This Is Progress?

I have been amazed by what some people call progress today. Now, I have no objection to real progress but I grew up in a time that if a building was here today, we knew it would be here tomorrow, and the day after, and even the next week or year. Now, if you see it today, you'd better take a good look because it probably won't be there tomorrow.

We had several nice wide streets with grassy median strips and big shade trees where grand-parents would visit while they watched the children play. We also had street cars - you know, trolleys, which I loved to ride. Most families did not have cars but used the public thansportation and teen-agers definitely had no cars - feet were invented first. We walked over town to the movies, to the stadium for ball games, to High's Ice Cream for a shake, up Mill Mountain, etc. As more families began to get cars, the powers that be decided that the trolleys slowed traffic down as they stopped to pick up passengers or let them off, so the trolleys became a thing of the past and the rails were dug up along with the brick road beneath them. Soon the "powers" decided that the beautiful median strips took up too much space and out they came!

Now we have new "powers" in office and what are they talking about? Yep, let's see about bringing the trolleys back and put in some grassy median strips with trees and flowers. Oh, yes, and let's add some bicycle lanes - would have been a great idea when I was growing up and kids and teens actually road bikes if their destination was too far to walk in a reasonable length of time. These "powers" have already dug up concrete on the outer edges of some sidewalks and replaced it with brick - down by the railroad tracks!

Now if you think these "new" ideas are crazy you have to read about the latest thing which some are calling the "road boobs" - I am not sure if the name refers to the resemblence of these things to certain body parts or to the type of people who came up with this stupid idea! All these wonderful "improvements" with people living on the streets, children who are hungry, senior citizens who can not afford medicines nor heat, etc. While the article is somewhat humorous in its subject matter, the subject itself is rediculous and there are a lot of angry people out there. The streets referred to in Jason's article are some of the earlier streets in Roanoke - built in an area which was convenient for those who worked at the American Viscose and the N&W shops - two of the bigest employers at the time. These wonderful new "improvements" have left many people on these streets with no place to park a vehicle. The article below is by Jason McNeil as written for the Roanoke Times.

Traffic calming drives him to frustration & beyond

Have you taken a drive around the Ninth Street area lately? Have you seen all the new odds and ends that are out in the middle of the road? More importantly, does all the bobbing and weaving and automotive "shooting the rapids" leave you with a feeling of profound calm?

A call to my buddy Ben Burch, of the Williamson Road Area Business Association, Airlee Community Neighborhood Watch and virtually every other local and neighborhood organization that he can devote his time and energy to, got me thinking that a visit to Elm Avenue and Ninth was in order. What started as a quick phone call to Burch, very quickly turned into an eye-opening 20-minute conversation about the new direction in traffic management that is in the process of coming soon to a street near you. The new thinking in motorist management is called traffic calming and, according to Burch, is so misleadingly named as to set one wondering if there's intentional sarcasm afoot.

"Traffic calming," Burch said, "doesn't calm me." Burch maintains that the real purpose of traffic calming measures is traffic obstruction. The idea, he says, is to put a bunch of stuff in the way of motorists, forcing them to make sudden stops and slow-downs, multiple lane changes and mergings and generally maintain a constant swerving, weaving traffic pattern. Drivers are challenged to narrowly avoid obstructions and as much stuff as can possibly be placed between point A and point B.

All this, we're told, will slow down high-traffic areas and somehow result in nicer, more Mayberry-like communities where folks shop at local boutiques and stores, forcing everyone to take time to smell the roses under threat of vehicular damage.

I have to admit, I thought ol' Ben was pulling my leg at first. Making perfectly good roads harder to navigate will benefit the community? Increasing commute times and the chance of stationary object versus vehicle collisions is actually being touted as a good idea? Someone has the unmitigated temerity to engineer traffic jams and call the effect calming? Sure, I thought. Pull the other leg.

Burch then suggested that I hop off the Interstate 581 Elm Avenue exit and head toward Vinton to see the realities of traffic calming in action. Sure. Why not?

Folks, I'm here to tell you it's scary out there, and it's getting scarier fast. I haven't weaved my way through that many twists and turns since the orange-cone obstacle course way back in driver's ed. The road meanders and winds and does everything but switch back on itself. I had to stop several times and fight to merge into the next lane because someone had decided that the middle of the lane I was driving in would be a good place to put a concrete island and some grass. Slow down. Speed up. Slow down again. Merge right. Get back left again. Motion sick and disoriented, I wondered whether I'd need a Sherpa to navigate my way back through this paved Himalayan goat trail.

What I did not feel was calm. At least twice before reaching Vinton, I felt quite capable of taking human life, starting with whoever decided that cluttering up the road was a project worth funding, while the widening of U.S. 221 to Bent Mountain enters another year of hanging in limbo.

According to Burch, Williamson Road is next on the hit list to get the traffic-calming treatment. Check out www.airleecourt.org and www.ite.org/traffic/tcdevices.htm to get a better idea of what's in the works and decide if it sounds like a good idea to you. Before you make a final decision, though, and let any and all city officials who'll listen know just what you think, take a moment, like I did, and ride Elm Avenue into Vinton. Just for fun, count the black tire marks on the curbs of all the new road obstructions. Better yet, wait for the first good snow or ice storm to hit, then go on down to Elm and watch the demolition derby. Jason McNeil's Front Porch column appears regularly in Neighbors.

© Copyright 2005




 


 

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