Riverside Ave Topography

As Early 1930s, development began that would send Riverside Ave down a nearly century long cycle of construction and landslides. A problem that persists to this day and remains unresolved. By the early 1950s, the state roads department did significant work expanding and improving Riverside Ave. This was part of a large post-war push to modernize road system but gave minimal consideration for natural features. By 1955, shortly after the construction, three landslides with the latest November slide being the largest and most destructive. Development continued through the latter half of the century with instability persisting but not rising to the forefront as an issue.

In 1981 a large and illegal dumping event caused significant changes to the watershed and triggered a major slide. The fill that was dumped had poor bonding and this highlighted that more slides were inevitable. This renewed energy to deal with the problem over the next few years. In 1983 efforts were made by the city and the state to fix the problematic section of road with more permanent solution with workers replacing bad fill and clay muck with quarry rock and fill that they believed would be better. This worked for a time and though the situation remained relatively quiet for years, new fill was added in 2019 and in late October a new large slide occurred during a large rain storm. This issue remains largely unresolved and may even worsen as new construction is proposed. Until we recognize the power of the natural topography of our area we may be trying to fight an unwinnable battle.