rookzie

Well, I expect that Cancel Culture took care of the source(s) of that comment slobber. They probably left the meeting with bite marks on their a$$es...

I'm just a pop-up lurker per se ─ just spot-visiting from the Nashvile [TN] forum, to check how others are reacting to the new snail's pace of U-P. I'm hoping the software engineers get in gear to come up with a fast-fix. At my age, either I fall asleep between page-navigation loadings, or dementia has time to set in to make me forget why I even clicked a link in the first place. The members of the Nashville forum aren't that enthusiastic about it either. Thanks...

Thanks, PillowTalk4. We needed (and still do need) someone who actually sacrificed personally from the displacement. I was fortunate that the roulette ball didn't settle on my number, although I do recall family friends who did lose their homes and business property to the interstate. It's no point in my repeating what I stated in a much earlier post that the decision to revise the interstate route into the Black neighborhoods of the North Nashville district was based on property values, and therefore that indeed it was discriminatory along racial lines. Federal court proceedings and transcripts also revealed that the intentions among the decision-makers also was just outright racist in motive. The Metro government could learn much by studying and following the revitalization of the H-Street Corridor in NE Washington DC, the local government of which is based on the ward system. While far from being perfect, the efforts by the district ANCs (Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners) seem to have instituted multiple measures to effectively bolster both affordable and desirable housing for those who need it the most and who are native to that sub-district and both incentives and regulatory measures to keep in check against the adverse effects of gentrification and its exclusion. Instead of being razed and replaced, large sections of 120+ year old row houses owned and inhabited by Blacks have been retained by overlay and rehabilitated to retain existing residency, while concurrently allowing and incentivizing the construction of upscale enterprises. The DC H-Street Strategic Strategic Development Plan categorically restructured redevelopment for retail, entertainment, and urban living ─ all three interlaced along spatial boundaries within that community. This seems to work much, much better than Metro Nashville's rubber-stamp practice of application for rezoning, public hearings, and granting permits to a developer, as it sees fit. The plan also included a much improved transit plan, not only with increase in bus routes and frequencies but also a startup streetcar project. A desirable but often overlooked aspect of urban planning for a depressed area is that it has to attract people from all over, while retaining the historically native demographics and ethnographics, in order that it may be deemed a success.

I already was too freakin' wordy (so what's new?), with my take on the land bridge proposal(s). North Nashville's old-school grid already was rife with misalignments a century ago in almost every sub-community throughout the district in subject. This not to say the same doesn't apply with other parts of the city's old urban core. I agree with your statement in general about connectivity., particularly with respect to street access patterns. And the purported objective would be made far more impactful, if consideration were given to engineering some changes to the street array as a whole, not just the localized areas immediately adjacent to the proposed land bridges. Not even the park itself (a designated space on each of the two air-rights platforms proposed) would seem a useful asset without some more integrated approach to collateral planning.

