By G0BjE2ASAR on Thu, 04/19/2018 - 00:00

EDITORIAL

It seems like we’ve all been talking for years about the anticipated revitalization of US 79 through downtown Rockdale with a number of projects simmering on burners, front, back and middle.

The talk is going to turn into action, hopefully by this fall.

It’s going to be fantastic. Our downtown will look better than it has since Mrs. B. F. Ackerman took a horse and buggy into our town and christened the unnamed city “Rockdale” during the Grant Administration.

But it has to happen like a jigsaw puzzle, one piece carefully following another. And that first piece will be this fall when the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) re-stripes US 79 in the downtown area from four lanes to two, plus a center left-turn area.

That will ease the current dangerous situation of parked vehicles backing out into highway traffic which currently exists.

Then Cameron Avenue (US 79) will be re-milled between, roughly, Dairy Queen to the US 77 overpass.

Next will come an overhaul of drainage, entrances and curbs.

That will be followed by the first of major sidewalk projects, a brand new one on the south side of the highway between City Hall and Dairy Queen.

Then the really spectacular parts can begin. A Downtown Revitalization Program grant will replace the sidewalks from Green to Ackerman on both sides of US 79 and a TxDOT Set-Aside Grant will carry the same project westward two more blocks from Ackerman to Burleson.

There are engineering terms to describe what’s in store but the bottom line is this. Our downtown highway, and its sidewalks, is going to be absolutely gorgeous.

Like everything else worthwhile in life, this didn’t happen accidentally. There’s been three solid years of hard work by the city to make this a reality. We will never see the behind-the-scenes work which made this happen, but we will see the results.

And so will thousands of passers-by. Towns are like people in one way. You only get one change to make a first impressions. It’s no secret Rockdale’s first impressions have needed a little work for a long time.

And it’s coming.—M.B.