The SELA endgame

Soooon. Very soon. But not yet.

A month-long partial closure of the busy Uptown intersection of Magazine Street and Louisiana Avenue is set to begin Thursday (July 5), according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The closure figures in the continuing construction of a drainage canal on Louisiana Avenue amid the Corps' years-long Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control project, or SELA.

Starting Thursday, traffic on Magazine heading downtown toward Louisiana will have to detour before reaching the intersection. Traffic on Magazine heading Uptown toward Louisiana will be able to pass through the intersection without detour. Two-way traffic on Louisiana will not be affected, the Corps says.

They are saying this is going to be finished by the end of the year at which point it might be possible to move about Uptown relative freely again.

Meanwhile, the latest update I can find about plans to finish the landscaping on Napoleon Avenue is from 2016. 

The exact plan of the landscaping cannot be drawn until the construction is absolutely complete, and Boh Brothers has submitted their own “as-built” specifications of the exact location of each new underground utility line, Wagner noted.


“I’d hate to put an oak tree on top of a new city line,” Wagner said.

Aiming for the spring planting season in 2017 is also somewhat complicated by Mardi Gras, he noted, as the crowds on Napoleon Avenue likely be harmful to newly-planted landscaping.

So, anyway, that never happened. Halfway through 2018 now and no one has planted even the first crepe myrtle out there.  Maybe that's out of the plan now? 

I just needed to post something

I'm writing some long-ish posts right now about (1) The Trump style in public corruption (2) Mitch's plan to go full Giuliani on Bourbon Street (3) Carnival season (4) Miscellaneous. But that's all taking a very long time and I just started to feel that CONTENT NOW blogger's itch. So look! They're almost done with the SELAwork on Napoleon.



They were out laying sod samples along the edges of the neutral ground last week. It's not clear whether they're going to do the whole thing yet. I thought I'd read they were going to leave it entirely until after parade season. So it was a little suprising to see this rolling out at all.



This week the crown of the median is still bare. In the meantime they have moved on to actually paving the street.



From the looks of things, the work on Napoleon could all be wrapped up in about a week or so if the weather cooperates. But the Great Walls dividing Uptowner from Uptowner will stay with us on Jefferson and Louisiana Avenues for at least another year, probably longer. So let's not schedule that Scorpions concert just yet.

Free the Krewe Of Chad!

The Corps has good news!

Napoleon Avenue parade-goers can get their “Neutral Ground Side” T-shirts out of the mothballs for Mardi Gras 2017, because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced that all construction on the avenue will be complete before the first parades roll in 2017.


“The project is scheduled to be complete early next year and the neutral ground will be available for parade goers to stand on for Mardi Gras 2017!” according to a celebratory post on the Facebook page for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control project.

Yay, we did it. On time for Mardi Gras. You're welcome, everybody. 

Except we won't be all the way all the way finished. 

More specifically, all major construction on Napoleon Avenue will be finished by the time the first Uptown parade, the Krewe of Oshun, rolls at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, according to information released by U.S. Army Corps spokesman Ricky Boyett’s office. The sod will be placed on entire length of the neutral ground, no areas of it will be fenced off, and no holes will remain open in the ground because construction on the underground box culvert is already finished.

If any work on Napoleon Avenue is still unfinished by that point, it will only be minor items like individual curb or sidewalk repairs, Boyett’s office said. Landscaping of the entire Napoleon Avenue neutral ground is then scheduled for the fall planting season in 2017, officials have said.

That's fine, though. It's actually an improvement on the last update, in a way.  In October, they said the sodding wouldn't be finished until after Mardi Gras. Now they're saying it will be. On the other hand, we only learned that much because we noticed they had moved the project completion date from November 2016 to July 2017. The response at that point, promised construction would finish up in December.

@skooks Spoke with the Corps. There's no (major) change in the completion date. Construction will be done in December. 1/2

— Jeff Adelson (@jadelson) October 12, 2016

Well, it's December now and the new update via this "celebratory post on Facebook" is that they are actually planning to finish "in time for Mardi Gras."  That's good news. But it's still pretty much an announcement that they've missed their target again.  Hope they get this new deadline right.  

Another SELA Mardi Gras

The last update from S&WB that I'd paid any attention to came several months back during the spring. At that time, we were told that the SELA drainage work on Napoleon Avenue would be completed "by the end of the year."

