#GahanSafe: All the push-button "walk" signals for crossing Spring at Pearl are defective, and have been for five months to a year.

Way back in March, I pointed out that one "beg button" (push-button crossing signal) on each post at each corner of the intersection of Spring and Pearl was not functional.

Why does Team Gahan always pee on pedestrians?

In New Albany, push button crosswalk signals are not placebos. Walkers actually must push the "beg button" to receive a safe (often a facetious term) signal to cross. If the button malfunctions, there'll be no signal -- ever.

Even in March, it had been this way for a while, with at least two of them broken as far back as September, 2015. Now we've gone through almost an entire summer-season Bicentennial Park concert series cycle with nothing done to correct the problem.

We cannot know if the push-button crosswalk buttons work when so many of them are broken.

It is almost always the cities with push-button crossings that need the most help ... push-buttons almost always mean that the automobile dominates, as they are typically installed in conjunction with a new signal timing in which crossing times are shorter and less frequent.

Specifically, the push-buttons for crossing Spring both north and south on both sides of Pearl Street do not work. This morning I took the time to test each one and to watch. It is physically impossible for a pedestrian to get a "walk" signal crossing Spring Street at this intersection. It has been impossible for at least five months, and probably far longer.

Pictured are the push-buttons that are defective.

To repeat what I wrote in March:

If Jeff Gahan isn't going to do anything substantive to make New Albany a walkable city, can't he just say so aloud, for attribution, and free us from the pain of watching him prevaricate?

Any suggestion he makes to the contrary is being disproved every single day on real city streets, where nothing is being done to indicate any serious intent to improve walkability, and plenty is being done to discourage it. There's only one honest way to conclude these thoughts:

Mr. Mayor, as it pertains to walkability, just shit or get off the pot.

You're embarrassing the city by making private promises constantly contradicted by public indifference -- by your bizarre insistence that you're making omelettes without breaking eggs. Even your own people know it's a shell game.

Join me for an actual walk some day, and I'll show you exactly how urban walking works in real life, as opposed to the fantasyland bunker you prefer inhabiting. The same offer goes for your minions.

Do any of you walk downtown, ever?