Tallahassee, meet Coal Chute Park.  You’ve probably never seen it unless you happened to turn South on Cleveland Street off Eugenia.  Look Quick - Coal Chute is about to disappear as part of the Gaines Street redevelopment effort.  Cleveland Street runs behind Railroad Square.  If you go past the park and follow the road to the left, you come to the most interesting railroad level crossing I’ve ever seen.  I’d call it a “fish hook” design.  The crossing is the center of a 180 degree turn on this road which eventually turns into Stone Valley Road and intersects with Gaines Street next to the new Refuge House Thrift Store.

I know that this park is going to be missed by the folks in the neighborhood, but a lot of the neighorhood may go too.  To their credit, several of the Planning Department’s FAMU Way extension alternatives relocate Coal Chute Park to another nearby site.

While the weird little fishhook crossing is gone in all the alternative plans, I hope that the project will include a foot/bike path crossing of the track in this area.  It’s an area that gets a lot of foot and bike traffic.