Wednesday, June 12, 2019

#SlowTheCars ... because Slick Jeffrey Gahan doesn't give a damn about pedestrian safety on Spring west of State.

A reader writes:

I just realized that the City County Building doesn’t even have a crosswalk on Spring Street! They don’t value any pedestrian’s right of way, do they?

Or, here:


Yes, it's the enduringly hazardous spot where West 1st Street crosses E. Spring to become Hauss (but there is no) Square (there).

Jeff Speck suggested a possible way to reformat one-way streets near the interstate interchange into two-ways, but Jeff Gahan chose to ignore this advice owing to his abject terror of offending drivers who race through this area on a daily basis. You see, Gahan and his team want New Albany to be walkable, though for only so long as drivers aren't inconvenienced.

If westbound drivers not increasing speeds to beat the light at Spring and State, they're doing it to avoid a stop at Scribner Drive -- precisely at the spot where a dozen legal offices and the public library lie directly across the street from both local and federal government buildings.

There is not even the pretense of a crosswalk at West 1st, and some of the most amusing (as well as harrowing) spectacles I've ever witnessed are government employees -- up to and including city council members -- precariously balancing their Big Gulps as they dodge flying cars and trucks to try to cross to the City County Building.

You can't help thinking: They see the problem, they experience the problem, years go past ... and absolutely nothing is done. Then, as we talk to them about walkability, the topic is greeted with blank faces.

I'll make it easy: if you fear for your life then no, it isn't walkable, no matter how many times Pinocchio Rosenbarger insists it is. Verily, If not for dysfunction, we'd have no function at all.

But this week on Friday, Gahan will meet Speck again -- and the lies will flow like cash-stuffed envelopes from HWC Engineering.

Gahan, Rosenbarger set to go full frontal Pinocchio about their urbanism credentials when the Congress for the New Urbanism 27 meets in Louisville June 11-15.

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