Getting the city to install one NO TURN ON RED sign at that intersection two or three years ago was a major fucking undertaking. I seem to remember Youth Commissioner Mijah Reed, on at least one occasion, informing Police Chief Moore that the intersection needed a NO TURN ON RED sign to prevent any more crashes there due to cars turning right on red off of 4th. It's not like Ed Moore wasn't aware that his officers were regularly responding to crashes there mainly because cars were turning on red. His officers were writing the accident reports that he probably reviewed afterward! But why is the Police Chief even the person to get this done? He (or she) doesn't have any criminals, drug lords or bank robbers to chase down and put behind bars? Ed was being asked to install a sign at a dangerous intersection to make it safer as if he didn't even know it's dangerous, as if he never thought a simple NO TURN ON RED sign might be helpful and keep someone from being hurt or killed? Duh! Hello, earth to police chief -- it's an intersection with a blind corner where 4th Street traffic is allowed to turn on red near the bottom of a hill along the truck route where drivers try to beat the light all the time after a long stretch both ways of nothing but bumpy pavement and where accidents are common for more than one reason. Why are we telling you what to do that is so clearly obvious to even a 12-year old?
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| Why now and not ten years ago? |
So, why did Rob Perry, Shane Bower, Mishanda Franklin and/or someone else who doesn't give a crap about safe streets finally decide a pair of short white lines on the pavement at the crash-prone intersection was necessary? Were they bored, with nothing else to do to make themselves look productive? Did Mr. Perry think it would be a good photo op for his September DPW report? Did Mishanda Franklin call Robert Perry and tell him she was tired of her officers utilizing so much time and money responding to an intersection with consistent crashes (crashes, not accidents!)? Or did someone finally find the money to have the white stop lines installed, perhaps Treasurer Heather Campbell?
At 15 feet, the two lines cost the city a total of no less than $220 plus the gas to melt them into the pavement. Of course, paint would have done the job just as well for about 5 fucking dollars, but Robert Perry continually claims that "paint doesn't last long enough in our traffic lanes" even though contractors marking and restriping our streets always use paint and NEVER thermoplastic decals. Do you think Robert Perry or No Show Shane Bower care what the professionals use on our streets? (By the way, whoever at DPW installed the 2 stop lines burned them in the process. Same as elsewhere -- the marks of DPW work!)
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| A recently PAINTED crosswalk at Fairview & Columbia, thanks to Colarusso. Why did Robert Perry allow paint on his street if he knows the paint won't last very long? When this paint fades away in a few years, will Perry be sure to use plastic decals that cost $500 or more to remark the street? |
During his DPW report on Monday, once again, Perry made it clear to the council and the public that using the thermoplastic decals for crosswalks and stop lines is expensive and time-consuming and needed to be redone in a "couple of years." No council member asked him, "Then why the fuck are you using the decals and not paint like everyone else is, including the professionals pavement marking companies and paving contractors? Why are ALL OF THE MANY PAINTED STREET MARKINGS at the Stewart's corner that DPW did not install holding up so well after nearly a year and look like they might lat for another two years? Why does it sound like you prefer to waste the city's money and don't know what the fuck you are doing with your 5 million dollar budget? Or is it 6 million this year?" Why didn't 3rd ward council member Shershah Mizan, who owns and lives in a house at the Stewart's intersection, ask Mr. Perry these questions? Because he's "got a full time job" that gets in the way of paying attention to what is going on right in front of him and he is as useless as they come?
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| The orange cone is covering the stump of metal where a sign once stood until August 3rd. |
Well, you may be thinking, if 4th & Columbia is a 3-way intersection, why did DPW only install two stop lines? Why is there no white stop line on 4th Street (which might have prevented the most recent crash if it had been there, of course!)? Well, there's no sense in DPW installing another $110 line in the street if National Grid's pavement subcontractor, if we are lucky, is going to come along sometime in the next few months to rip up the street they partially covered in concrete and to repave it. That's right, we'll have to wait until Bob Talham, Inc. of Troy shows up to remove the concrete they left us 3 weeks ago so that 4th Street can be properly repaved so that it no longer looks and feels like shit! Ditto for all the other streets awaiting their expert work. In the meantime, expect another accident or three along the truck route at 4th, just like 2 Saturdays ago when the driver who ran the red light said that he "didn't see the red light. I didn't see any light." If the driver wasn't looking up, would he have seen a stop line on the pavement if one had been there?
2 blocks away, at 6th & Columbia, there are still no stop lines. It wasn't too long ago at a council meeting in City Hall that Lt. David Miller, who was filling in for an absent Ed Moore, said that "there were not enough accidents" at the intersection to justify installing stop lines. Months later, Lt. Miller sent me erroneous statistics via email to prove his point, forgetting to move a decimal point when calculating a percentage! Can you imagine? An intersection along the truck route with its share of accidents and the people we rely on to protect us have decided that they know how many crashes an intersection has to produce before they consider installing stop lines and can't even do the math properly. Real professionals, these people! It's like relying on children to protect the adults.
4 or 5 years ago, from a block away, I heard a terrific crash at 4th & Columbia and immediately ran over. I came to see a car in the middle of the intersection all banged up, probably totaled, with a woman in the driver's seat screaming hysterically, unable to get out of the car and with all her air bags employed. The other car, which likely ran the red light, was on the sidewalk up against the wall of the house on the northeast corner. The owner of that house told me that this was the second time that a car involved in a crash at that intersection had come to rest against his house. He showed me the marks on the wall. But none of this is enough to have simple fucking stop lines installed. Maybe if the lines didn't cost so goddam much, it wouldn't be like pulling teeth to get the city to do what everyone knows is the right thing to do to make intersections as safe as possible. We have to ask them to do this shit over and over, the work they are supposed to be doing to keep us safe? Sometimes it's like talking to trees. Dumb trees. That's because no one knows who at City Hall is in charge of traffic safety, if there is anyone. Is it Robert Perry? Mishanda Franklin? No Show Bower? DPW Commissioner Jason Foster? They all have something to say (except Bower), but they don't actually talk to one another. And so nothing happens properly, or ever, to keep us safe.
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| Westbound truck route traffic at 4th now knows where to stop for the red light. |
If one of the drivers and a pedestrian and dog had been seriously hurt or killed at one of those crashes at 6th & Columbia -- or if the cop in the unmarked car had been killed 5 or 6 years ago when someone ran a red light and totaled the cop car -- would there still be no stop lines there? Is that how HPD and DPW make their decisions to ensure our safety? "Sorry, there haven't been enough fatal accidents there yet! You will just have to wait until there are! We will let you know when that time comes! Until then, go away and stop bothering us, we know what the hell we are doing and you do not."
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| Why on earth would a known dangerous intersection adjacent to the farmer's market in a residential neighborhood need stop lines? Apparently, someone or everyone at City Hall thinks this would be a waste of time and money. |
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