I have no idea if the Hudson Fire Department's new $20,600 double-sided, multi-color, digital sign being installed on the North 7th Street side of the Firestation was paid for with taxpayer dollars or if its purchase was approved by the Common Council, though I can't imagine that it was. Certainly not in these financially challenging and precarious times.
I've said it previously on HUDseen: It's the level of professionalism from Hudson City Hall that really impresses me.
The way I see it, the transformation of the city's parking revenue collection infrastructure from meters to kiosks is a litmus test for City Hall. This is a hugely ambitious project that is now solely in the hands of the Police Department. No, that is not a typo. It's true: this transformative project is not being handled at all by the newly formed and relocated Parking Bureau, but by the Hudson Police Department, the agency in charge of all things law enforcement and keeping us safe and secure. And, if I'm to believe what he told me last week, our Acting Police Chief, Captain David Miller (who may also be our interim Police Commissioner), is the city official responsible for the parking kiosks. The buck stops with him, so to speak. How can this possibly go wrong? Or, more accurately perhaps, how can this go right? It was wrong from the start over a year ago and has only worsened.
According to your second favorite local blog, Gossips of Rivertown, it was about two months ago when a pair of yellow crossing/warning signals were installed on State Route 9G for Colarusso's new haul road crossing. (Notice, though, that neither the word crossing nor the image of a truck crossing are anywhere to be found on the signs. Trucks ahead in Hudson? Yeah, what else is new!). In her posting, Carole posited, as any reasonable person might: Presumably something triggers the lights to start flashing when a gravel truck on the haul road is approaching the highway. Unfortunately, the world appears to have entered an era of unreasonableness, dysfunction, danger and stupidity (or have we always been there?).
Last week, I decided to check for myself (and my dear readers!) how well those new crossing signals designed to keep drivers safe and alive were operating. Enough of this presumptiveness!
It's been over 3 months since 5 useless $10,000 parking kiosks were installed around town. How much did that installation process cost taxpayers? How much did the plastic bags covering them cost city taxpayers? How much will replacement bags cost and who, if anyone, is responsible for keeping the unusable kiosks protected from the elements? Has City Hall completely given up?
Since the E-bike/pickup truck collision at 1st & Warren on August 12th that put the two-wheeled rider in an Albany hospital with serious head injuries, always involved and busy 1st ward Common Council member Margaret Morris has taken on the issue of E-bike safety, particularly regarding riders who do not obey traffic laws. She has discussed the matter at the past three informal council meetings following each HPD report, another concern of hers added to her already overflowing, deep and wide bowl of problems in the city that she wants to solve. With so much to keep an eye on, it's difficult to imagine Margaret can give any one of her issues the proper attention they all need.
In case you missed it, here is an excerpt of the discussion between Morris (MM) and acting Police Chief/Captain David Miller (DM) at the September informal meeting following Miller's HPD report, edited for clarity and brevity and with my comments in parentheses. Morris began the discussion:
Two months ago, on August 12th, HUDseen reported on the cracked condition of the concrete sidewalks along the very new Ferry Street bridge that was built by Colarusso & Sons. The concrete pad with the most conspicuous crack was located near Front Street (unlike the pads above the tracks, this pad had just one crack). That pad and that crack are still there (as are all the others above the tracks), but a new crack has sprouted to join the original perpendicularly. This one makes it nearly all the way across the width of the pad. (I haven't measured the width of those sidewalks along the bridge, but they appear to be at least 5 feet wide!)
If you'd like to get a real-time, true sense of how deplorable the sidewalk situation in Hudson continues to be, carefully step on over to the eastern end of Prospect Street to behold two examples that are quite different but both part of the same intransigent problem: a Hudson City Hall that refuses to care about pedestrians or the sidewalks we all walk on. For the time being, perhaps these pictures will help.
I'm thinking that the black gunk caked on this hydrant near the turn in the truck route is the same diesel engine effluent that gets lodged in our lungs so easily. What else could it be?
Who the hell can read this sign while driving by at 20 or 30 miles per hour? Who the hell needs to read this sign?
