Ramping up

I’ll leave the last part of that definition for the politicians to haggle over. The first part, though, seems to clearly define what I’ve always considered to be infrastructure. It also aligns well with what Redwood City considers to be infrastructure, at least based on the city’s “Infrastructure Projects” webpage. That page lists planned and active projects to rework various roads, bridges and sidewalks; the Caltrain Grade Separation project; projects to maintain and upgrade our water and sewer systems; and flood management projects.

Infrastructure is something most of us take for granted and rarely pay much attention to — until it needs to be worked on, at which point it becomes hard to miss. Lately, it almost seems as if the city’s Public Works department is trying to bring some of its projects to my attention by deliberately starting them in places where I frequently find myself.

Closest to home is a project that affected both my wife and I, at least for a short time. For several years now, Redwood City has been replacing water mains throughout the city, with their most recent efforts being concentrated along a handful of streets in the vicinity of Whipple Avenue and Alameda de las Pulgas. There, in addition to running new water mains and branches to the houses along those streets, the city found themselves needing to replace a block-long 4-inch water distribution pipe beneath Whipple Avenue with a new 8-inch one. That project culminated this week, when it was time to switch the water service from the old pipe to the new. You can’t do that without shutting off the water, and that affected a number of homes in the nearby blocks — one of which was mine. Fortunately, we had ample warning, since on Wednesday we were without water service from roughly 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

For us, at least, the shutoff was no more than a minor inconvenience. For those living on the streets where the actual work took place, things were likely a bit more bothersome. But the job is pretty much done now, and I appreciate having had the opportunity to observe and photograph the work as it was going on.

More of an inconvenience, at least for me as a pedestrian, has been the great number of “curb cut” projects that the city has undertaken lately. Not the results, I hasten to add; these ramped curbs are terrific. But while they are under construction they greatly complicate the process of crossing the street — and Redwood City has been installing a lot of them lately. Particularly downtown, but also along parts of Whipple Avenue and Brewster Street, lately I’ve found myself having to detour around quite a number of these projects.

Each of these little detours gives me a tiny glimpse into what life must be like for the mobility-impaired among us. For instance, just last week I came to the intersection of Main Street and Middlefield Road, where all four corners of the intersection were getting ramps. My goal was the diagonally opposite corner, but with all four corners out of commission I found myself detouring to the middle of the block on Main Street and then again on Middlefield Road; fortunately, both streets have midblock crossings. It occurred to me that this somewhat circuitous route is likely the one a wheelchair or mobility scooter user making the same journey would have had to make prior to those curb cuts being installed. With the upgraded curbs, though, that same person can now navigate the corner and use the crosswalk like the rest of us. And so, I heartily applaud the city adding curb cuts to as many corners as they can.

While out walking, I often encounter sections of sidewalk being replaced, streets being resurfaced (or redesigned, as with Middlefield Road south of downtown), and streets being torn up to gain access to the pipes and cables hidden beneath. Streets, sidewalks, pipes and wires are all infrastructure, and are all things most of us seem to take for granted most of the time. But infrastructure needs to be maintained, and occasionally updated, to remain something we can mostly ignore, even as we use it. Fortunately, Redwood City is on the job.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.