One Week Later...

 

... and still no sign of mayor Ferris' "permanent" stop sign number 3!  Welcome to Hudson, we're a work in constant progress.  Get used to it!

Cars and other assorted vehicles regularly park on both sides of Park Place in front of the coffee shop at the city's least safe intersection that is particularly dangerous for pedestrians.  You know, the drivers park along a yellow curb and near a NO PARKING sign "for just a minute" to get their coffee and pastries to go.  (The NO PARKING zone on the west side does not have a NO PARKING sign, though last winter Rob Perry decided to install a temporary one there rather than removing the snow and ice that covered the yellow curb for two or three months.  Perry sees no need to install a permanent NO PARKING ANY TIME sign there, and Chief Franklin and Parking Captain Miller both probably agree with him.  The east side has one NO PARKING ANY TIME sign far from the intersection.)

Yesterday morning, I took the pictures below.  It was a somewhat typical scene.  The driver's side front wheel of the cab of the turning tractor trailer practically struck the yellow curb of the NO PARKING zone that is regularly occupied by vehicles whose occupants need a caffeine fix.  Fortunately for the truck driver, there were no illegally parked cars on the west side of the street in his way, just two of them on the east side that forced him to widen his turn to avoid.  Watch that stop sign!  Watch that group of pedestrians crossing -- one to the left and one to the right! Watch that illegally parked car or three!  Of course, the side closest to the coffee is the more convenient of the two insufficiently marked NO PARKING zones to park in "for just a minute," and that's where you'll typically see parked cars, though the other side does have its fair share.  It's just a longer walk to coffee.  Ask any of our four parking enforcers about the situation in the two so-called NO PARKING zones in front of the city's busiest coffee shop at the city's most dangerous intersection and the first thing they will likely do is roll their eyes and shake their head.  At least two of the enforcers will probably use the word "ridiculous" to describe what has been going on there for the past two or three years.  They will all certainly agree that the situation continues to worsen.  Ticketing, on the rare occasions that it happens, has no effect.

The white pickup truck (with Oregon plates) parked alongside the yellow curb and next to the ugly crosswalk was idling with driver inside when I happened by.  Just over 5 minutes later, someone came out of the coffee shop with a brown bag, got in the pickup, and off the two went to Oregon.  It "took just a minute" for them to get their caffeine, not creating a nuisance or danger to anyone else while their large pickup remained illegally parked for at least 5 minutes, about as close to the intersection anyone could park without getting yelled at for being so disrespectful and careless... AND PARKED ILLEGALLY!  I was hoping a cop car would roll by to see if it would stop to try to get the pickup to move along, but no such luck.  The illegally parked vehicles in front of the city's most popular coffee destination -- on both sides of the street -- are so common that the cops probably don't notice them at all anymore, if they ever did.  Plus, cops in cop vehicles out on regular patrol have no means of issuing tickets to illegally parked vehicles.  (This is true!)

For the second time in about a week involving the same parked Ford pickup truck, I noticed a situation with mayor Ferris' new flexible traffic posts that are, I guess, supposed to protect his new stop signs.  They are getting as much use and abuse as his stop signs have been getting.

One positive thing about the new paid parking system is that business owners and employees along Warren can leave their vehicle parked in a "metered" parking space and never have to come outside to pay like in the old days when tyrannical quarters ruled Warren Street.  Just leave the car out front all day, just as the city wants.  No need to step outside in the fresh air and be with humanity.  And, if you like, just pay for your space using your phone while you're sitting on the toilet.  That works just fine, too!