While today “North Nashville” has been expanded to include all of the NNW and mid-NW extents of the county, most older-generation native Nashvillians refer to North Nashville specifically as the urbanized region most subjected to the effects of the urban freeway. This is the portion of old North Nashville within the corporation limits of 1963, before the consolidation of the city and county government. That’s defined roughly as all the contiguous area between 1st and 40th avenues and bounded by the Cumberland River, and north of Charlotte Ave., although officially the southern boundary would be Broadway / West End. The initial concept of the the urban expressway had the route generally follow closely parallel with Charlotte, as it does roughly west of 40th Ave., and join interchanges to other freeways in the downtown area. That had been the typical example and pattern for urban expressways nationwide for getting traffic into and away from the central business district. Before 1963, Bordeaux, which is now considered as part of North Nashville, was simply unincorporated area, mostly rural area. Within only 5 years of the Metro consolidation, condemnation by eminent domain had begun and construction commenced. The surface roadway connectivity lost within the North Nashville community, over a half century ago by the construction of I-40 and former I-265 (now I-65), actually became fragmented into 3 sub-regions by the northeasterly-to-southwesterly stretches of the urban expressway, and then further where I-40 sharply bends southward near Scovel and Jefferson streets at 12th Ave. The Jefferson Street / Centennial Blvd corridor was particularly hard hit by routing the highway crossings over and under it in the space of a mile and parallels the street in between, having drained the vitality from the businesses that lined that corridor. From the Jefferson Street Bridge on the east to TSU on John Merritt Blvd., somewhere between 25 and 30 surface-grid roadways were permanently severed by the expressway. Because of the finalized routing of the interstate to run NON-parallel to the street grid, except roughly between 12th and 24th avenues in the portion shown, reduced connectivity was compounded by the severing both north-south and east-west streets. Wide boulevards like 14th Ave were cut off and rejoined to others by new alignments in some cases, while in other cases, segments were turned into abrupt dead-ends, with no provisions for vehicle turning, as with sub-division cul-de-sacs. To the present, 8th, 18th (DBTodd), 28th avenues and even Jefferson Street itself have encumbered a much higher demand of traffic as arterials and frequently have been subjected to over-capacity traffic throughout any given day. The sharply reduced redundancy which formerly had afforded an organic system integrated with the network of mobility and access from other parts of the city, also has adversely affected the efficacy of basic transit by requiring excessive route weaving with an already marginal service. There is evidence to suggest that properties adjacent to the interstate right-of-way had witnessed an unusually rapid degree of deterioration, since clearance first began for the interstate project. Not only was the judgment that further deterioration would be imminent, especially in those areas adjacent to the interstate right-of-way, but also my personal observation has corroborated that assumption. This especially can be noticed along those severed streets turned into dead-ends, which currently do not have good access, in the absence of frontage road systems (that parallel and flank the interstate) . Alameda, Eden, and Morena streets west of 26th Ave are examples. Additionally, some streets became chopped into multiple segments, if they hadn’t already been as such by the railroad at the turn of the 20th century. Scovel St. always was a secondary street, but at one time (at the start of my driver’s license privileges in 1967) it had been a good alternative to Jefferson St. between 9th and 21st avenues. Now it’s so chopped up that the only meaningful piece would be the portion between 9th and 11th. The short portion of Scovel that runs south of I-40 in the map shown is nothing more than the remains of a former alley that got ripped lengthwise by I-40 almost like a piece of lumber in a mill. This discussion is focused on North Nashville, but the issue is not limited to affecting the primarily Black community of the Old North. It has affected White people as well, in other districts within the city, although arguably not as severely socially and economically as with the North. The same has occurred along I-65, both north and south of downtown, when the now-currently designated I-24 east of downtown was still I-65, before the latter was rerouted in the early 2000s to run concurrent with I-40 on the inner loop. Waverly and Melrose have seen strides, while Vine Hill, McFerrin Park and Cleveland Park have been slow to recover, the latter two in part because of the splitting effects of Ellington Pkwy.

I've posted at least once on a related topic, during the last 8 months. I expressed concerns with only promoting the cap (land bridge) as a standalone initiative, without coordinating it with a medium-term transit initiative by including it within a Jefferson Street Transit Corridor transformation proposal I drafted in 2019. This "cap" is a revisited watered-down version of the proposal offered as a concession by the former Department of Highways (TDOT) around 1969-70. That land bridge proposed in 1970 offered two options. The first and larger option would have capped off I-40 between 16th/17th Ave N and 21st and allowed more range for above-highway mixed development and additional north-south surface connectivity. The second and lesser option aligned more with this one pictured, with the western extent at 18th/DBTodd. The roadbed floor of I-40 reportedly already was excavated during construction (blasted through rock), to allow for a future cap at DBTodd. That first proposal (1970) did not include the land bridge between Jefferson and Jackson streets, where I-40 runs perpendicular to Jefferson. Both land bridges were included in proposal conceived in 2016 with submissions to the "Gateway to Heritage Walking Improvements Design Challenge" Application offered by Metro Nashville. In my opinion, they need to be on board with both land bridges ─ not just the one at DBTodd. I say this because, as I see it, the land bridge concept alone does little or nothing to engender a mass revival of redevelopment along the Jefferson Street Corridor, which by my definition extends from 33rd and John Merritt Blvd (at TSU main campus) to the riverfront (North Capitol). They both need to be considered concurrently because the proper structural engineering needs to be incorporated for any dedicated transit-way along the Jefferson Street Corridor.

