The four-way stop at Elm & 13th, and why openness and transparency matter.

At last evening's city council meeting, 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps used his speaking time to congratulate himself and the Board of Works for the two recently installed stop signs (complete with helpful flashing red lights) on Elm at 13th Street.

Their addition has created a four-way stop, and it only took the amount of time required for a kindergarten student to take his or her first university class.

It's hard to begrudge Phipps his small victory, given how little he's achieved overall during eight years as a council representative apart from rubber-stamping expenditures.

However, the problem with his victory is the way he first explained it (paraphrased):

I've been working behind the scenes with the powers that be to facilitate this four-way stop, which the neighborhood has been asking for since the inception of NA Confidential. Yay!

Consider that (a) HWC Engineering's voluminous campaign donations to Jeff Gahan have had the effect of establishing the company as a de facto arm of city governance, and (b) every public utterance on the topic of four-way stops by an HWC official during the time of the two-way street reversion and since has been accompanied by a disdainful disclaimer: hardly ever can this be done and when it is, that's because a traffic count was made and the INDOT Pass Through Oracle consulted for clarification and approval.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 1: Mysterious CRS Marketing and the inevitable HWC Engineering tie-in.

This from a street engineering company that openly laughed at Jeff Speck's street grid recommendations (I was there and witnessed it) and operates from a strictly Talmudic old school perspective when it comes to traffic engineering, professing the necessity of keeping cars moving through town as quickly as they can on collector streets with as few impediments as possible -- and other considerations (quality of life for residents, perhaps?) be damned.

I'm not exaggerating. I attended the meetings and took note of what was happening. Having HWC implement Speck was like asking your goldfish to perform ballet.

So, we return to Phipps and his four-way triumph. It's good that we have a four-way stop at Elm and 13th, but the problem with "behind the scenes" is that we have no idea why something that kept being referred to as unlikely, if not outright impossible, suddenly occurred -- apart from an impending primary election and the obvious need to fluff the resumes of candidates.

What happened to change BOW's, Larry Summers' and HWC's minds?

What's the principle involved?

Is the principle involved useful as a precedent?

Will it take another 15 years to apply the precedent elsewhere?

Or is this four-way just an imperial decree and alms from Dear Leader, absent any coherent justification or explanation?

Rather than take to Facebook to announce his win, shouldn't Phipps explain the hows, whys and wherefores to residents?

Situations like this are why one is compelled to dismiss the boilerplate and look behind the curtain. A four-way stop at Elm and 13th was needed, but if the four-way is a one-off with no future applicability, what's the point?

We need to know, and Phipps needs to explain. He'll be hearing many more questions like this during the months to come.

HWC Engineering, municipal cowardice, Jeff Speck and reading the tea leaves through dry heaves.

There's a 4-way stop at Elm and 13th. The only question is whether it came with a ribbon.

Does this mean the forever variably apolitical Develop New Albany is endorsing candidate Phipps? Let's follow the Facebook sharing protocol of the presumed non-profits. First, from DNA back to ESNA.

Then ESNA to the source.

It's an election year, and candidate Phipps says he has been "working with the city for several months," as back-room and non-transparently as always, to get a 4-way stop at Elm and 13th.

Fair enough; it's been needed not for months, but for YEARS. After almost eight years of rubber-stamping City Hall expenditures, it's always good to achieve something.

So, ignoring the pertinent question of why Phipps took so long to work behind the scenes, and why his cherished overlord the mayor took so long to give his "superstar" BOW mentor Warren the okay to release this intersection just in time to become a nice pre-primary poll-boost, there’s an absolutely positive aspect to all this electioneering.

That's because the same Democrats who dragged their feet for months before making this needed change so a Democrat could take re-election campaign credit for it can no longer be the same Democrats resisting similar proposals (hint: 4-ways for Spring and 10th; for Main and Bank; rinse, repeat) because the statute of limitations has expired for the same Democrats who oft times before used the completely spurious excuse of a need for traffic studies and INDOT indulgences to avoid mustering the simple one-two cojones to do what's right.

