Mobile Development Thread

[Muskavon]

I guess Mike Dow could be considered an eternal optomist....

http://www.al.com/business/press-register/insider.ssf?/base/business/1229249859133800.xml&coll=3

[MobileNative]

Does anyone have a picture of what the courthouse annex next to the future Mardi Gras park is supposed to look like? All I could find was a Press Register article that mentioned it would have historic detailing.

[Exodus]

I like the pics. They are real, charming, and show an actual homieness and interesting mixture of culture. Give me some "deep fried" or "redneck" culture around me any day over housing projects or subdivisions and malls.

[OCA REP]

Originally Posted by nimsjus

I liked the idea of the moonpie drop when first proposed. Initially richardson said it would be similar to times square and the drop of the electric lighted moonpie would be atop the RSA Tower. I thought that was a unique qay to create a Mobile tradition for New Years. I dont like it at all dropping from a fire engine. That is so cheap looking. Ill be down there either way and will definitely eat some of the world record moon pie, but I wish they would do the moonpie drop on one of downtown's skyscrapers.

Is the moonpie drop still on? I know there were mixed emotions over it and I thought about it when reading this morning's USA Today. They have an article about "different" drops that take place around the United States on New Year's Eve. Sadly, no mention of the moonpie!

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2008-12-17-new-years-eve-drops_N.htm

U.S. cities celebrate New Year's Eve with Peep, pirate and pickle drops

Everyone knows about the ball that gets dropped on New Year's Eve in Times Square. Maybe you've even heard about the 800-pound peach that gets dropped in Atlanta at midnight on Dec. 31.
But you may not have heard about the dropping of the sausage, or the gumbo pot, or the giant Peep, a 25-pound fiberglass replica of the famed marshmallowy candy made in Pennsylvania.

TripAdvisor.com has assembled a list of these and other quirky New Year's Eve events to create a top 10 list of wacky things that get lowered on Dec. 31 around the country to mark the arrival of the new year.

The Peep show is in Bethlehem, Pa., marking the third time the city has dropped the illuminated treat from a crane at midnight as part of a family-friendly First Night celebration.

Also in Pennsylvania, in the town of Lebanon, a 7 1/2-foot edible bologna made by the Weaver-Kutztown Bologna Company is lowered at midnight and then donated to area charities.

In Key West, Fla., there are three such countdown celebrations: a conch shell lowered on a pole to the roof of Sloppy Joe's Bar, the lowering of "Drag Queen Sushi" in a 6-foot-tall shoe at the Bourbon Street Pub, and the descent of a costumed pirate "wench" from a schooner in the harbor.

In Port Clinton, Ohio, the self-proclaimed "Walleye Capital of the World" drops a 20-foot, 600-pound fiberglass walleye fish at midnight.

In Elmore, Ohio, there's a sausage fest, inspired by a local business,Tank's Meats. A lit-up 18-foot sausage drops to welcome in the New Year, but there's also a sausage toss and a sausage-eating contest.

Mount Olive, N.C., has a pickle drop with a 3-foot-high glowing pickle plunging down the Mount Olive Pickle Company's flagpole into a tank.

Raleigh, N.C., lowers a massive copper acorn weighing 1,250 pounds from atop the city's civic center as part of a First Night event.

A giant gumbo pot is lowered in New Orleans to mark the New Year, along with fireworks on the Mississippi.

In Easton, Md., a giant crab is what gets lowered as part of a First Night celebration, and in Plymouth, Wis., it's a great big hunk of cheese — though not an edible hunk.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

[10101000]

Yes it is still on, I am going to it.

[MobiMan]

I think the MoonPie is ok but i would have rather seen a huge Jesters Head , three Mardi Gras faces together with a Jesters hat on, dropped from a 100' pole, they could actually do that in the Mardi Gras park once its built

Mardi Gras is Mobile
the Moonpie is a Mradi Gras Tradition but its still not Mobile
Mardi Gras is a Mobile Tradition

I would have went with the Mobile Tradition

it fits with Mardi Gras being so close
after Jan 1st

[nimsjus]

Originally Posted by MobileNative

Does anyone have a picture of what the courthouse annex next to the future Mardi Gras park is supposed to look like? All I could find was a Press Register article that mentioned it would have historic detailing.

