Say Hello To Your New $700 Pedestrian Crosswalk. You Paid For It, Now Go Walk It! That Is, If You Dare! *

Sometime this past week, DPW installed fourteen and a half white decal lines at 7th & Columbia to create a long crosswalk where one never existed.  Ain't it pretty?  If we're lucky, the lines that take the most beating will last all of two, maybe three, years.  Each line (the one at the far curb is just a half) measures 18 inches by 6 feet, and they are all melted into the pavement with a propane gas heat gun.  The cost of each line, including installation labor, gas, and whatever else is necessary (like four DPW pickup trucks idling nearby), is about $50, though it very possibly could be $60 or more.  We'll stick with $50 until further notice.  

That new 14.5-line crosswalk cost us at least $700.

If nothing has changed since last year, Rob Perry's pavement striping budget this year is $10,000.  You do the math to figure out how many crosswalks (and stop lines) Rob Perry has money for this year.  Of course, most lines will just be replacing old worn-out ones, as was done recently at the bottom of South Front at the train station, a partially refreshed crosswalk that cost us at least $600. **  

Just two crosswalks (one new, one refreshed) have eaten up more than one-tenth of Rob Perry's 2026 pavement striping budget!

Colarusso's repaving job for DOT on Route 9/Fairview Avenue in Greenport was also completed this week, ending with the striping of the new asphalt.  I'm not sure who actually applied the shoulder lines, medians, arrows, stop lines, etc. -- it may have been a professional striper or the DOT -- but they certainly weren't allowed (or dumb enough) to use the same expensive heat-treated decals that Rob Perry feels the city can afford and are best for Hudson's residents and streets.   Heavily travelled Fairview Avenue got special pavement-grade white and yellow paint at a fraction of the cost of the thermoplastic decals Rob Perry is addicted to installing on our less-travelled streets.  (When is someone at City Hall going to wake up and force Rob Perry to stop using those decals?  Is there anyone who can force him to do or stop doing anything?)

Just over 3 years ago -- as HUDseen reported at the time -- DPW refreshed the four pedestrian crosswalks at 7th & Warren, installing straight lines where diagonal lines had existed (some of which are still around).  With a total of 50 thermoplastic decal lines, the crosswalks cost us over $2,500, perhaps close to $3,000.  Most of the lines are holding up pretty well, though the crosswalk across Warren in the 700 block is looking, well, not so pretty.  Some of the lines got in the way of recent DPW asphalt patching.  Time for a new $50 line or three?

* Be careful if you do use the new crosswalk at 7th & Columbia -- it is an illusion of safety, like many, if not all, crosswalks are.  As always when crossing any street, look all ways and try to make eye contact with nearby drivers.  Vehicles turning off of Columbia (and, boy, are there a lot!), including police vehicles in a hurry to get back to the station on Union, still don't ever have to stop at the intersection.  The new crosswalk, occupied or not, has not changed that fact.  This crosswalk is just as dangerous (though less busy with pedestrians) as the crosswalk at the opposite corner of the park (at Park & Warren) that saw two people within two days in December get struck by turning vehicles.  

As long as vehicles turning onto 7th from Columbia don't have to stop, it's just a matter of time before a pedestrian or two are struck at the city's newest expensive crosswalk, too.  In fact, this morning, while nearing the middle of that crosswalk on foot for the first time, I thought I was going to get run over by HPD's huge white "SUPERVISOR" SUV being driven by Lieutenant Nicolas Pierro, but that's a story possibly for another time.  (Suffice is to say for now, he blamed me for being in his way as he was in the process of turning off of Columbia. He sure seems full of himself, and he apparently doesn't understand the idea of pedestrian right of way.)

** During last week's "Code" & Infrastructure Committee meeting, Rob Perry offered an explanation as to why DPW "upgraded " the long crosswalk in front of the Amtrak station.  His words are beyond absurd; they stink of horseshit. Here are his precise words. "This is another example where Amtrak actually put that crosswalk in and then they said, 'oh, by the way, we're going to put it in once and we're going to need the city to repair it.'  Anyway, that's what happens a lot of times when we get outside companies that will do the initial contract part but they won't do any of the follow up or maintenance or upkeep."  Though it's difficult to imagine, if Rob Perry did allow Amtrak to install a crosswalk on a city street -- I believe it showed up two or three years ago, I believe the lines were made of paint, and I know for a fact that Perry never mentioned anything about the installation of the crosswalk at the time -- there certainly wasn't any contract with the city involved.  And can you imagine someone from Amtrak getting Rob Perry on the phone, telling him, "Hey, pal, from now on you have to maintain that crosswalk of ours on your street or we'll come after you. It's written in the contract: our crosswalk is now your crosswalk. Don't let us down, okay? Don't make us get out our brass knuckles and come after you!  We know you don't work from the DPW offices in City Hall!  We can do this the easy way or you can make things difficult for yourself.  It's up to you." 

Should we be concerned with our DPW Superintendent's 
recent weight gain and his continual creative explanations?
Should we be concerned with the biggest lie in the room,
that Dewan Sarowar hasn't lived on Green Acres Road
 in Greenport for the past ten years with his wife and
 child(ren) in a house he and his wife purchased in 2016?