All of which Phipps never questioned until his passive acquiescence to Gahan's hack job on Speck's plan produced tepid two-way street grid results.

But hear me out; this 4-way at Elm and 13th is genuinely important.

Finally a 4-way precedent has been set, so let’s hope future action to #slowthecars might someday occur when it ISN’T an election year.

Dude; that'd almost be PROGRESSIVE, wouldn't it?

ASK THE BORED: Faced with 75 signatures on a petition, Nash, Summers and the clueless BOW non-safety board can't muster a single empathetic response.

Last Tuesday the Board of Mute Nostril Agony reached a new low. 

A brief summary: With their own two eyes, 75 neighborhood residents can see that drivers speeding through their neighborhood need to be slowed at the critical intersection of Elm and Jay, and the response from Warren Nash and Larry Summers? In essence, it's this:

We're the experts, peasant, so believe us when we tell you that your own two eyes are quite mistaken. INDOT is like a God, and we merely arrange the sacrifices.

Their hallowed engineering metric says there must be many more cars, traveling at even greater rates of speed, making the situation far worse, before slowing drivers can so much as be considered.

Only then will they check their nut sacks to see if any courage might be hanging there. Spoiler: there isn't, so they'll drag HWC's Jim Rice down from Indianapolis to explain that Daddy Gahan Knows Best.

It's offensive and appalling, this robotic lack of basic human empathy with which Gahan, Nash, Summers and their board of abject time-serving cowards pretend to care about "safety" even as they duck, cover and flee responsibility when drivers claim the lives of Chloe Allen and Matt Brewer, and strike and injure so many others.

However, last Tuesday police chief Todd Bailey offered a potentially devastating, constructive observation.

We have ourselves a precedent.

There's a "line of sight" issue at the intersection of Elm and Jay -- and at several other nearby intersections, too, including Elm and 13th, and 9th at Spring, where the Williams Plumbing trucks continue to park unhindered, and impede sight lines, in spite of this futile ordinance prohibiting it.

Ordinance enforcement, anyone?

(crickets chirp, pins drop, and somewhere, a dog barks)

Instead of tired bureaucratic excuses conjured unconvincingly by the usual C-minus students, maybe there can be action without the same-old campaign fund donations?

Dead Man's Curve has killed, and it will kill again unless our cowardly ruling clique does its job.

Here, there and everywhere, "In crashes that kill pedestrians, the majority of drivers don't face charges."

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Both Jeff Gahan and Warren Nash believe that driver convenience far outranks considerations of human life.

Neither City Hall nor HWC Engineering sees a problem with this mishap-plagued intersection. Maybe we should appeal to Floyd County government for help.

Photo by AGB.

Insightful observer AGB photographed the scene on Sunday afternoon after a driver deposited his car in the yard of the home on the southwest corner of Elm and 13th.

Yet another wreck at Elm and 13th. This time the cars hit and one went into the yard and hit the house. But those flashing pedestrian walkway lights that nobody pays attention to were a much better choice than 4 way stops ... there is only a 2-way stop here and you can't see around the cars parked. So there's often wrecks/near wrecks at this intersection.

Ironically, it was precisely this intersection that I mentioned last week to Jim Rice of HWC Engineering, the mayor’s preferred contractor for street design, as worthy of added study owing to sight lines and the completely ineffective solar-powered "high visibility" pedestrian crossings.

Rice quickly brushed me off, asking how I knew for a fact these crosswalks don't work. I replied that as a frequent walker, a couple hundred hours of direct experience is something not to be ignored; he answered by denigrating real-life observation as opposed to the sheer brilliance of that segment of the populace which has chosen to become engineers.

Sorry, Jim. If the choice is believing you or my own two eyes, you can hurriedly beat a retreat back to suburban Indianapolis (by car, of course) while as a walker, I'll continue crossing in the middle of the block -- because this is safer than the prevailing reality following your de-Specked abortion of a two-way street grid plan, which your presumably flawless firm of flunkies conjured between amassing campaign donations to a failed mayor who ordered the car-centric butchery in the first place.

