Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 30, 1995 TAG: 9510020008
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WINFRED NOELL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I say more because I stated in a previous letter to the editor (Nov. 12, 1994, ``Consider a better way to get across the railroad tracks'') that this walkway was too expensive, too elaborate, and greatly out of sync with the hotel and its surroundings. The vista from downtown toward the hotel - what many thought to be a postcard shot - suffered another big blow.
Well, that's all history now. We have the walkway and that's that. So, how do we use it? What did we learn from the experience? What do we call it?
Surely, for $7 million, it's not going to be used just to walk from one side to the other side. Heck, for that kind of money, a stretch limo with driver could have been stationed there to drive everybody across in air conditioned comfort via the Hunter Viaduct.
A few suggestions for uses that might let that $7 million go down easier:
Let's trade in the escalators at the south entrance for two giant hydraulic cylinders to be placed under the south end of the walkway to raise and lower the whole thing up and down. This would put a whole new slant on things. Just think, we would be the only city with a kneeling walkway. There's a name, "Kneeling Walkway" or "Bowing Walkway.'' Remember, people, for $7 million - one-sixth the price of the hotel renovation - this thing has to perform.
With hydraulic cylinders in place, we could lower one end and have Roanoke's soapbox derby races in there. We could call it the "Windex 500.'' Another first, the only soapbox derby track with an adjustable incline and the only all-weather track.
With lots of talk about greenways around Roanoke these days, let's fill that thing from end to end with green plants and create a greenway right downtown. Tropical plants only, nothing else could stand the heat. We could call it the "Flying Greenhouse,'' "Greenhouse Lane," or "Biosphere Walk.''
At Christmas, we could have the "Festival of Trees" in the walkway. This would really look great at night with all the tree lights glowing and trains passing underneath.
The most appropriate use is to become a monument. Roanoke doesn't have many monuments like Richmond does, so we need some more. This structure could become a monument to the national debt. The electric deficit sign on the Star City Diner is looking for a home, and I can't think of a more fitting place than right on top of our new footbridge. Makes sense to me. After all, 98 percent of the tab was picked up by the state and federal governments. This explains why the spending got so out of hand. It's easy to spend a little of your own money and a lot of somebody else's.
I can see it now, in the dark of night, people landing at the airport seeing this sign lighting the darkness as the numbers whiz by, showing an ever larger tally for someone else to pay.
Without thousands of projects like this across our country, the debt sign wouldn't even exist. What a crime it would be to let a $4,000 sign go to waste. So, let's put it up there and be proud of what we do best.
Do we learn from our experiences? Not really, for in sight of this expensive footbridge, at Second Street, another very expensive project is about to begin. It seems, in my view, as if there's something wrong with this road and bridge project.
Like, why is so much money being spent for such a small area of the downtown to be included in an inner-city loop? Three blocks to the west there stands a brand new four-lane bridge that could have been part of the downtown loop, saving the cost of the new super bridge at Second Street. Surely, businesses and/or potential businesses west of Second Street would like to have had that traffic coming by their place.
The truth is that it's easy to be critical. But still, I say we need to think things through a little better. It's hard to understand why a footbridge needs to be as big and fancy as the one we have, and an inner-city loop that you drive your car around has to only take in an area of three blocks east to west and about five blocks north to south.
Winfred Noell, of Roanoke, is a truck driver.
by CNB