The long-awaited end of the Napoleon Avenue drainage-canal project is now expected to be the end of the year — all of it — and landscaping on the neutral ground should be done next year, officials with the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told neighbors Thursday night.


The section of Napoleon from South Claiborne to Carondelet Street is all but finished already, said engineer Ron Spooner of the S&WB and John Fogarty of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during a town-hall meeting at the St. Stephen Catholic Church school cafeteria. The box canal has been completely installed, and Boh Brothers contractors are now finishing up replacing curbs and sidewalks that were removed during construction.

In recent months, their progress has been evident.  Most of the culvert is finished and buried.  The intersection at Camp Street has reopened. Others are tantalizingly close to completion.  At the same time, though, they clearly have a lot of work left to do.



So today I happened to glance at the project site to find that the completion date has quietly been moved to July 2017.  Get ready for another parade season in the construction zone.

UPDATE: Thanks to the Advocate's Jeff Adelson for checking up on this. 

@skooks 2 - The July 2017 date is because they won't be laying sod on the neutral grounds until after Mardi Gras.

— Jeff Adelson (@jadelson) October 12, 2016

@skooks 3 - Waiting to do the sod means they won't have to close the neutral ground for the parades.

— Jeff Adelson (@jadelson) October 12, 2016

We may live to see the end of this

Out on lower Napoleon Avenue this afternoon, work crews were applying dirt fill to what looks like a nearly complete portion of the SELA project.



One can almost picture the restored neutral ground now.

The hills are alive with the sound of drainage

Stacy Head and some neighborhood rough riders are charging up the heights of the Napoleon Avenue neutral ground.

The dispute concerns the shape of the median. The corps is fashioning a crown – meaning the center is higher than the two sides. That’s what was there two years ago when the agency tore up the street for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Opponents want the neutral ground to be flat or even concave. That’s because a crown can rapidly dump water into adjacent streets, adding stress on drainage systems. The other options can slow it down by storing it for a short periods and letting some of it seep into the ground.

The latter design is favored by the Urban Water Plan, part of the green infrastructure initiative the Sewerage & Water Board adopted in 2014.

And for Head, that’s the design she said the corps promised her.

“I’m fit to be tied because for the last seven or eight years I had been promised by the corps the neutral ground would be at most flat, but hopefully more of a swale or a concave to allow retention of some rain,” she said. “Frankly, until yesterday [April 12] when I saw the hills awaiting sod along Napoleon, I believed that the corps was going to do the right thing. “What’s happening now is outrageous.”

Is it all that outrageous, though?  Seems like what they're asking the corps to do is tack a water retention feature on to a water removal system. The corps response actually explains this pretty well. You're already spending the money to build a great big underground box culvert, if you don't direct the water into it, what will have been the point?

-- Quick aside: The article says the culvert is wide enough to fit "three city buses side by side." I'd like to know where this is the case. On lower Napoleon Avenue, it clearly is not.



Anyway, we're already dedicating an entire "Resilience District" in Gentilly to experimentation with Living With Water concepts.  Let's not confuse the systemic approach being implemented there with the piecemeal complaint fodder Stacy Head and her friends are working with uptown.

Napoleon's Exile

Ending very soon! Seriously.

The long-awaited end of the Napoleon Avenue drainage-canal project is now expected to be the end of the year — all of it — and landscaping on the neutral ground should be done next year, officials with the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told neighbors Thursday night.


The section of Napoleon from South Claiborne to Carondelet Street is all but finished already, said engineer Ron Spooner of the S&WB and John Fogarty of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during a town-hall meeting at the St. Stephen Catholic Church school cafeteria. The box canal has been completely installed, and Boh Brothers contractors are now finishing up replacing curbs and sidewalks that were removed during construction.

This month, they will sod the neutral ground with new grass, and city workers are replacing the lights in the neutral ground that had been removed with historic, high-efficiency lighting, said Joey Wagner, a senior project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. By the end of April, all work should be complete on that section, the officials said.

Construction is continuing on the section between Carondelet and Constance streets, but that portion of the project is smaller and moving faster, and is currently projected to be finished by December — marking the end of major construction on Napoleon Avenue.

They're still going to be working on upper Jefferson and on Louisiana for a long time to come. But Napoleon Avenue is the long dividing line through the heart of Uptown. When those fences come down, we will have a grand reunification concert featuring Jesus Jones and Scorpions. 