I would really like to see any designs if people know about them. If I remember correctly, there were issues with it not being appropriate to sit within the Church St East Historic District. The architectural review board was invovled. The county then threatened to pull the Mardi Gras Park land deal and hold things up with the property so the architectural review board let them move on along with their original design. Through all of that, I never actually saw a design. I imagine it is nothing special and assume it is a fairly modern looking building if it is inappropriate by the architectural review board's standards. Anybody have any idea what it looks like?

[MobiMan]

Actually they did play around with the design to make it more historically correct for the area, it would have been screwed up to let them build a big huge box that had no design to it,
for a simple park

[Alxx611]

I remember seeing the rendering:

its nothing too special, its a very long red brick looking building, maybe about 4 or 5 floors and in the middle part of the building, the roofline on the facade makes kind of a pyramid shape. and then it was the six flags of the city in front of it.

its currently under construciton now and the steel beams or on the 4th level

[MobiMan]

Hey everyone i wanted to get some feedback on Taxi Service's
here in Mobile, i was curious and decided to call a cab just to run a few errands, DownTown and around, anyway i called Yellow Cab and about 2 hours later finally someone showed up, as soon as i got in the car i owed the guy $2.50 and as the minutes went by, i owed the guy another 34 cents for every 6th mile there after, when i got DT to do the things i had to do , knowing i was gonna be atleast an hour, i thought about getting the Cabbie to wait for me but he said that would be $18 an hour, which isnt bad, but i wasnt sure how long i would be, and since it took him 2 hours to pick me up from home i was worried it would be another 2 hours picking me up from DT,
well i got him to leave me, figuring i would take my chances
and ill be damned if it didnt take an hour and a half for the same guy to pick me up again, and i even tipped the guy $5 bucks on top of the $30 i paid him to get me there, I know $5 bucks isnt a lot to tip but i dont usually use Taxi's so i didn't know what to tip a Cabbie, besides its not like he brought me drinks during the ride

has anyone else used the local Taxi Services and if so how did it go

[BlessedMobile]

I am told that the pie will go up and not down. This from a city official who DOES KNOW. The city has heard from a number of news outlets who want to get some information on the event and will cover the story. There will be moon pies for the celebrants. We may laugh at this right now but city officials are supportive of the event and want it to become a Mobile tradition. I suggest that those of you who are history oriented to be there so you can say you saw it the first year.

[elb401]

I've never taken a taxi in the US before so I wouldn't know what it is like here. But if you ever take a taxi downtown again (which will probably be never) go to the battle house front desk and have them call you a cab. those cabs will be there in about 5-10 minutes, never fails.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

The only place I've ever taken a cab is in DC. And of course, up there, they're constantly driving around. This isn't the case in Alabama, anywhere. Birmingham, I think has a few cabs that drive around constantly, but no where near the scale of the larger metros.

I don't think I'll ever try to take a cab until I possibly live in downtown Birmingham in the future, and that only if more cabs become more available.

[Del]

Last year during the holidays an elderly neighbor told me that the taxi service had told her she couldn't make an appointment for a taxi at a particular time, she just had to call when the time came and wait for somebody to show up, however long that might take. Your experience shows that can be an awfully long while. Frustrating for the elderly who want to stay independent and not rely on the kindness of friends & family for transportation.

[Bogue]

The whole bridge thing is a waste of time & money.

A. there's already a (sparsely used) bridge... make better use of it by extending a section of I-165 out to connect w/ I-10 and (w/ correct signage) you siphon most of the I-65-bound traffic out of the tunnels. Is that TOO simple for ALDOT to understand? A significant percentage of the west-bound tunnel traffic is just trying to get to I-65... particularly a majority of those folks heading to the beaches in Summer.

B. the state has plans on deck to build a new interstate up the western side of the state. Where it joins with I-65 is not yet stated (they're currently doing the site planning by an article a few weeks back) but one option has it joining both I-65 & I-10 in Baldwin County. That would further dampen the amt. of traffic going into Mobile.

Part "A" gives you a short-term, low-cost fix while Part "B" gives you a long-term one. Neither of these impacts industry or extends travel times (it actually lessens travel time to I-65) & acts as an accessory funnel to help evacuate people should that (God forbid) be needed.

