How On Earth Is This Acceptable? How Is This Good For Hudson Residents or For Anyone Besides The Pocketbook People?

HUDseen hopes to do a big dive into the unwelcome parking situations surrounding the Pocketbook Hudson Hotel and Baths -- on Prospect, on Washington, on 6th, and on all the other nearby streets that are also feeling the push-out effects.  For now, though, take a look at these pictures I took yesterday around noon of a delivery being made to the business complex.

How Much Does City Hall Value Its Public Parks and Their Patrons? You Be The Judge.

By tomorrow morning, the walking surface in the plaza of Promenade Park that is still covered in snow will have turned to ice.  It will be perhaps the worst of all winter walking surfaces: bumpy ice from all the footprints made in the snow over two days, designed to make park patrons wonder if it was worth visiting the park.  As in previous winters after snowfalls both large and small, we have DPW Superintendent Rob Perry to thank for this. 

How's That Budget Coming Along? or What Would Joe Ferris Do?

 

Any municipality that owns a large outdoor public parking lot and contends with snowfall, particularly occasional large amounts of it, has a problem to solve that is not unlike the issue of snow on the streets:  how to clear the entire lot properly, efficiently and as quickly and cheaply as possible after every snowfall without parked cars in the way of the snowplows.  This includes all the parking spaces in the parking lot, not just the driving areas.

It's Like They Don't Care! And Maybe They Don't.

While no details have yet been made public regarding Sunday's vehicle "accident" at 3rd & Warren involving a pedestrian, no one paying attention to what has been going at that intersection for years should be surprised that a pedestrian-related incident took place there.  If things don't change, someone else will get hit, and someone  may even die. But it likely won't be a driver or passenger in a multi-ton metal vehicle -- possibly one with 18 wheels -- who is rushed to the hospital.  Considering how busy that intersection along the truck route is with feet and wheels, it could be more than one person being hit and injured or killed.  It is well beyond time for City Hall to stop ignoring the dangerous situations for pedestrians there, one of which HUDseen focused on just TWO DAYS before the "accident."   I'm afraid, though, that getting anyone's attention to an issue as important as this is like pissing in the wind.

SWEET THANG, Indeed! The Ruination of a Neighborhood Has Begun!

By the time HPD responded to my call early this afternoon informing them of a car parked in a clearly marked and signed NO PARKING ZONE on 6th Street at Prospect, another car was illegally parked on the opposite corner of the intersection.  The license plate on that car, a Mercedes-Benz, read SWTHANG.  HPD issued each car a $25 ticket.  (NO PARKING ZONE tickets should be at least $50!  There's a NO PARKING sign right in front of you to easily read!  There's a yellow curb to notice if you care to!  Parking there can get OTHER people killed or injured and OTHER vehicles totaled!)   By the way, where the hell is my commission? 

Got Asthma? Got A Hospital Bill? Got The Right Of Way? Got Congestion? Got Patience? Got An Explanation That Makes Any Sense, Mr. Perry?

(This HUDseen article goes out to all of you, of course, but particularly to Peter Spear and Tom F.  Have a safe and happy winter and holiday season!  And be sure to look all four ways before crossing!  Do it twice at 3rd & Warren!)

If you spend any time near the intersection of 3rd & Warren observing what is going on at the city's busiest-with-foot-and-vehicle-traffic intersection, or if you just happen to be walking or driving by there at the right (or wrong!) time, you will notice a problem -- really, if you look close enough, a host of problems -- created by City Hall that they somehow aren't aware of or don't care about.  Or, more likely, both.  It's an absurd, unwelcome, dangerous, easily preventable and even deadly situation brought to us years ago by the one and only Rob Perry, our $125,000 DPW Superintendent. He needs to offer an explanation and justification for his actions that have created quality of life issues for all of us without actually solving a problem he set out to solve on his own.  But who might force an explanation out of him? Kamal Johnson?  Joe Ferris?  Rich Volo?  Margaret Morris, perhaps?

So Many Questions!

Yesterday was a historic day as far as parking matters (and meters) in Hudson are concerned.  With all 100 of the parking meters in the City Hall Municipal Parking Lot removed in the afternoon, there is not one parking meter left in the city's four downtown lots. Plenty of ancient parking meter poles remain, but no meters top them anymore.  

It will be interesting to see how long the poles remain.  That's a DPW job, and not a cheap, quick or easy one.  I expect it will take years!