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!
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| Preparing to cross a busy two-lane highway. |
First, it's worth noting that northbound drivers headed into the city on 9G - including trucks and semis -- approach Colarusso's new gravel truck crossing in a 35 mph zone after just coming off a very long and steep hill with a speed limit of 55 mph. Southbound drivers approaching the new crossing and not yet out of Hudson (the crossing is, I believe, the city limit) have been on a long straightaway with a mostly ignored 25 (35?) mph speed limit, preparing to enter the 55 mph zone on the other side of the crossing to get up the long and steep hill of 9G. (Calling the flat of 9G between the two hills the Bay Road seems absurd. It should be called the Bay Highway!)
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| This signal, for southbound traffic, is within the city limits. It is on city property. The other signal is not. (gravel semi is crossing in the distance) |
The pictures included here show two Colarusso semis, one of them likely ladened with several tons of gravel, preparing to and successfully crossing the busy highway within 4 minutes of one another. With no shortage of traffic in both directions on 9G, some of it quite fast, both truck drivers waited for quite a while to safely proceed and continue on the other portion of the haul road ahead of them. (I could totally see a driver getting impatient and deciding to cross when they should not.) Neither of the warning/crossing signals illuminated for the two Colarusso gravel semis crossings I witnessed. No yellow lights turned on, let alone flashed, while the 18-wheelers were waiting to cross nor while they took at least 7 seconds to get all 18 wheels across the busy highway. Dozens of crossings take place 5 days a week (possibly on Saturdays as well), all still without any safety features designed to prevent a crash for a driver and possibly passengers/children/family. Welcome to Hudson everyone, please drive safely!
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| What the fuck are they waiting for? (The electric line needed for this signal to operate is on the other side of the highway!) |
Why, after two months, aren't the two new signals on 9G illuminating and flashing to warn drivers, including plenty of truck drivers, of large, heavy and slow-moving hazards blocking the highway ahead? Because they still have no electricity available to them to operate and help drivers stay safe and alive. It's not that the signals are defective or inoperable. They simply haven't been plugged in! No electricity, no flashing lights. No electricity, no warning to drivers in a hurry on a speedy highway to slow the heck down or stop completely before colliding with a 75-foot long, 15 or 20-ton vehicle that will barely budge if slammed into by a car. It's almost comical: You can see the bare wires meant to power each signal coiled nearby where they have likely been resting for over two months, their ends waiting to be connected to a live electric line so that the lights turn on to warn drivers of the new gravel truck crossing ahead EVERY TIME A GRAVEL TRUCK TAKES FIVE OR TEN SECONDS TO CROSS THE HIGHWAY. You know, so that the safety signals might actually prevent a serious and potentially fatal vehicle collision in which a Colarusso driver will certainly walk away unscathed. Then who gets sued for negligence and indifference to human life? Hmm... Colarusso's new gravel truck crossing surrounded by unpowered warning signals is at the Hudson city line! "Can I please speak to city attorney Andy Howard?!"
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| If there is a crash today, will these wires finally be connected to the source of electricity no more than10 feet away? |
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| The source of electricity for these wires is on the other side of the highway. Who is working to make them live, useful wires? |
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| Sorry, not working for you or your children! We installed the signals just for you! No need to thank us! |
Early this year, Rob Perry announced that the final pair of several pedestrian crossing signals the city had bought long ago had been installed at the bottom of 6th Street near the entrance to Oakdale Park (here we go again at the bottom of a hill where speeding is common!). If the signal on the west side of the street ever worked, it was only for a few days. Push the button on that pole and neither of the signals flash. Push the button on the pole across the street and only the signal on that pole will flash. These are the signals meant to keep adults and children walking to and from Oakdale Park from being run over by a car or truck. What the fuck does Rob Perry care if those pedestrian signals don't work properly or at all? He finally got the things put in the ground where they were needed, at the bottom of a steep hill where speeding is unchecked by HPD and near the entrance to our largest public park where the Youth Department summer camp takes place every summer. He did his job!
The non-functioning crossing signal on the Bay Highway for southbound traffic is within the city limits. Do you think Rob Perry and Kamal Johnson care that after two months it, along with the other useless signal facing drivers headed into the city, still hasn't been wired to operate as it was presumably (!) intended to operate? Do they even know or care to know that Colarusso gravel semis are crossing the highway in and out of Hudson while the crossing signals are still not powered with electricity, unable to warn drivers of an imminent serious danger ahead that occurs several times a day? Does it matter who installed those useless, unwired signals? Shouldn't the two truck crossing signals have been operational on day one over two months ago, same as the two pedestrian crossing signals installed several months ago near Oakdale Park? Shouldn't Paul Colarusso (successful local business owner), Kamal Johnson ($75,000/year) and Rob Perry ($125,000/year) give a shit?
Why should we expect them to?
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