon arriving home I changed out the kitchen light fixture and sat on the bike for about an hour, satisfied that I could finish SOMETHING and spin the tension away...

No N2 for me tomorrow, maybe a late ride.  I'm shootin' paint balls at my son, his friends, and a bunch of other dads.  YEEHAW!!