The Do Nothing City Hall

The two new breweries located near 7th and State were doing brisk business in the early evening this past Saturday, as they often are on the weekends.  Parking was tight, of course, and, as is more common lately, some drivers parked where they pleased, regardless of signs, safety, crosswalks, yellow curbs or propriety.

It's not just that this enormous pickup truck was making things more difficult and dangerous for pedestrians (especially the elderly and disabled).  It's not just that more than half of the vehicle was parked along a yellow curb.  It's not just that this pickup truck made things really difficult and dangerous for cars pulling into or across State Street from 6th Street by cutting down on visibility of oncoming eastbound State Street traffic with its unposted 30 mph speed limit that is often ignored or unknown by drivers and never enforced by HPD.  It's not just that the driver of the Tundra doesn't give a hoot about any of this.

Above all, the most concerning and perplexing thing is that the City of Hudson (including the Planning Board) doesn't care that two new businesses on State Street are negatively impacting parking and driving in the neighborhood.

The City of Hudson, via the Planning Board, allowed two new businesses without any off-street parking options to open in a residential area with limited parking.  The businesses rely on most of their customers to arrive by automobile, but the city has not done one thing to mitigate traffic issues that it should have seen coming.  No parking spaces have been removed to increase visibility of oncoming traffic.  No crosswalks have been installed anywhere near 7th and State.  No effort has been made to slow traffic down. No new signs regarding parking have been installed, even next to the railroad tracks.  Nothing.

That grey pickup truck parked so obscenely on Saturday?  Something like that never happened at 7th and State prior to this year.  Parking near the intersection was rarely, if ever, an issue for residents prior to the breweries' arrival, and no one had to park in a crosswalk area because there was no need to given the available spaces used almost exclusively by residents.  There is now competition for parking spaces, primarily on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Limited sight distance like this 
was never a problem until the breweries
opened up recently.  (View from 7th looking
east for oncoming State Street traffic)

Is it possible that no one at the Hudson Planning Board, HPD, DPW or the Mayor's Office saw this coming?  Or do they all simply not care?

And Galvan's 140 apartment units and retail spaces on 7th Street haven't even arrived yet!  Talk about a real shitshow in the making!