As an aside, the idiocy of these "high irrelevancy" pedestrian crossing lights is so blatantly obvious that even 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps noticed it, and made at least one appeal to the somnolent Bored of Works, maybe two.

To no one's surprise, BOW has been completely unresponsive -- and as fatigued city engineer Larry Summers informed council just a few weeks ago, he's so busy coordinating campaign donations from paving companies that there's no time for the consideration of other matters.

Unfortunately, Phipps has a history of stopping short of useful action that might offend Dear Leader, so here we are. Perhaps it's time for residents of the 3rd district to learn from the instructive experience of Vulcan, West Virginia in the late 1980s. There's a crucial and delightful twist, seeing as the USSR and the GDR no longer exist.

Let's ask the Floyd County commissioners for help with this intersection, seeing as we're getting none from the Anchor Regime.

Feeling forsaken by their own government, after repeated pleas to have a new bridge constructed, the people of this West Virginia community made an unprecedented move which soon garnered international headlines. At the height of the Cold War, residents of Vulcan wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, as well as to communist officials in East Germany, detailing their plight and requesting foreign aid from the nations.

Sensing an opportunity to shame the American government, the Kremlin immediately dispatched journalists to the United States.

Interviewing the residents of Vulcan and broadcasting their troubles to the rest of the world, the government in Moscow did what the residents of Vulcan had been attempting to do for years, bring attention to their transportation nightmare.

By mid-December 1977, newspaper headlines around the country were announcing, “Small Town Seeks Russ Foreign Aid” (Spokane Daily Chronicle).

The Spokane Daily Chronicle wrote, “Soviet officials were amused today by reports that the small town of Vulcan, W.Va. has appealed to the Kremlin for foreign aid… The town, with a population of 200, asked the Soviet government for financial help to build a bridge after the town was turned down by the U.S. and West Virginia governments.”

Embarrassed by the attention their lack of assistance was receiving, state officials wasted no time in committing $1.3 million and built a bridge for the tiny community.

Grid Control, Vol. 28: Elm Street capitulates to two-way modernity with a whimper, not a bang. Now, to the next stage.

This morning, a few days belated, Elm Street was reverted to two-way traffic. Probably no one even noticed, and therein lies an observation.

I'll always be fascinated by a decade or more of sheer sloth and acrimony, followed by 3-4 years of municipal bureaucratization, then the doomsday predictions of dozens of experts on social media -- and two days after Spring Street became two-way, there was complete and utter silence, with nary a peep since.

As I fee compelled to say over and over: This isn't the end of the push for a modern street grid to benefit all users, not only drivers. Rather, it's the end of the beginning.

Meanwhile, in our last Grid Control installment, Brad on Market Street reported issues with parking stripe placement relative to signage, and also this instance of a potentially blocked driveway.

My neighbor's driveway. Not that they use it much, but I feel like they should have the option without the chance of getting blocked in ...

Brad reports the latter issue to have been fixed and provides this proof.

---

Previously:


Grid Control, Vol. 27: A case of parking space inconvenience on Market Street.

Grid Control, Vol. 26: The 2-Pocalyptic contagion claims another victim as Market Street capitulates to modernity.

Grid Control, Vol. 25: If Breakwater's overflow parking has been "donated" by AT&T, why weren't crosswalks installed for residents to access it?

Grid Control, Vol. 24: Deliver me this.

Grid Control, Vol. 23: City's fuddy-duddies losing their minds as the debut for a two-way Spring Street is pegged at August 29.

Grid Control, Vol. 22: City engineer Larry Summers answers our questions about intersection striping errors and the "No Trucks" sign removal.

Grid Control, Vol. 21: Murderous intersection at Spring & 10th to be repaved and restriped -- and, the hocus-pocus with a disappearing "No Trucks" sign at Spring & Vincennes.

Grid Control, Vol. 20: As Team Gahan dawdles, another bicyclist is crushed into mincemeat at 10th & Spring's dangerous dogleg.

Grid Control, Vol. 19: In a positive move, HWC begins righting the wrong cross hatching on Spring Street.

