What per cent. of grade are the hills in and about Richmond?
Via Oregon Hill, the answers to an important question from 1904:
Editor of The Times-Dispatch:
Sir, -Please answer in your query column what per cent. of grade are the hills in and about Richmond, and oblige,
B.W.
The article doesn’t actually answer the question. Percent grade is rise over run. So for example if 25th St. rises 75 feet between Main and Broad over a distance of 600 feet (numbers are guesses) 75/600=.125 or 12.5% grade.
I’d like to know some real approximation of this. Is there a hill in Richmond more steep than 23rd coming up from Franklin?
John, technically it may be in Henrico, but I think McCoul Street is steeper than 23rd. It’s on the left off Route 5 if you take Main past Rockett’s and keep going, down the hill and across the railroad track, McCoul goes off on the left and goes up a really steep hill.
A great place to start would be the USGS quad maps. They’ll give you elevations as contours and you can scale the distances.
Once that is done, Keith West has already given the formula for percent grade.
Most of Richmond was in place at the time those maps were surveyed. While there may be some places where some anomalies occur, I suspect you would get a very good approximation for a large percentage of city streets once that exercise is completed.
Byrd Street from 4th Street to 5th Street has the steepest highway grade in the City of Richmond
Byrd Street from 4th Street to 5th Stree
Makes for a fun ride uphill on a bike.
#6: It’s a great ride going down as well!