Having lived in Birmingham and spent a fair bit of time in Atlanta I can say that Mobile's traffic issues on the Bayway & Wallace Tunnel are really minor inconveniences by comparison.


I will agree that the exit/on ramps on I-10 near the tunnel need to be rethought (and several removed). Those right there at the tunnel are downright dangerous. W/o them that also frees up some of the bottleneck. There's no pronounced reason that folks coming out of the Bankhead Tunnel need to jump back on I-10 to get into the Wallace Tunnel nor is there a definite reason for folks who just got off the Bayway onto the Causeway to need to get back on it. Those exit/on ramps are part and parcel to WHY traffic slows, not some mythological fear of tunnels.

I also agree that it's completely ridiculous to impede industry (to ANY degree) in Mobile just to lessen the commute time for folks in Baldwin County or for passers-through from elsewhere. This is OUR city and WE are the only ones who matter when it comes time to make superfluous traffic decisions. The other folks can get stuffed as far as I'm concerned. They chose to leave or to take that route and they can deal with the consequences. It is not our responsibility to ensure their speedy passage through our territory, only that it be made as safe as possible. Speed isn't exactly conducive to safety. We're ultimately doing them a favor by making them slow down.

[MobiMan]

Bogue

you made some good points one being that if the ramp leading into the tunnel were gone it would help a small amount, but still not enough,
as for the mythological fear of tunnels, thats not a myth but a fact, i know a few people that are very scared of those tunnels, and it has nothing to do with the ramps entering from the right side, they have a fear of being under ground, under water, in a tunnel that they fear may colapse or just a bad wreck within the tunnel could cause a cotastrophe, 1000's of people have those fears

ok the northern route you love so much just isnt gonna work get over it, oh and this is our city but that interstate is state and federal, so everyone has the right to use it as often as they wish
and the western highway is 30 or even 40 years down the road we need something done now



last but not least, it is completely ridiculous not to impede when need be, for Mobile to grow we need better access, better roads and we need them now, the longer simple minds hold this up the more its going to cost you and i later, and again its absolutely stupid to think Baldwin County is the cause of all these problems, and if i remember correctly we live in the United States of America, UNITED, we are all one country not 50 small countries, state and federal money pays for the interstate, your money, my money, new yorkers money and Baldwin Counties money, so they belong to all of us

I BET ALL OF YOU THAT ARE AGAINST THIS BRIDGE WILL BE THE FIRST ONES TO CROSS IT LOLOLOLOL

THEY SHOULD POST A SIGN THAT SAYS IF YOU WANTED THE NORTHERN ROUTE TAKE THE NORTHERN ROUTE
BUT THE REST OF US WONT BE SEEING YOU BECAUSE WE WILL BE TOO FAR AHEAD OF YOU

[Port_of_Bama]

I agree with you the bridge traffic is bad but not as bad as it is in Atlanta. Most of the traffic that goes through the tunnels are from our Louisiana and Texas friends , Baldwin County commuters new what they were getting into when they decided to move over there.

I just wish that if possible:


A. Widen the tunnels and add lanes/a lane to the bridge.

B. Just add lanes/ a lane to the bridge.


It would be silly to hurt our port for a new bridge.Our port is one of the many elements that attracted other industries into our area .

[DirtySouf]

Personally, I think a loop or bypass around the city is more important than an I-10 bridge. Mobile has serious infrastructure needs that could seriously hinder the city's development if not addressed early. However, most of those needs seem to exist in the western part of the city. A bypass or loop would not only ease congestion and help infrastructure but would also spur economic development, both residential and commercial along its route potentially all the way to the Mississippi line. Every major city where I have ever lived had a loop/bypass. Why would this not be a priority here?

[Port_of_Bama]

And another good point a loop is needed in this city. Mobile has some of the worse street level traffic to me. Interstate traffic gets dense but if flows and .I have notice an in increase in interstate traffic since I have been back home and street lavel traffic is another story(Springhill,Moffett,[B]Airpport[B],Govt, etc. I-10 needs to be 3 laned from Mississippi to Pensacola. There is substantialy amount of commuters from(Jackson,George,Green County Mississippi) that work and shop heavely in Mobile.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

I still say that my obscenely impossible spiral bridge would be freaking awesome!!!