Preview material for fourmidgetsandahorse--may appear elsewhere without copyright brou-haha
In other words, it's a draft.
Sheesh guys... I don’t think you’re inhuman monsters, and I don’t think you’re child-ignorers or gasoline fiends.
That’s my initial response to the defensiveness I got in trying to cover the traffic committee meeting. Second to that response is “...but what were you THINKING?”
Let me back up.
I started this odyssey Monday, July 19, when I made the horrible mistake of attending a City Council meeting without a notebook.
I will never make that mistake again.
Despite being late for the meeting—my reason for notebooklessness, having figured that all the interesting stuff had passed—I had the anthropological experience of a lifetime as I watched nearly a dozen senior citizens come forward and complain of traffic Hell at Clough and Campbell Hill, where their beloved four-way stop signs had been swiped by the city.
‘Turns out, the city had not just idly shuffled things around, but had spent weeks—and mucho dollars—setting up a study with the Mannik & Smith group to figure out where stops were extraneous.
With visions of high readership and local copy, I spent the next week or so talking to bitter residents, preoccupied police, knowledgeable City administrators, and traffic engineer Jean Hartline of Mannik & Smith.
What came out of the experience were about forty pages of quotes, a story that only had space for around eight percent of that (which didn’t end up in the print edition—thank John “My visit is more interesting than stop signs” Kerry) and a general idea of how complex the issue was.
You see, stop signs aren’t for controlling speed. Really. It says so, right in the Ohio Manual of Uniform Traffic Devices. All those times you drove slowly because you knew there were a lot of stop signs in a neighborhood? You were ignoring Ohio law, you churlish criminal.
Also, if you want to have a four-way stop at an intersection, you need at least 300 vehicles or bikes or John-Kerrys-on-foot per-hour going through that space. And 200 have to be on the less-used street.
All of which means that in a college town like BG, despite thousands of pedestrians, bike riders and a bunch of elementary school kids in the neighborhood—and a blind guy named John for good measure—you gotta wave your hands and pray if you’re walking around and want a car to stop for you. Using a sign? Pfff. Not unless there are 30 pedestrians per-hour crossing the asphalt, says the Mannik study (for the record, I informally counted only 66 pedestrians per-hour crossing Main Street downtown last week in my own manic study during a busy Thursday rush-hour).
Anyhow, while I found the state regulations somewhat strange, I was encouraged by the fact that our city officials were following them. I was further encouraged by the fact that they seemed slightly pained by the whole thing. In other words, they were human.
Then things got even more confusing.
The city traffic commission held its meeting Wednesday night, all the bitter residents were there, and the members of said commission must’ve wished it was the old days, when angry mobs just threw eggs, burned stuff and left you alone instead of giving speeches.
Nonetheless, some real information came out during the meeting. First, we found out exactly why city was so worried about following code. If young Bobby is cruising along Campbell Hill, and goes through to the four-way stop, he could get in an accident. If Bobby’s insurance company looks into the matter and finds that the city has non-code stop signs, the city must pay both the insurance company and Bobby some big bucks.
Happy Bobby.
It’s apparently happened before in a different location, so it was no surprise that city officials were cautious. It looked indeed like the two-way stop was here to stay.
Only one problem. Jean Hartline (remember her?) wasn’t absolutely sure that a four-way would be illegal. In fact, she was very far from sure. Come to think of it...
Asked for a number, Ms. Hartline (the biggest expert on state traffic guidelines in the room) said that the four-way plan was 99% likely to stand up in a court contest. Which is quite likely indeed. So as quick as you can say “ignore the expert,” a motion was made to replace the now-engineer-endorsed four-way, it was seconded and it was shot down.
Huh?
I may have missed something, but last time I checked, we were paying Mannik & Smith thousands of dollars for traffic advice. Shouldn’t we umm... take their traffic advice? Especially when residents agree with it?
Apparently not. The four commission members who voted against the stop signs are definitely human, complete with stubbornness and the ability to make mistakes.
Patrick makes misteaks. Email him at pmaynar@bgsu.edu