Q&A

Q. Every day on my way to work, I drive past the new Reunion Tower complex. I keep wondering when they’re going to paint the concrete tower and what color they’re planning to paint it?

A. They’re not going to paint it. According to project manager Gary Coffman, painting the tower would require a continual, never-ending process of repainting, due to the extent of exposed surface. However, it was never intended to be painted – “It was a design decision, not a cost decision.” The exposed concrete will undergo a natural weathering process, reaching the designers’ desired effect in three to four years.

Q. Do those traffic lights on the entrance ramp to Central Expressway actually work? Or are they just there to control the general flow?

A. They work. There are several hundred sensors imbedded in the pavement, ideally in a position some 700 to 800 feet before the ramp, as well as sensors on the ramps and service roads. These monitor traffic and feed the information into an IBM 1800 computer which computes an adequate gap in the traffic (normally a four-second gap in 40 mile an hour traffic) and then gives you the green light. No guarantees against lane changers, however. The only guarantee is that if you run the red and a policeman spots you, it’s 25 bucks.