Grid Control, Vol. 18: Finally a few BoW street grid project answers, almost all of them citing "contractor error."

Grid Control, Vol. 17: Judging by the misdirection of this "CROSS TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP" sign, we now reside in the British Empire.

Grid Control, Vol. 16: What about HWC's cross hatching correction? Will this be finished before or after Team Gahan declares victory?

Grid Control, Vol. 15: Dooring enhancement perfectly epitomizes Deaf Gahan's "biking last" approach to grid modernization.

Grid Control, Vol. 14: Yes, you can still park on the south side of Spring Street during the stalled two-way grid project.

Grid Control, Vol. 13: "Dear Deaf Gahan and minions: FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, STOP TRYING TO BE COOL AND DESIGNER-ISH. YOU'RE NOT, AND IT'S EMBARRASSING ALL OF US."

Grid Control, Vol. 12: Meet the artistic crosswalk design equivalent of dogs playing poker.

Grid Control, Vol. 11: HWC Engineering meets with St. Marks, city officials nowhere to be found.

Grid Control, Vol. 10: City officials predictably AWOL as HWC Engineering falls on its sword over striping errors.

Grid Control, Vol. 9: "This was supposed to be discussed with us," but Dear Leader doesn't ever discuss, does he?

Grid Control, Vol. 8: City Hall characteristically mum as HWC Engineering at least tries to answer the cross-hatching question.

Grid Control, Vol. 7: What will the Board of Works do to rectify HWC's striping errors on the north side of Spring Street, apart from microwaving another round of sausage biscuits?

Grid Control, Vol. 6: Jeff Speck tweets about NA's grid changes, and those missed bicycling opportunities.

Grid Control, Vol. 5: Egg on HWC Engineering's well-compensated face as it botches Spring Street's westbound bike buffer cross hatching.

Grid Control, Vol. 4: But this actually isn't a bus lane, is it?

Grid Control, Vol. 3: TARC's taking your curbside church parking, says City Hall.

Grid Control, Vol. 2: Southsiders get six more parking inches, but you gotta love those 10-foot traffic lanes on Spring.

Grid Control, Vol. 1: You people drive so freaking horribly that someone's going to die at Spring and 10th.

OMG -- it's a pre-Harvest Homecoming sidewalk trip hazard removal miracle!

The southeast side of 10th & Elm ↑ and northeast ↓ on Tuesday, 26 September 2017.

The same views in June of this year, showing the perennial trip hazards in these two spots.

In June, NAC recalled the countless years of inaction.

Covering and uncovering trip hazards at Elm and 10th without bothering to fix the problem? Why, that's #gahansafe!

It's been almost two years since NAC somewhat belatedly pointed to pedestrian trip hazards on two corners of Elm and 10th, these having gone unaddressed for so many years that even long-term residents couldn't recall the exact duration.

How many years to remove two hunks of trio-hazard metal and fill in the holes?

#HisNA #WhatATrip

Grid Control, Vol. 20: As Team Gahan dawdles, another bicyclist is crushed into mincemeat at 10th & Spring's dangerous dogleg.

Photos taken approximately two minutes apart. 

This time nothing bad happened, but who are you going to believe -- City Hall or your own two eyes?

Using HWC Engineering's own publicly stated design rationale, stipulating that according to INDOT, stop signs cannot be planted to slow traffic, but must be justified by the volume of cross traffic ...

... and if the volume of cross traffic justifies a four-way stop at Elm & 10th (only one block away) ...

... then what prevents the city from controlling the intersection of Spring & 10th by installing a four-way stop?

A four way stop would make this intersection safer for all users, so why is City Hall adamant that such a tried and true safety measure isn't needed?

Throwing the contractor under the speeding semi rig still doesn't address the fundamental safety issue, does it?

Or is it a case of Team Deaf Gahan being unable to admit its own errors?

---

Previously:

Grid Control, Vol. 19: In a positive move, HWC begins righting the wrong cross hatching on Spring Street.

