City Manager Joshua Smith recently gave props to Boyce Swift, now the assistant to the city manager, and Aaron Hufford, a senior analyst in the city’s Strategy and Information Department, for returning from a trip to the city of Montgomery in Hamilton County, with the idea of painting the poles that color.
“I think it makes a world of difference,” Smith said at a recent city meeting.
Shaun Higgins, director of park operations at the non-profit Pyramid Hill sculpture park in Hamilton, noticed a while back when crews were painting on the bridge.
“They were up there painting, and I was trying to figure out, are they priming, are they painting, what’s going to happen?” Higgins recalled. “And then, once I saw it happening across the bridge, it makes a difference because it’s a very small change, but it’s aesthetically very nice, because it blends into the scenery better, versus having this empty pool-paint color. It looked like an empty swimming-pool color.”
“It’s just a nuance that makes it much cleaner, and less industrial — I guess that was the feel: less industrial,” Higgins said.
“We were in Montgomery, and they have a nice central business down there, and when we were there, we noticed they had matte-black light poles and utility boxes, and so Aaron and I made the suggestion to Joshua,” Swift said.
“To me, it’s just one of those things that you don’t pay much attention to, it’s just kind-of a feel thing, but I know when you see it, and even with (Martin Luther King Boulevard) and High now, it’s just a different feel once you have the matte black,” Swift said. “And once you have it around the entire city, it adds a clean, cohesive, aesthetically pleasing feel.”
As intersections are upgraded, the idea will spread.
The Columbia Bridge also recently has been outfitted with energy-efficient LED (light emitting diode) street lights as part of an ongoing citywide upgrade, which gives it a brighter, more attractive look.
“With the new street lights, the LED heads are going on the old poles, I mean, it looks like they’re new poles,” Smith said. “It’s the small things, in my mind, that really take a city that could look old and tired and make it look vibrant and new.”
Early next year, that kind of painting will happen near the railroad underpass east of MLK Boulevard and also along high street east of Ohio 4, Smith said: “That’s really going to add that consistency into that corridor.”
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