Why? Go here.
Last evening in the romper room, the entirely unnecessary downtown traffic study being sought by a bunker-bound City Hall as craven political cover for chronic two-way street grid timidity was promptly scotched by a wholly redundant city council, in part owing to the council’s chronic absenteeism this term, but mostly because elected and appointed officials in New Albany believe the only thing they have to fear is every last aspect of modernity that somehow managed to occur, in spite of their efforts, since their graduation from high school.
Welcome to New Albany, where we’re all here because we’re not all there, and so into this gaping, barren chasm of a leadership vacuum eagerly steps 2nd district council seat occupant Bob Caesar, who is to sheer cranium vacancy what Imelda Marcos was to shoes, and to an extent so egregious that he surely is the only so-called “Democrat” party member in the whole whacked-out United States who exalts the Thoreau Institute as reputable scholarship.
The Koch Brothers thank our own bejeweled blitzen, and so here’s Bob Caesar for attribution last night:
“(Two-way streets) are being driven by about a handful of people that want to be able to turn right onto Bank Street from Elm Street."
Ouch!
What was that twinge I just felt?
Wait – it was an intellectual pygmy gouging a toenail with the planet’s tiniest set of 1920s-era tweezers. Where the hell is Balso Snell when you need him most?
Of course, this is the same Antediluvian Bob who insisted to me that he be quoted thusly, back in 2011:
"Change every street to two way -- not Pearl Street. Pearl Street will NOT be two way."
Come to think of it, antediluvian might not be the best word. After all, in New Albany, two-way streets actually existed before “our” flood.
Two-way thinking in New Albany: Those who say they’re for them mostly do nothing apart from assuring us they agree. Those who are against them mostly don’t live here, except for Bob Caesar, whose head is somewhere in the vicinity of an 18th-century Mongolian yurt. For the sake of clarity, here’s a quick, informal, four-point list explaining why two-way streets matter.
Safety for the neighborhoods.
Economic development for local independent business.
A boost for walkability.
Protection against Kerry Stemler’s tolls-borne invasion.
Wham, bam, thank you Bob: When Caesar reduces the street grid discussion to accusing others of being just as myopic as himself, it may be amusing fodder for the retrograde elements who view our arterial one-way streets as so much Astroglide to facilitate their driving pleasure, but it insults and demeans every last resident of any city neighborhood not known by the moniker of Silver Hills.
The Democratic Party might choose to make Caesar pay for a slur this enormous, because as we've established, a walkable environment is a civil rights issue, but don't hold your breath waiting for it. You'll be blue by the time a worthwhile bicentennial event rolls around.
New Albany. It never ceases to amaze. Degraded and wasted for 30 years, and yet everyone in it is afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome, suitably terrified of efforts to alter a failed dynamic, and beholden to the superstitions that keep us down. It is breathtaking – and it distracts us from the vital task of devising ways to reforming, moving or outlawing Harvest Homecoming.
I wonder how many petition signatures the mayor needs to no longer be frightened of his own so-called "democratic" party?
It's simple. Either City Hall gives clear indication of its "plan" -- of what's to come -- or the guerrilla localism war starts immediately.
Too bad county government doesn’t come down hard against two-way street conversions.
We’d have them before the elephant ears get cold.
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