The gap in the Dave Clark Path looked like this on Tuesday evening.
Pavement issues in Albany come in all sizes. This one is surely one of the smallest and least troublesome. But it’s on the Dave Clark Path, so it rates a notice on my riverfront beat.
I’m talking about the section of the path at Jefferson Street — if the street went all the way to the river.
For the past year or so there had been a sharp hump there. The concrete pathway was being pushed up by some unseen force below.
For a couple of weeks now, the concrete forming the hump has been cut away and replaced by a gap, roughly a foot wide and filled with loose rock.
What happened? As usual, Rick Barnett had the answer. He’s the parks and facilities manager in the Albany Parks and Recreation Department.
What he explained was that the concrete path at that spot rests on a metal structure that bridges a low point at the edge of the riverbank. When I looked at it Tuesday, the visible part looked like a steel I-beam.
“The metal bridging part expanded and put substantial force on the concrete, causing it to rise,” Barnett wrote in an email. “We measured the shift to make sure that it wasn’t a large-scale problem.”
The gap was cut to eliminate the hump. It won’t stay like that forever. Sooner or later there will be some kind of patch.
“At this point we are working on solutions that give it a little space to expand and provide a good surface,” Barnett wrote.
The path was completed in early 2004. If memory serves, the bump at that spot, caused by expansion of the steel underneath, was not a problem until recently.
Don’t tell me global warming or climate change is going to get the blame for this too. (hh)
Looking at the steel bridging that’s holding up the path at this point.
Give us a break, Hasso. We know you don’t believe in man-made global warming or in global warming, at all. It is your version of being a Luddite. We get it . You don’t have to keep slyly inserting your belief into your articles.
Do you seriously expect him to interject YOUR belief instead? Start your own blog.
You may not believe it because this is just a piddly little foot bridge, but global warming is a significant cause in the deterioration of bigger bridges.
The National Institutes of Health published a 2019 study on the impact of climate change on the integrity of bridges.
The study revealed that “for each 1 degree C increment in temperature range, the interaction equation value increases approximately 2%.”
For the unwashed like you, this means continuous reduction in bridge capacity if government doesn’t intervene immediately to stop human caused global warming.
Please buy and read “The Climate Book” by Greta Thunberg or (for older adults like you) “What Can I Do” by Jane Fonda.
Greta and Jane know what every government must force everyone to do immediately (no fossil fuels, pay a carbon tax, mandatory vegan diets, no tree cutting, buy their books, etc.)
My shy insertion is: Gretta and Jane don’t know diddle. Yes even the main stream media sees the scam of hysterical immediacy.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a fix. I know one location where “trip hazards” at sidewalk joints took three years from time reported to repair.
Why should the sidewalk be any smoother than the adjoining roadway? Everyone must suffer the same. ‘Tis the way of socialism.
Please allow me to fix it for you ABE CEE!
“‘Tis the way of Capitalism”
Carry on!
Drop the climate harangues and fret about/deny something much more insidious- magnetic pole reversal. Don’t think it’s not happening underneath our very feet and could be the cause of anything nor yet understood? Think again, and thank NASA for bringing it to our attention (back in 2011, no less, when the D-H was great.)
#2012: Magnetic Pole Reversal Happens All The (Geologic) Time