Hello Stop Signs, Goodbye Dying New Trees!

Thanks to two dangerous sections of sidewalk that were recently removed from the Public Works Board's SID list*, mayor Ferris announced that the city now has enough money to install a pair of stop signs and stop lines for Front Street traffic approaching the intersection with Warren Street, an improvement that should have been part of last year's DRI project that wouldn't have cost the city a dime.  (The I in DRI stands for IMPROVEMENT, of course.)  Instead of much needed stop signs and stop lines at that intersection that even a blind person knew were needed decades ago, the DRI and an engineering firm from New Jersey gifted us with three new painted pedestrian crosswalks, two new trees obscuring two new PEDESTRIAN CROSSING signs, and three new painted arrows and three new RAISED INTERSECTION signs that all belie the unraised intersection.  The latter should all be removed, and the former will have to be relocated to make way for mayor Safety Ferris's stop signs.  And, of course, the nearly dead trees will have to be taken to the dump or burned (they might be diseased!).

Ten days ago.  Advertising an event to be held  
out of town on September 19th.

By the way, the DRI-created vegetation area directly in front of the entrance to Promenade Park has displayed equal parts plastic advertisement and vegetation for the past few weeks. What a thrill!  This wasn't a difficult task at all given that there has been essentially no vegetation there this year welcoming visitors to the park.  And why would there be?  Isn't the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce located at that intersection?  Isn't the city's most popular outdoor destination with the million-dollar views also found at that intersection?  Isn't that intersection at the western terminus of world-famous Warren Street in Hudson, New York?  By golly, I do believe it is!

Even the signs can't grow here!  (Yesterday)

* One of the two reconsidered dangerous sidewalks will remain arguably the worst in the entire city for years to come, and it just so happens to be in my neighborhood.  It's a 6-inch drop from a non-concrete sidewalk to the asphalt of Rope Alley.  All of us living near 6th & State are all too familiar with this killer of a drop (and step up, if you can), as plenty of Pocketbook Hotel and restaurant, bar, spa, etc. guests and customers now are as well, many of them discovering it in the dark.  After several months of consideration (over a year?), the engineer that the PWB is relying on and paying to make this SID thing a reality recently announced that there were too many issues related to that sidewalk to get it taken care of this year.  Therefore, it will have to wait, possibly until 2037.  Apparently, someone falling off that sidewalk and slamming their head on the asphalt is not an issue for the engineer and the PWB to be concerned about, just as it never has been over the past twenty or more years for Code Enforcement, oodles of council members, and several so-called mayors.  At least they're consistent!

Perhaps the tallest WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU  
from City Hall to all residents and pedestrians in the city.