Route 9, Where Pedestrians Are Treated Like Potential Roadkill

Let's face it, the only time a well-off person might find themself ambling along Fairview Avenue would be if they had gone for a walk and gotten lost. Everyone else who prefers to walk, OR MUST WALK, along Fairview Avenue receives a giant, white and icy middle finger every winter for at least a few days -- and sometimes weeks on end -- from both the City of Hudson and the Town of Greenport all the way across and back on the CSX overpass.

Being permanently without an automobile in this world is almost always a losing game; it sucks, and the odds are stacked against you. It's not bad enough that walking takes up your precious time (and money), is exhausting and takes its toll, it is as if the system doesn't want you to reach your goals or succeed in life. "They" deliberately or unconsciously make things difficult and dangerous for you, usually in subtle ways, though often in glaring ways. Money does that to certain people.  Money and carbon-spewing, speedy vehicles, human kind's two primary fatal flaws.

It's like the system doesn't care if you are run over and killed by a 3 or 18-ton vehicle thanks to someone in power -- a member of the system -- who forced you to walk in the shoulder or in the street to get to where you needed to go, perhaps to buy some food or toothpaste for your family. They offered you and your loved ones an unviable, disrespectful, dangerous and annoying sorry-ass excuse for a sidewalk for two months, as if they forced you to play Russian roulette with all the other people in the same boat as you. Eventually someone loses. Their life. And who could you blame -- who could you rail against -- if you were dead? 

You might as well be considered roadkill.  Like a raccoon or a rat,  on the same level as vermin.

This is Rob Perry's side of the overpass. 
Is it possible that our DPW Superintendent's
$117,000 salary precludes him from caring
about poor people, the underprivileged and
people without access to an expensive
multi-ton wheeled vehicle?  Why would Rob need 
reminding to sweep this portion of city sidewalk
every year?  Has no one explained to him
the importance of this, and the importance
of remembering it every winter without excuse?

These are shots that cover every inch of the sidewalks on both sides of the 275-foot-long overpass, taken four nights following our three or four inches of snow on Sunday.  It's been bumpy, uneven ice for days all the way across -- about 90 paces on each side!  And nights!  90 paces, more for the elderly and children.  What about the disabled?  And it looks like Hudson and Greenport are satisfied just leaving it that way for as long as the cold sticks around.  Just like last year and the years before.

As I understand things from DOT, Hudson/Rob Perry is responsible for the west side of the overpass and Greenport is responsible for the east side. Including the sidewalks, of course!  Every winter, no one except DOT seems to know who is responsible for both sidewalks.  Of course, Hudson and Greenport would probably stop "forgetting" their responsibilities if a pedestrian were to be killed after choosing not to use the snow and (mostly) ice-covered 275-foot long sidewalk designed and built for use by those on foot at any time of the year, day or night.

Within the city limits, which the overpass is, DOT has no jurisdiction on Route 9/Fairview Avenue. Once their plows hit the city limits, they are not supposed to clear any of our streets or sidewalks.   And they don't.  That's Rob Perry's jurisdiction.  Our $117,000 DPW Superintendent without an office in City Hall knows this all too well, though you'll never hear him mention it at a meeting unless he is forced to.  Heaven forbid a council member would force him to admit he despises poor people, too.

"WARNING WALKERS:
Bridge freezes before roadway!"

For people who must walk, preventable
 dangers lurk that do not target car owners.  

All clear for the almighty vehicle!  
Thank goodness we don't have to bother 
with those sidewalks!  So annoying, those 
sidewalks, and the poor schmucks who
use them!  Someone buy them a goddamn car!

And this is just the overpass!!!!