Are the decades-old successes of a high school sport really what we want drivers taking their eyes off the road to (attempt to) read about? Especially about bowling!
Yesterday in the later afternoon, over the course of just 6 or 7 traffic light changes at 3rd & Warren, I observed three lines of stopped cars headed south on 3rd Street so backed up from the 30 second red light at Union that the final car in line was forced to stop on the crosswalk between the southeast and southwest corners at Warren. The silver car shown above had to have been stopped on the crosswalk for at least ten seconds with 10 or 11 cars ahead of it and while pedestrians had the right of way to use the crosswalk. Just 6 or 7 of the cars in line eventually made it past the green light at Union that lasts just 20 seconds. The remaining 4 or 5 cars at the back of the line that did not make it past Union formed a new line and, of course, more cars got in line behind them, all waiting for another 30 second red light that should only last 20 seconds. I didn't see any trucks or tractor trailers, but that would have made things a lot more interesting.
This unwelcome and dangerous situation is becoming more and more common. Of course, like most of the trucks and tractor trailers found on the truck route portion of 3rd Street, plenty of cars are passing through town without their drivers stopping to visit or spend money downtown. There must be hundreds of vehicles daily -- if not thousands -- coming from Fairview Avenue and from Route 23B that make their way to South 3rd Street -- either via State or Columbia -- and directly out of town.
For at least the past ten years -- and possibly ever since the city's hundreds of parking meters were first installed on and near Warren Street and in four parking lots -- the job of collecting quarters from the meters was handled by one city worker. ONE! Now, it appears, the job requires two workers. While one worker never lets go of a two-wheeled dolly (and never takes his eyes off of the quarters in the topless plastic bucket strapped to it), the other worker removes the quarter collection cans found in the meters and empties the quarters into the bucket, sometimes while one or both of them are talking on their personal cellphones to who knows who. (Can you imagine? A 5-gallon plastic bucket without even a lid! Talk about secure, smart, safe and theft-proof!)
Last Friday afternoon, parking space lines were painted on both sides of the freshly installed asphalt in front of Galvan's nearly complete and completely regrettable apartment building at 76 North 7th Street.
While most Hudson residents with a car have no reason to drive on North 7th Street north of State Street, what transpired last week in front of Galvan's new apartment building, known as 76 North 7th, should concern everyone with or without a car (or bicycle!). The results are emblematic of the woeful lack of planning and coordination inside City Hall, yet more evidence of a Kamal Johnson administration that isn't interested in paying attention to the important details and continues to squander money. I can't imagine this kind of nonsense happening so regularly in any other city in America.
The mass gathering permit that the city granted to the Upper Depot Brewery for yesterday's Oktoberfest celebration only allowed them "street closure" of the 700 block of State Street (a copy of the signed permit is on the city's website in the Upcoming Events section). The permit did not allow the organizers to block access to both sidewalks alongside the tented event, but that is what they did anyway. All day. Just like last year.
First, I noticed the thick, freshly broken tree branch at the edge of the truck route just west of 6th Street, an obvious result of the sidewalk work happening across the street that had narrowed the street to one lane for a few hours yesterday.
Then I watched this...
In what seems to me to be a first for downtown Hudson, an internet provider will be tearing up a long portion of city roadway to bury their lines -- specifically, and at least for now, along the south side of the first two blocks of Cherry Alley, including 1st street between the alleys. As far as I can tell, the fresh spray paint in the alley and on 1st Street indicates that the latest internet provider to come to town, Archtop Fiber, has decided to bury at least some of its lines rather than hang them from National Grid's utility poles. (The worker in the picture confirmed to me that "someone" was going to be digging up the two blocks of the south side of the alley. He and two others working for a utility contractor hired by National Grid were marking the asphalt to show where Grid's gas lines below the asphalt are located and to be avoided.)
HUDseen hopes to do a big dive into the unwelcome parking situations surrounding the Pocketbook Hudson Hotel and Baths -- on Prospect, on W...
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