Missing Signs, Missing Effort, Missing In Action

In the absence of signs indicating otherwise,
GREEN MEANS GO!

On Friday afternoon while waiting to cross 5th Street at Warren, I stopped a car from entering North 5th headed in the wrong direction. I had watched the car driving north on South 5th as it headed to Warren all the way from Union, stopping momentarily at the Warren Street intersection, where it had a green light off to the side, then proceeding nearly through the intersection before I stepped into the street emphatically waving one finger to stop the driver from traveling any further in the wrong direction. The driver saw me, stopped his car (with 3 passengers inside), looked around, had the AHA moment, and then turned onto Warren Street.  Why do you suppose that driver felt comfortable driving through the intersection in the wrong direction to continue driving in the wrong direction on North 5th?  Do you suppose it was the green light and the lack of signs telling him to NOT ENTER the intersection and North 5th? 

Then on Saturday, while walking near 6th and Warren, I watched as a car headed west on Warren began to take a left turn at the intersection.  A car behind it and a car headed in the other direction both honked their horns in vain to get the wrong way driver's attention. There was no northbound traffic on the one block of S. 6th Street, so the oblivious driver made it safely to Union, where it took a right to go who knows where.  Other than the small ONE WAY sign the driver passed, and obviously did not see, he passed no signs, street markings or anything indicating he was headed in the wrong direction (except for the few parked cars facing him on both sides of the street).  Even at the Union intersection there is nothing.

Too easy too miss!  Too little effort!

Hudson has no shortage of one way streets, as well as drivers not knowing they are driving in the wrong direction.  What we do have, though, is a serious lack of signs hanging above intersections with one way streets making sure drivers do not turn and head the wrong way.  You know, the simple sign of a circled bent arrow with a slash across it.  Sometimes they are even illuminated.  Or a sign that simply reads NO LEFT TURN or NO RIGHT TURN hanging from a wire that no one can claim not to have noticed. There is not one of these signs at any of our intersections where one way streets exist! Our small ONE WAY signs attached to poles on the sidewalks simply aren't sufficient or keeping us safe, obviously.  Not anymore, at least, if they ever used to.

Then there was this, earlier today:

While bicycling east on State Street approaching 5th Street, I saw yet another car travelling in the wrong direction, my 3rd in 4 days!  This one, though, scared the heck out of me.

A white car on 5th went through the intersection moving at at least 20 miles per hour.  It was travelling northbound, it did not stop before or inside the intersection, and it had just come from travelling the wrong way on one way 5th Street, from either Long Alley, Columbia Street, or beyond.  The vehicle's speed suggested it had come from at least as far away as Columbia, driving through an intersection or three (if you count the alley) in a direction no one would expect a car to be coming from.  And the car never applied the brakes at the State Street intersection -- just drove straight through and up 5th Street past the library and beyond.  I was the only other traveler near the intersection, narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal "accident." No one else saw what I did.

No traffic light nor STOP sign means
DO NOT STOP!
(On N. 5th headed north, south of State)

Why do you suppose that wrong way driver failed to stop at the intersection?  Take a look at the picture of that driver's perspective  approaching the intersection and you will see why.  More evidence of a City Hall (DPW, HPD, Mayor's Office) that is out to lunch.  

Our Police Commissioner Shane Bower is supposedly the only person at City Hall who can modify and order to install traffic control devices.  He is the one official we are counting on to make and keep our streets as safe as possible for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.  I refer to him as our safety guru, though I don't think he has any special qualifications related to traffic safety.  Of course, as you likely know, he is NEVER present at informal council meetings, and according to the police dispatcher I spoke with today, Shane Bower "no longer has a voicemail box" at HPD. 

"Has he ever had one?" I asked.

"When he was an officer he did," was the helpful reply. 

Bower retired as a Hudson cop in 2019, and has been our mostly-unseen and unheard Police Commissioner without a phone line for the past 3 years.  This is how they communicate, are accountable, get things done, prevent vehicle accidents and keep people safe in Hudson.  Make the commissioner as difficult as possible, or impossible, to get in touch with so that he can keep an intersection free of signs to stop a car or truck from heading the wrong way through the intersection in a city that, obvious to anyone willing to pay attention, has too many vehicles travelling in the wrong direction on its many one way streets.

Until someone at City Hall finds this approach unacceptable, expect a continued lack of effort at improvements from Shane Bower and others; for the situation of wrong way driving to only worsen; and, for someone (probably a bicyclist or a pedestrian) to get hit and possibly killed because of a wrong way driver.  The longer that City Hall continues to not pay attention and to be unaccountable, the more likely there is for a preventable accident or death to occur.  It's textbook negligence stuff.