Thanks, America!  Your generosity (in the form of federal stimulus money) paid for a street reconstruction project downtown. It’s done and looking good.

From the dead-tree version of this article ..

The $450,000 street reconstruction project … replaced the asphalt pavement with concrete between Main and S. Commercial streets. [1] Stamped colored concrete was used for the crosswalks.

Advocates of stimulus spending who envisioned this money putting America back to work will be happy to hear that hundreds upon hundreds of area unemployed were busy at work with hand tools, chipping up the old asphalt, carting the rubble away in wheelbarrows, making themselves useful and getting an honest day’s wages for hard work done well.

The stamped concrete is pretty cool – looks like brickwork.  I’m sure it was more expensive to do it this way and of course we’d have paid for it if we had to pony up the funds ourselves.

Makes a fella proud to pay his taxes, it does.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Weirdly, the main road downtown is not Main Street but Wisconsin Avenue. Main is the road in from the freeway. It’s an okay road but it’s not a stereotypical small-town Main Street.