It's Not A Matter Of If, But When There Will Be An Accident

View from the stop line on 7th
at State.  Traffic on State does
not stop at 7th.

Now that the brewery at 7th and State is open for business, cars are parking on State Street where there were rarely ever parked cars.  Drivers attempting to exit North 7th Street to turn on to State, or cross State to continue on 7th, face a dangerous situation due to the new limited sight visibility from those parked cars.  A dangerous situation, sure to cause an accident, that the City of Hudson DPW and HPD are ignoring.

The business, the busyness, and the traffic that City Hall and Galvan want to see downtown creates new traffic and parking conditions.  Ignoring those new conditions is really, really dumb.  When there is no Planning Department, there is little to no ability to react to or anticipate the effects those changes have on driving conditions.

HPD does law enforcement, and DPW does not do traffic planning (at least not very well!).  

When the accident (or accidents) does occur at 7th and State, then maybe someone at City Hall will begin to ask questions.  "Gee, do you think we have a problem there?  What should we do?  Should we really remove a few precious parking spaces on State Street to prevent more accidents?  Should we ask Galvan what they want us to do in their district?"

The exact same limited visibility issue existed last year at Short and State Streets.  I warned City Hall repeatedly about it -- alders even got involved.  HPD didn't know what to do.  DPW didn't care.  Then there was the predicted accident, just like there had to be, though fortunately no one was hurt.  The two cars were towed and appeared to both be totaled.  Only then did HPD and DPW get together to take care of the problem properly, as they were asked to do and as they should have done well before the accident.