All we do is win-win-win

They're saying the new plan is full of win. 

City officials released a compromise plan for Napoleon Avenue on Thursday that would maintain the size of the neutral ground and add a bike lane — without reducing the number of lanes dedicated to traffic or parking.

The idea is to reduce the width of both traffic and parking lanes by 2 feet each, rather than eliminating lanes altogether or reducing the size of the neutral ground.

The final configuration will be two 10-foot-wide vehicle travel lanes, one 5-foot-wide dedicated bicycle lane and one 7-foot-wide parking lane in each direction. The neutral ground will be restored to its original, pre-construction width of 47 feet

“This is a win-win-win for area neighborhoods, motorists and cyclists,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a news release. “By working together, we feel confident that this roadway configuration is a reasonable accommodation for all interests.”

Is that really a "win-win-win"? Sounds more like nobody got what they wanted. Unless you count the portion of the neighborhood that wanted to make sure they didn't shrink the neutral ground, I guess. Although that wasn't the neighbors' only complaint and I'm not even sure that was their first priority.

They were also worried about the bike lanes. Specifically they were worried that a bike lane on a street like Napoleon Avenue was bound to produce a safety hazard at major intersections as they have in other places around town.  Another issue with the proposed bike lane was its placement between a lane of traffic and the on street parking which is also something that happens all over town despite being a clear safety hazard. 

Both of these issues are also frequently raised by cycling advocates to little avail so it's hard to say that this is really a "win" for them either. All they're getting now is another unsafe bike lane jammed in next to two 10 ft wide lanes of traffic which, by the way, is also not quite in keeping with the "best practices" standard for a trucking and transit artery like Napoleon Avenue.

For multi-lane roadways where transit or freight vehicles are present and require a wider travel lane, the wider lane should be the outside lane (curbside or next to parking). Inside lanes should continue to be designed at the minimum possible width. Major truck or transit routes through urban areas may require the use of wider lane widths. 

Lane widths of 10 feet are appropriate in urban areas and have a positive impact on a street's safety without impacting traffic operations. For designated truck or transit routes, one travel lane of 11 feet may be used in each direction. In select cases, narrower travel lanes (9–9.5 feet) can be effective as through lanes in conjunction with a turn lane.

The only "win" here is a slight one for the city the next time it wants to write a report about the total mileage of bike lane they've installed over the course of Mitch Landrieu's term in office. It doesn't really matter whether the bike lanes in question are actually placed where they'll be used properly or even if they do anything to protect the safety of the cyclists who have to navigate them. All that matters is that the mayor's office can make "the data show" how progressive a city we've become under their watch.

As bicycle ridership increases, the City is committed to expanding our network of bikeways. According to the League of American Bicyclists, New Orleans currently ranks fifth in the nation amongst large cities in the percentage of residents who bike to work. With the completion of the Lafitte Greenway’s bicycle and pedestrian path, New Orleans will have more than 100 miles of bikeways.

So congratulations on your 100 miles, guys.  Hope no one gets doored into a bus for the sake of it.

Aside:  Because, like you probably do, I thought the artistic rendering of Napoleon Avenue lined with beach hotels from 1920s Atlantic City looked kind of weird, I found out that the image is generated by a generic design program called Streetmix.What's great about that is, if you don't like what the city has come up with, maybe you can play around with this app and make your own Napoleon Avenue. Sadly, I can't find the button that puts the crepe myrtles back.

The parade ordinances say nothing about sheet pilings

Wasn't so long ago that the most cumbersome obstructions one would find on the Napoleon Avenue neutral ground were tents and ladders like these.



Lately, it's a bit different.



Those are the metal sheet pilings contractors working for the Army Corps of Engineers on the SELA drainage project have been driving into the ground this week.  The pilings are there to support the construction of a new underground drainage canal meant to augment the performance of the one that already exists there.





The pilings were the cause of a lawsuit filed during an earlier phase of the project when vibrations caused damage to nearby homes in Broadmoor.  Since then the Corps has switched to an alternate method of pile driving.  This thing is called a "silent piler"



A crane lifts the piling into place, and this machine just shoves it into the ground where it's then welded onto the preceding piling. It's not exactly "silent" but it is cool to watch.  Anyway, here's the outline of where the new canal is going to go.



