Jul282009
Very Local Politics: Visiting the Town Council
Filed under Home,local by Kim at 6:52 pm on Jul 28 2009
When I walked in the door from BlogHer the first thing that greeted me was not my loving, angry, stupid cats, but a flyer from the city informing me that there would be a council meeting the next day about our very own street.
So tonight I zipped on down there (in my flip flops and hoodie because I was out of time – although no one cared) to the municipal building and heard what was going to happen.
They seem to have found that 20% of the drivers are going 10 miles over the speed limit. In the past year there have been 5 incidents, including a pedestrian hit. From where we sit, within earshot of the intersection, we hear all the near misses too – and everyone else who hears them from their front windows was there.
It was great! I got to meet so many of my neighbors who, through neglect or busy schedules or our own general anti-socialness I had not met before. I met Jeff, the guy who put in the cobblestones down the street – now I’m so going to be bugging him with recommendations on what to do about our gravel.
I got to meet the former mayor of our town and his wife. She informed me that his brother ran through our porch in 1952. He was not the last, so I hear. Our porch is positioned very attractively for motorists.
The long and the short of it was – they are trying some traffic calming measures. Nothing we say will get them to put in that fourth stop sign because of the amount of cars that go through. (That is a repeat of what I learned in 2007.) Most of my neighbors feel exactly as we do. Everyone would love a roundabout but they would practically have to bulldoze our house, so no. I have been educated!
1 Joe Wallon 29 Jul 2009 at 5:25 am
Of course, as someone who crashed onto your sidewalk and barely missed hitting your porch in ’86 while imprudently driving a Datsun station wagon, I should just stand here whistling innocently.
But I definitely agree on the 4th stop sign, personally. It’s a tricky intersection for people who don’t understand it’s weird rules.
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2 Jenon 29 Jul 2009 at 9:16 am
I guess it’s a real tangle to deal with that intersection considering all the historic houses and the fact that there’s really no space at all for a roundabout. It’s a shame, but I’m glad you went and participated!
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3 leon 29 Jul 2009 at 9:53 pm
If you can figure out a way that to replace your patio fence with an attractive stone barrier I will definitely help lift and stack rock and/or apply mortar.
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