October 17, 2012

Bending to media and neighborhood pressure, the city has, at long last, decided to do an official “traffic” study at two intersections along St. John Avenue where traffic signals are being replaced with stop signs. Those intersections are St. John and Quincy and St. John and Topping.

After trying to pass off as gospel that project engineers had spoken with all of the schools in the area in regards to the proposed changes (they in fact had not made contact with any education professionals in regards) as well as not being truthful about traffic counts being completed (no person this newshound spoke with saw any sort of official counting at the affected intersections), the city has apparently capitulated and is doing now what should have been done to begin with – an official count. They’ll not be counting cars, however, only pedestrians, according to a source close to the count.

Interestingly and arrogantly, the city is still standing on principle in regards to the other stoplight change-outs, regardless of how high the accident or body count goes. Note to the city: backing in to a traffic study at this stage of the mess that you’ve created for yourself isn’t going to endear you to neighborhoods since you’ve thrown the collaborative planning process out the window in the process. Putting a hand out seeking citizen input on the front side of the process while giving a swift kick in the pants to the same citizenry on the back side of the process is not collaborative; it’s insulting and is deserving of an apology from city government for usurping the neighborhood planning process outlined in the St. John Corridor planning documents. This news canine isn’t holding her breath.