Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1912-03-09

district. For instance, will call your
attention to the side walk now at the
City National Bank corner. The side
walk as now constructed agrees With
the established grade which had prev
iously been established. as we'll as the
sidewalk at the corner of the McKen-
zie hotel. The old sidewalk in place
at the time the construction for the
City National bank was commenced
was practically seven inches below
the established glade. On this &C.
count the sidewalk at this place ap-
pears high, but as it is permanent
improvement and one that could not
be changed in any way, it was thought
best to make 1t to agree with tae or
dinance in every respect.
There are several other places in
the fire district in which the side
walk as constructed previous to my
assuming the Office does not agree
with the established grade, and in
fact there are very few sidewalks
that do agree with the established
grade.
That the street lines and grades
had so long been neglected is not par
ticularly the fault of anyone. For
what Is everybody's business is no
body's business. The property owner
who desired to put down his sidewalk
naturally would place it to conform
to the grade Of his lot as near as pos
sible. Often times a sidewalk would
be constructed in front of one or two
lots in the middle of block and con-
structed to conform to the grade OF
the lots, then when other walks were
constructed in he same block they
were constructed to conform to the
walks already in place. The deter
mination Of a grade line for block
cannot be done by the local conditions
in that block alone. The grade line
Of a block Is the horizontal line from
the street intersections of either side
of the block and the grade at these
Intersections is dependent on the con.
ditions on these other blocks. SO tAat
in determining upon grade Tine for
one block We must take into con-
s1deration the conditions on six
blocks.
In establishing grade line, espec-
tally in a town where SO many build
ings have been constructed and i'm
provements made, requires great
deal of study to locate the line which
will serve the purpose for an estab-
lished grade and do the least injury
to property interests. For this reason
the grade lines which We now have
in the residence district are not ideal
Take for instance, the grade line run.
ming up Fourth street from Broadway
to Avenue c. whie.. is at the corner
of Frank Gramb's residence. An ideal
grade line would be straight grade
line from Broadway right through to
Avenue c. or possibly Avenue D.
This grade line would make q small
cut at Thayer street and at Rosser
with a fill at Avenue A. and slight
out at Gramb's corner. This WOULD
make very beautiful street and
could be done at not very great ex-
pense, but it has not been deemed
advisable to attempt this. AS you
will note, now the grade line is brok-
en- and does not present nearly as
pleasing an appearance to the eye and
is not as convenient a street for traf'
fic.
In fact. in order to save expense
to property interests, the grade lines
all over the residence part Of the city
have been broken at nearly every
block, so that We have but very few
streets where there is continuous
straight grade line for any distance.
The grade line, of course, which We
decided upon had to take into con-
sideration sidewalks which were al
ready constructed and invariably we
found that the sidewalk on the up
hill side of the streets running east
and west was considerably higher
than it should be, while the sidewalks
on the down hill side of the streets
running east and west were consider
ably lower than they should be. In
only a very few instances have we
attempted to change the location OF
the walk, but have run It down to
meet other sidewalks or to meet the
curb line, for the sole purpose Of saw
ing expense to the property owners.
l sometimes think that we have made
, some mistakes in doing the work this
way, but there was 80 much opposi-
ton to the construction Of walks to
the proper grade line that We have
allowed in some cases the walks to
be constructed as noted above. In or
der the work might be done and that
the work of educating the public to
the value of better walks could be
carried on. Had the city engineer
insisted that all walks should come
to the new grade established, I am
satisfied We would not have accomp-
lished nearly as much AZ We have up
to the present time on account of the
antagonism that would have develop
ed Immediately had we started such
! work. ~
! Sidewalks above the grade line of
the street do not materially effect