When One Sign Is Obviously A Joke! Thanks, Rob Perry, You're Doing A Hell Of A Job!

 

The clue that tipped me off about this semi-trailer waiting at the red light at the turn in the truck route that I came across yesterday was that neither blinker was on.  And sure enough, when the green light appeared the truck did not turn.

In the summer of 2020, after receiving so many complaints from me about errant semi-trailers and other large trucks on
State Street, Rob Perry (probably at the behest of mayor Rector or Johnson) installed a pair of traffic signs over each of the intersections at 3rd & Columbia and State & Green.  Here are pictures I took then of those four new signs.

Within 9 months -- and I'm not kidding -- BOTH of the signs with the image of the slashed truck were gone, leaving each intersection with just one sign meant to keep all our wonderful truck traffic on the truck route.  You can still see the clips on the wires where those signs were hung from nearly 6 years ago, including in the picture below.  The remaining sign at State & Green -- for the past 5 fucking years -- hangs over the outbound traffic lane even though it is meant for the eyes of truck drivers headed into town as they approach State Street.  Those drivers are not driving under that sign; at best, it would be in their peripheral vision.  

Do you think Rob Perry cares if semi-trailers are driving up and down State Street making dangerous turns and terrorizing residents, creating quality of life issues and possibly destroying infrastructure and signs?  Do you think Rob Perry cares if truck drivers, especially first timers, might be just a little bit confused and anxious as they try to get through our dense town with narrow streets, following their GPS and hoping not to do something regrettable or wind up lost or in an accident?  Rob Perry didn't install those four truck route signs in 2020 because he thought it was a good idea.  Someone told him to do it and he did.  Why would he bother to replace any if they somehow fell to the ground?  What will he do when the other two fall off and no signs remain at all?  Would he tell someone, "I didn't know that they were missing for 5 or 10 years"?

After watching the semi navigate the turn onto State off of 3rd without incident, I decided to have a look at the intersection anyway.  Fortunately for that driver, someone had already knocked down the street sign to get it out of their way.  Somehow the trash can -- which has no business being there because it is completely unnecessary -- was spared by whoever knocked that sign pole flat to the sidewalk.

It was like deja vu all over again.  Here's a picture I took 3 years ago:

That semi was essentially stuck, the driver unsure what to do.  Within ten minutes, a responding police officer got in the cab and reversed the whole goddamn rig back beyond Columbia Street VERY SLOWLY, then turned left onto Columbia, stopped, got out and allowed the driver to get back behind her driving wheel.  While I don't have a picture taken at the time, just as there is now and has been for the past 5 years, there was just that one truck route warning sign for that driver to notice at Columbia & 3rd at the turn in our lovely truck route.   The sign telling her not to drive straight ahead had been missing for at least two years, and the same goes for every truck driver headed north on 3rd approaching Columbia, including the driver of the semi that I watched make it successfully to State Street last week.  It probably happens more than anyone can imagine.

Rob Perry should be required to include in his report to the whatever committee a monthly tally of how many cars and trucks hit public property (including street signs!) after driving on sidewalks.  He should also include how many of the drivers were caught doing so, whether they were ticketed for a traffic violation and how much money they've paid the city to fix or replace the city property they damaged or destroyed.

And Mishanda Franklin should be telling her Safety committee how many tickets her officers issued the previous month to trucks that had strayed off of the truck route, whether they inflict any damage to public property or not.  And if they do inflict damage to property, tell us how much the driver paid to repair or replace that property and what type of traffic violation tickets they were issued.

I've been noticing and hearing a lot of semis on State Street recently.  Maybe it's time for another few calls to the mayor and Rob Perry.  And the Police Chief.

A few weeks ago, I came across a WAL MART semi in the parking lot of the Antiques Warehouse at the end of South Front Street.  I asked the driver if he was lost.  Yes.  Were you following your GPS?  Yes.  Where are you trying to get to?  The Catskill Walmart.  Do not go back up the way you got here.  Turn around, head out the back of this property along the building where you will come across several of perhaps the largest speed bumps you've ever seen.  You will come to a road at the end, take a right, that's 9G, and it will take you to the bridge that leads to Catskill.  He thanked me and off he went.  It must have taken him two minutes to hop over all those speed bumps and make it to 9G.

Can someone tell me if Margaret Morris and her bygone Truck Route Committee actually accomplished anything that had any effect on trucks headed through town?  Are there fewer trucks and semis rolling through town after all they did and yammered on about?  Or are there more?