The street sweeper

Moving to a window cubicle in the World Headquarters of NewsCut has afforded me the opportunity to spend most of my day watching light-rail construction on Cedar Street in Saint Paul, see the array of construction talents on display, and marvel that someone — somewhere — knows eactly what everybody needs to be doing.

So far, however, this is my favorite one:

Her job, when she’s not making sure pedestrians can safely cross the street, is making sure the crosswalk area is swept of sand and mud. This is not easy because yesterday, dozens of dump trucks spent the day dumping sand in the middle of the street…

… which, we sidewalk supervisors theorize, will eventually be used to cover up the earth’s core that the workers uncovered while moving the various utilities.

In the midst of this chaos, there’s a mighty clean crosswalk thanks to someone who went to work today to literally shovel sand against the tide.

(Be sure see Dan Olson’s “then and now” post on MPR’s The Cities blog)