^^I know that's right! Even in more recent "centuries" ─ er, rather, decades and years ─ I knew of a tight-knit set of "Traveler's Rests" strewn throughout our community, and not just on the "wrong" side of the tracks either. Not to suggest that I ever was a client, though ..

The standalone structure at the SW corner of 9th and Monroe originally had been the North Nashville First American Bank Branch (before the days of AmSouth, now Regions), prior to it's being replaced with a newer on at 8th and Madison, during the 1970s, if I recall correctly ─ directly across Madison from what the then-existing H.G.Hills grocerie market (now Eckerd-turned-Rite Aid). That was when that segment of 9th still crossed Monroe, past Cheatham Homes, and all the way to Buena Vista Elementary, just after it was severed by I-40 near Buchanan.

I never messed with it, but I do kind of miss the James from when I was a Virginian. The part I think you're referring to is near 14th St and upstream. 14th St is about where the City Canal ends parallel to the James and is the assumed extent inland of commercially navigable waters with a rather constrained shipping channel. I didn't particularly care for river where it swells up wide and deep just west of the (scary) Benjamin Harrison lift bridge (Hopewell). I lived mostly in the Hampton Roads region, where I either had to do the tunnels or get hung up on the US-17 lift bridge for container ships to and from Richmond Terminal. But those rapids in Richmond definitely are as you described.

You're the one (at least one), who could effect a positive difference here. I seem to have lost my window of opportunity with "aligning stars" of sidereal astrology. So far in 30 years (maybe 40), the Mid-State has gone nowhere materially, except for a few hybrid-electric buses and a shiny set of rebuilt stainless-steel gallery coaches and locomotive sets. At least transfers have remained free (for now). Then too, some would beg to differ.

All Yinz got me dreaming as if I'm still in my train riding mode back in the 1950s and '60s, when peeps still dressed up to travel on trains, and trains still went to just about anywhere ─ everywhere you've mentioned so far ─ and THEN some. The main idea behind the Amtrak rationale is not to emphasize L-D (long-distance) routes, as it was during my day, but rather "corridors" of medium-distance travel. Nashville –Louisville and points north there seem intuitive (which indeed they are, even to me), As for Nashville to Chattanooga, the infrastructure really isn’t’ suitable for passenger trains ─ not to say that it can’t be made suitable. There are several missing segments NOT on that map but that are missed opportunities. For example, the gap between Nashville and Louisville means Chicagoians need to go through New Orleans and Atlanta to get to Nashville. A direct route to Atlanta is needed. Neither Amtrak nor the half-baked (at best) proposals for suburban service southeast of Nashville is going to happen, without some momentous political will, but overall, it must be undertaken in steps. With Chattanooga being so close to ATL, and with the existing US-41 and I-75 corridors, Chattanooga to Atlanta is a given. Nashville sits where it is in the dead middle like a giant nimbus of ever-building “imbalance”, just waiting to discharge like a gigantic strike of lightning to connect to the existing passenger network, in a path of least resistance. That’s why Nashville needs to piggyback onto a Chatta-ATL route as one and the same, rather than in part. Interstate 24 is a parking lot, to preach to the choir. This is 2021, not 1971, which literally was half a century ago, and the year we unceremoniously lost the remaining vestige of service to ATL (StL-ATL). There are many reasons why Las Vegas, Nashville, Phoenix and Columbus have no passenger trains. One of the reasons is that the rail network has changed over the last fifty years. The tracks which were in place in 1970-1971 have in many cases been downgraded from passenger standards, or have been removed entirely, as what CSX did west of Nashville, IL between the podunks of Okawville and Rentchler/Belleville IL, about 22 years after that entire ATL-Nashville-St.Louis passenger service was cancelled. The severing of that relatively straight route further reduced the national infrastructure. In other cases, freight traffic has increased and/or runs slower. Most of what had been main-line double-tracked during the 1960s, long has been reduced to single track. Most of the national network evolution into the current “Precision Scheduling Railroading (PSR) freight mode began with the Carter administration, and systematic mega-mergers of railroads have only solidified that trend, while rendering parallel routes among former competing lines redundant and ripe for elimination. So currently there’s no room for expansion by merely sticking on a passenger train in the middle of existing traffic-control, as if it were a bus on a highway. Passenger rail doesn’t need to be true HSR (High Speed Rail) by golden definition to be effective, but it does need to be at least classified as “HigheER Speed” (90-125 MPH), consistent and reliable, as well as to serve with a frequency of no less than Twice Daily (not like the convenience store of the same name). This is the reason I say that medium corridors is the way to proceed with the state of the nation, as it is now. Medium-distance corridor proposals reflect a real effort to try to think about what kinds of routes could attract reasonable ridership instead of just drawing lines everywhere. I consider medium-distance as too long to drive, too short to fly (with exceptions). The lack of reliable funding for passenger rail capital projects and operations is one obstacle to rail planning, as some states (I know of 1 for sure, with 2 neighbors to the north) may not wish to invest time and resources into a plan that may not be achievable without additional federal support.