The word is Carnival parades aren't expecting to have to change their routes this year.  But I don't see a whole lot of room to place ladders in there. All these people have to go somewhere, right?




The Napoleon Avenue portion of  the SELA project is currently estimated to complete in November 2016.

Corps intends to violate the new Carnival ordinance next year

Uptownmessenger: Drainage work will rope off Napoleon Avenue neutral ground during Mardi Gras 2015, officials say

The Southeast Louisiana (SELA) Urban Flood Control Program is now under construction on South Claiborne, Jefferson and Napoleon Avenue, and will start later this year on Louisiana Avenue. The entire Napoleon Avenue canal is being built by Boh Brothers, and officials said construction will soon begin moving “like a train” down the avenue, crossing St. Charles.

Why couldn't they say the construction will move "like a parade"? I see no reason why they could not have done this.

By next year, some parts of the section popular for parade-goers between Magazine and St. Charles will be under active construction, and the current plan is for contractors to simply fence those sections off, while the parades follow their regular routes, said Sewerage & Water Board Engineer Ron Spooner. “The parades will still roll down Napoleon,” Spooner said at a public meeting Tuesday evening about the project. “You’ll just have limited access to the neutral ground.”

That's gonna be weird. A lot of people will have to find somewhere else to put their tents and stuff.

But how will Rob Ryan get to Ms Mae's?

Quick follow-up to yesterday's post about the SELA work on Napoleon Avenue.  The heavy duty disruption is scheduled to begin in January.

The removal of the trees may be the least of the worries. Starting in January, the project will progress to a different phase of construction that will require more space, which means street parking in the affected areas of Napoleon will be discontinued.

"It will be a little cramped. We make sure at least one of traffic in each direction on Napoleon Avenue will be moving," said Wingate.

This particular section of the Napoleon Avenue SELA project is expected to finish in 2016.

This means two things.  First, the disruption of traffic along Napoleon Avenue will cause a re-routing of most Uptown Carnival parades for at least the next two years.  Maybe someone knows what the plan is for that. I don't yet.

Second, should the Saints manage to get themselves a home playoff game in January, it might be a little tricky for fans get to the after party. 

First they came for the trees

The massive SELA drainage project (proudly preventing Uptown New Orleans from driving in any direction) is finally about to cross St. Charles and move onto lower Napoleon Avenue.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District recently awarded a 38-month contract to provide increased drainage for the Uptown area. The contract includes canal improvements along Napoleon Avenue between Carondelet and Constance Streets. The project, which is part of the Southeast Louisiana Project (SELA), will reduce the risk of damages from a 10-year rainfall event. A 10-year event is basically a rain storm that has a 10% annual probability of occurrence and equates to approximately 9 inches of rain over a 24-hour period for our area.

On September 26, 2013, the Corps awarded a $38 million contract to Boh Bros Construction Co. The contract calls for constructing approximately 3,000 linear feet of a concrete covered box culvert under the neutral ground along Napoleon Avenue from Carondelet Street to Constance Street. The new culvert will parallel an existing box culvert and will tie in to the new culvert under Napoleon Avenue at Carondelet Street and the existing box culvert at Constance Street. A notice to proceed will be issued early October and construction will be completed in the fall of 2016.

The Corps continues to work closely with its partners at the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans on the SELA program. To date, a total of 17 contracts have been awarded in Orleans Parish to date, with work completed on 10 of those projects. All scheduled SELA work in Orleans Parish should be finished in 2018.

Today the crews arrived to prepare the neutral ground for excavation by murdering the crepe myrtle trees that live there.





Having passed that way fairly often for a number of years, I had gotten into the habit of keeping time by those trees.

In the late spring they start to bloom.



By mid summer they are in full blossom.



Their fall foliage becomes a brilliant orange for a brief time.



And adds a rust tone to the avenue by the time winter comes along.



I'm told by people who worry about such things that their flowers can get goo all over your car's paint job if you park under them when this is happening.



During Carnival these trees fill up with a different sort of blossom. I have shockingly few decent photos of this. Here is a close up of a bead tree that fell over last year.



This is a more dramatic example on St. Charles.



Here's what they looked like that one time I saw them in the snow.




And now they're gone. I'm not sure what sort of landscaping is planned for these neutral grounds when the project is finished. Guess we'll have to wait 3-5 years to find out.