• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

EDITORIAL: Retire Steel Plates to the Scrap Heap

Posted on: Monday, 26 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By The Kansas City Star, Mo., The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Dec. 26--Here's a suggestion sure to invigorate the campaign of any politician seeking office in Kansas City: Promise to ban the use of steel plates on our streets.

The trucks pull up, crewd pile out, orange traffic cones are deployed. Eventually, a chunk of pavement is removed, and a rectangular hole, several feet deep, is excavated in the middle of the driving lanes.

For a day or two, activity continues. Workers amble around the work site, conferring in small groups or leaning over the edge of the void to observe whatever is occurring down below.

Then another truck appears. A thick piece of steel, anchored at each corner by a chain, is lowered over the hole.

Then the crews ... vanish.

The plate remains.

In the life of Kansas City, nothing is more timeless. The leaves change color and fall from the trees. The snow flies. Puppies become dogs. Toddlers become freshmen. Through it all, the steel plates remain.

Drivers try to avoid them, because many plates don't fit the curve of the pavement. Often, one of the corners is two or three inches above the surface of the roadway.

Those are the steel plates that speak insistently to Kansas City, sending their mysterious message all day and all night: Ka-chunk! Ka-chunk!

Newcomers to Kansas City are bemused by this strange custom.

"What's with all those steel slabs?" they ask.

True, some Kansas Citians wonder: "What's the fuss? Doesn't every city do this? Doesn't every city have streets pockmarked with deep holes, capped with metal slabs?"

Uh, no.

That's why one of our wishes for the New Year is a steel-plate ban. We suggest a citywide party when the last steel plate is removed -- and Kansas City's street maintenance finally enters the 21st century.

------------

-----

Copyright (c) 2005, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

More News in this Category