Oh well, maybe my tendonitis might go away a bit, from scrolling those captivating hi-res pix that seem to evolve from nowhere every second.. <ricky snickers> I know the frustration, since I've held off buying outright a modem for myself, until Comcast service stabilizes a tad more in my sub-, even though I did buy one last year for my mom's account (which I can better tweak for remote management). That said, Comcast did replace one I leased due to a lightning strike back in 2010. It even blew components of my own equipment ─ the integral NIC (Network Interface Card) on the PC motherboard; the external firewall device; and the network switch, since I hardwired my whole house back then for Ethernet. Fortunately (if there was any solace at all), I hadn't installed a 2nd switch needed for all the ports (48 capacity total). But I did go through extreme hoops to arrest most of those strikes by hammer-drilling several 4-foot grounding rods in the earth away from the foundation with buried copper ribbon, as well as to install solid copper bus bars as a grounding station from which are strung 8-ga solid copper grounding wires through the foundation top sill, as as to install fuse-protected signal-isolation blocks for the Ethernet downstream of the modem. It's not a 100% guaranteed, but so far it probably has saved me hundreds, if not even thousands on switching gear, let alone motherboards and add-on NICS. Believe you -> me, I totally empathize and therefore share the hurt!

My mom and I used to shop at that store as an A&P back in 1963 when we relocated from Central Illinois. On Saturday mornings, if it didn't have what my mom needed, we'd go to 9th Ave. just north of Monroe St. at the old Kroger, long since razed. Back then 9th Ave extended uninterrupted from Herman St. to the public boat slip at the Cumberland River, some 10 years before the Metro Center concept began to get underway. 9th got chopped up ─ first by the interstate which also severed all numbered streets through 17th Ave ─ and then with the Metro Center initiative during realignment with 10th Ave. 9th was cut yet again, when the current Kroger between 8th and 9th was built in the late 1990s, as Kroger had agreed to, when the state and city planned the current Farmers' Market on the site of the former Farmers' Market Warehouse store, which opened in November 1965. Kroger, which owned the then-new Warehouse store, moved from its location on 9th. Around the same period, the A&P building on Buchanan became occupied by Bestway Foods. A&P left the Middle-Tenn area altogether, although A&P would remain extant in many other parts of the nation for another 50 years. The Farmers' Market Warehouse store was closed around 1995 to make way for relocation and accommodation of the State Bicentennial Mall project already underway. The Farmers' Market Warehouse store perhaps had been Nashville's first 24-hour-a-day superstore for merchandising food, drugs, jewelry and other goods, even though state Blue Laws had remained in effect. All this chain-reaction timeline occurred under the McWherter and Sundquist administrations.

