ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 21, 1996 TAG: 9603210006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
THE SUSPENSE, thank goodness, is over. It will be the "Market Square Walkway." The name comes across as unpretentious and straightforward in a square sort of way, if a bit pedestrian.
Whatever. It's fine with us.
It may not satisfy those who'd hoped for a name as dazzling as the bridge's $7 million price tag. But never mind. City Council members, with cause, wanted closure. After months of getting calls and letters and being accosted on the streets by name-droppers with clever suggestions (``Star Trek" anyone?), council members had had enough. Market Square Walkway provides a descriptive if not a distinctive solution.
The curious thing is that council seemed to spend more time agonizing over a name than about the costs that kept escalating. From the time the project was first proposed in 1990, estimates rose from $1.45 million (April 1992) to $2.5 million (February 1993) to $3.2 million (June 1994) to $5.3 million, maybe $6.8 million tops (September 1994).
The air of indifference may have something to do with the fact that the Virginia Department of Transportation had agreed to pick up 98 percent of the costs (with help from the feds).
We can think of better ways to spend $7 million than on a humongous glass-enclosed (but not air-conditioned) span, out of character with the railroad it crosses, for pedestrians to take the five-minute walk from the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center to the market area. But that's water under the bridge now. The walkway is a good thing for the downtown.
It's not like this is the first time project costs have exceeded estimates. The Roanoke Civic Center cost double the $7 million projected for it in 1969. Salem's new baseball stadium cost twice its original $5 million estimate.
The important thing is we have a swanky new landmark that, as its architects said it should, ``makes a statement'' about Roanoke. The statement may be that price is no object, but at least when it comes to naming a thing, we keep it humble and sensible.
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