I have to admit though ─ Peabody Demonstration School (now University School of Nashville), when it still was a part of former Peabody College, did prepare me for real-world application, as well for transitioning to advanced work for my undergrad major. More importantly, it really helped form a framework for written and spoken communication, which back during the mid-1960s seemed rather challenging in the curricula of the then-newly-forming MNPS system, which I attended two years after relocating from Central Illinois. Then-current Nashville junior-high levels had been two competency steps lower than those of the grade-school and junior high from which I had transferred in Central Illinois (1963). Of course, back then we had a vastly different social environment with understood customs of the times. That framework seems to have served me well, as I bounced from one pursuit to another, and it has continuously been built upon to adapt as appropriate, even some 52 years past that first tassel-turning ceremony. Nowadays I just coast and "graze" the pastures.

I'd have to take a chunk of time to formulate and "draft" an updated response to the Radnor relocation concept. In the meantime I copy here what I posted on that issue in July 2016: ________________ In theory, the CSXT lines that radiate from the city (excluding the Radnor Cutoff bypass, Englewood to Radnor via Shelby Bottoms), *could* comprise an excellent framework for each of the long proposed corridors along those routes. I also made previous mention long ago of a glaring, missed window of opportunity to coordinate redevelopment plans in the Gulch with commuter rail and or rapid transit. Compared to commuter rail, light rail terminal in the Gulch might have been potentially the only viable consideration in the 2000s and the early 2010s, because such a network could have been planned and incrementally built, as CSX continued to sell off much of its industrial real estate back then. But any ability to utilize existing rail RoW for either dedicated urban or "interurban" (commuter) rail virtually has remained unchanged now since that period, due to the enormous cost of funding infrastructure that would be acceptable to CSX, the city, and the Mid-State as a whole. IMHO there simply isn't sufficient redundancy in CSX's divisions and sub-divisions which pass through this region. That's a huge logistics constrain in its own right, let alone terminal interchange at Radnor or a relocation of such an operation within the Mid-State. That redundancy existed along the Lower Great Lakes border and the Atlantic Seaboard regions, to the extent that much of it either was abandoned or more favorably approved for repurposing under concerted and consortial agreements by state governments and local agencies, such as with Virginia and Florida. In summary, a lack of rail-route redundancy in this area, in conjunction with topographical constraints, and a relocation of Radnor seem to make highly unlikely the probability of transforming the city rail into a core system of regional travel.

I immediately KNEW he was a REAL sicko when I read that headline.

The proposed structure is "cute", but it only perpetuates that suburban-like stretch between the fire station and I-440. Worse than that though, for over 40 years the city and the state have failed to address the "constricted artery" effect along that course. With constrained roadway width, it's far too narrow to configure a center turn lane, as was able to be done I believe during the Dean administration, on the section of the same thoroughfare (Hillsboro Pk), just south of I-440 between Lombardy/Sharondale and Crestmoor. Allowing full-time left turns ─ especially during rush (which could be ANYtime during a given day) ─ only exacerbates the bad situation. I've long gotten so I avoid that section of 21st at any cost, just to eliminate the aggravation of someone turning left, which even disrupt the flow in the curbside lanes. Just my rant, but I just can't really look forward to redev south of Blair, unless that issue finally gets nipped in the bud, which likely never will happen.

Most of Nashville's riverfront properties historically had (has) been either industrial or undeveloped, for nearly a hundred years. This includes the pictured content (credit to Chris Holman) in this aerial view of the Silliman Evans Bridge under construction at its northern approach to and from I-40 (I-24 was yet not even close to being in existence in the core). The Eastbank and much of the Westbank had been mini versions of the big Cockrill Bend industrial area, well into the 1980s, with such activity persisting into the early '90s. The 1950s saw a surge in this heavy industrial action, mainly the result of post-WW-II / Korean War modernism, not unlike that of other cities. Steiner-Liff Industries (now PSC) began its around 1954 as an iron-and-metals recycling, and as Steiner-Liff Textiles, and Steiner-Liff Wiping Cloths. I personally bought from them some small rolls of fabric and other textile-based retail items, back during the '70s, and during the early '90s I sold a sizable amount of copper bus bars from dismantled electrical distribution equipment before it was trucked away for commercial trade. With varying high and low elevations on the Eastbank, very few residential structures had ever been built along the river meanders between Cornelia Fort Airpark and Bordeaux Gardens (near County Hospital Rd.). Even what is referred to now as North Capitol, north-south between Jefferson Street, and the CSX river crossing and extending to 8th Ave., had been far more industrial ─ to an extent heavy industrial ─ during the 1940s and '50s. The development of industrial properties along near-downtown had been no less an extension of what had evolved along the Westbank, and back in those days, businesses regarded proximity to the urban core as a primary operating advantage, since there was little concern for high property costs that have trended during the last 30 years. Most of these businesses had been served by railroad or by river terminal, but as we all realize, the need for the transport and even the business models themselves has all but vanished or become reformulated into other business contexts. That retention pond at Steiner-Liff always have been prone to flooding, but not as much as the area along the bend and the SoBro area as a whole had been, before the opening of Old Hickory Dam upstream around 1954, about the same time that Steiner-Liff began business. When I was very young, downtown used to flood regularly in the "Hole", what is now the area roughly bordered between Broadway and Molloy St. and frequently westward up to around 2nd or 3rd Ave at spots. In Chris' 1961 photo, the Ozburn-Hessey Terminal building on the westbank is barely visible in the background. It's the rectangular structure immediately behind the center span of the Shelby Street Bridge and was located at 1st and Broadway. It had been a river terminal at which railroad (Tennessee Central) boxcars used to be loaded and unloaded along a riverside deck track that extended along the east (river) side of the building. Enlarging the photo on Chris' previous post will reveal a barge anchored beside that terminal. Also in the photo viewing north along 1st Ave., one can observe the roadway intersection (at Broadway) in the upper-middle of the photo. That track that is shown running along the warehouses uphill beyond that intersection had still been in use as late as 1980-'81. I recall a 50-foot boxcar spotted at a dock halfway up toward the next street (Church Street) and appropriately chocked for safety. One also can barely make out the old Woodland Street Bridge in the upper-right edge. Printed sources state that current replacement of that old iron bridge was opened in 1966. But I beg to differ, as I distinctly recall riding the Scott Ave, city bus (then under the Nashville Transit Company) on detour across the Victory Memorial Bridge in July 1967, while the new Woodland St. Bridge had still been under construction. I also had observed the visiting Delta Queen riverboat docked on the river below. The old Woodland St Bridge was the site of a horrific lynching in 1892. Ephraim Brizzard, a black man, was punished for simply interracial contact with two white sisters in the Goodlettsvile area. His brother Henry had been hanged earlier by a white mob for the incident, while Ephraim had been awaiting trial. He was dragged from jail by a white mob and hanged on this bridge (the one shown). Reportedly, his hanging body was shot nearly 100 times, taken to be shown to the family of the white sisters, and then burned. Very few Nashvillians are aware of this noteworthy but obscure bit of local history. Not sure that I posted before this photo of the passenger train, which shown just departed from the Tennessee Central depot on 1st Ave S, near Molloy St. around 1953 and headed for Baxter, Cookeville, Crossville, and Harriman. This particular scene was shot just before the opening of Steiner-Liff metals. It also shows the Ozburn-Hessey terminal in the background (tele-photo view). This daily run would be discontinued in 1955.

"Not a great picture unfortunately," you say? Hell, that's a Great picture! I ain't "gohn" miss that joint one iota! The few times I did go to that station, I had to dress all tacky and and unshaven, just to feel as if I fit in, which for me isn't hard from the start. [iSnickers...]

That one in particular really did a sucker punch on my heart. Not only had I driven by that structure zillions of times and rubber-necked to it during the last 30 years, but it used to draw my attention every time I would ride the Jefferson St. bus back in the mid-to-late 1950s, when Germantown had remained basically still "untouched". Symbolically it meant a "whole lot" to me.

Maybe caking some Revlon gloss on the front will make it go through the air faster...-=

I rarely let myself become ensnared in Op-Eds, which what I consider your comment, MLBrumly. I'm just a benign Dust Devil, afraid of turning into a full-fledged Twister. In ruminating thoughts and observations of the past 28 years since my return to the area after a long absence, your commentary says for me (and perhaps for others) exactly what I could not express in words for my own feelings and frustrations. In this case, I would give you the Award of the Week , but I have nothing to confer or present to you, except maybe a few "polished apples". The Smeags (smeagolsfree) also comes close to doing that a lot, but then too he's got Carte Blanche, so to speak.

Meanwhile..... Even during COVID-19 as a "period" of mass deferments, Kansas City forges on with yet more federal grant funding to augment its current but modest streetcar line. This time just a few days ago, KCMO was awarded a huge $174 M grant, on top of what it received from the feds last September and August ─ $50.8 M and $14.2 M respectively. After wrangling dangling on threads for a start-up funding dating from 2012, to an initial launch in 2017, the city has judiciously demonstrated and created a case for itself to successfully compete for the national awards, which, with secured matching funding, will allow it to now fully fund a federally approved compound expansion. It has taken steps, just as KC learned early on the hard way, rather than to push for quantum leap with a single ambitious proposal. It has taken special taxing districts, and it has taken the passing of a timely posed referendum to the voters, a month after the failure of the Nashville referendum of May 2018. But as I've said at least twice in the 7+ years I've been on this blog, it takes something to get something. KC already had something up and running by then, even if only barely. "It-City" Nashville just doesn't seem to have IT yet ─ instead the "studies" and town meetings being like one big vicious circle of Ground Hog Day. FTA locks in $174M grant for KC streetcar extension (I don't believe this article is behind a paywall)

Final Curtain Call for the Yellow-Brick house on the former state property recently sold to the Community Foundation and located at the intersection of Belmont Blvd. and Woodmont Blvd. Thanks to markhollin for his earlier announcement on the condition of this 1920 house pending the final disposition of this structure (described above). These photos captured the razing still underway at 2:00 PM today. Water is being sprayed to mitigate airborne dust. Quite fitting that the acronym for the state’s previously designated use of this multiple-parcel property, “Regional Intervention Program”, would ultimately apply in this case — R.I.P.

I'm afraid not ─ not even close. The track, which has been in disuse for 80 years, has assumed a state far beyond repair. Even "preserved"(as it were) from direct exposure to the surface, the rails no longer would be in gauge, due to the natural decay of the wooden ties and the advanced state of corrosion of the gauge rods, anchors, joint bars and bolts that secure the rails and maintain the track geometry. Most likely the rails themselves are broken in a number of places and have also fallen victim to "cancerous" pitting from severe corrosion, not to mention the metallurgical defects which have developed throughout the rails. In the case of the Belmont Blvd tracks, which formed an inbound and outbound pair (ending in a stub and crossover at the southern end), the tracks physically are buried well below the current surface level, after intentional regrading of the roadbed and utility upgrades. I recall somewhere on this thread years ago that I mentioned having observed both tracks exposed in a street backhoe excavation to replace a gas line. The Jefferson St. tracks were seen much closer to the existing surface, but most (if not all) were removed within the last 15 years during a major street makeover, likely because the tracks adversely affected the stability of the roadbed between resurfacings.