Grid Control, Vol. 18: Finally a few BoW street grid project answers, almost all of them citing "contractor error."

Grid Control, Vol. 17: Judging by the misdirection of this "CROSS TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP" sign, we now reside in the British Empire.

Grid Control, Vol. 16: What about HWC's cross hatching correction? Will this be finished before or after Team Gahan declares victory?

Grid Control, Vol. 15: Dooring enhancement perfectly epitomizes Deaf Gahan's "biking last" approach to grid modernization.

Grid Control, Vol. 14: Yes, you can still park on the south side of Spring Street during the stalled two-way grid project.

Grid Control, Vol. 13: "Dear Deaf Gahan and minions: FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, STOP TRYING TO BE COOL AND DESIGNER-ISH. YOU'RE NOT, AND IT'S EMBARRASSING ALL OF US."

Grid Control, Vol. 12: Meet the artistic crosswalk design equivalent of dogs playing poker.

Grid Control, Vol. 11: HWC Engineering meets with St. Marks, city officials nowhere to be found.

Grid Control, Vol. 10: City officials predictably AWOL as HWC Engineering falls on its sword over striping errors.

Grid Control, Vol. 9: "This was supposed to be discussed with us," but Dear Leader doesn't ever discuss, does he?

Grid Control, Vol. 8: City Hall characteristically mum as HWC Engineering at least tries to answer the cross-hatching question.

Grid Control, Vol. 7: What will the Board of Works do to rectify HWC's striping errors on the north side of Spring Street, apart from microwaving another round of sausage biscuits?

Grid Control, Vol. 6: Jeff Speck tweets about NA's grid changes, and those missed bicycling opportunities.

Grid Control, Vol. 5: Egg on HWC Engineering's well-compensated face as it botches Spring Street's westbound bike buffer cross hatching.

Grid Control, Vol. 4: But this actually isn't a bus lane, is it?

Grid Control, Vol. 3: TARC's taking your curbside church parking, says City Hall.

Grid Control, Vol. 2: Southsiders get six more parking inches, but you gotta love those 10-foot traffic lanes on Spring.

Grid Control, Vol. 1: You people drive so freaking horribly that someone's going to die at Spring and 10th.

Covering and uncovering trip hazards at Elm and 10th without bothering to fix the problem? Why, that's #gahansafe!

It's been almost two years since NAC somewhat belatedly pointed to pedestrian trip hazards on two corners of Elm and 10th, these having gone unaddressed for so many years that even long-term residents couldn't recall the exact duration.

July 30, 2015

Photo essay: Only one of these things is a liability concern for the Board of Public Works and Safety.

You guessed it: The board's big liability concern is a street piano/public art project.

Brought in 2015 to the attention of the Bored of Works and Public Safety, junta coordinator Warren Nash yawned and returned to the task of re-electing a mayor with no aptitude for detail amid grandiose TIF-laden boondoggles.

Then, without warning, someone decided to give a damn.

January 9, 2017


18 months later, lip service for the trip hazards at 10th and Elm.

We might express curiosity at the number of years required to address the trip hazard issue with the least conceivable effort, but at least someone noticed and something was done to warn walkers, if not resolve the problem.

In early June, when Elm Street milling and paving commenced, MAC's crack ... team shrugged and moved the orange traffic pylons out of the way of shaded areas where workers congregate as their machinery operates.

This week on Thursday prior to the onset of rain, I was walking and noticed that after two weeks, the pylons still hadn't been moved back to their positions guarding trip hazards that the city refuses to mitigate over a period of years, and so I replaced them.

To whom should I send my civic mindedness invoice? I'm guessing the addressee isn't Warren Nash, who no doubt will yawn and return to the task of re-electing a mayor with no aptitude for detail amid grandiose TIF-laden boondoggles.

June 22, 2017

Thinking in Nawbany? It's always anchored firmly into place, right there on the mud flats, where the Ohio River meets the end of possibilities.

ASK THE BORED: Anti-climactic paving bids, Elm Street speedway work and the forthcoming W. 1st and Main intersection.

The minutes from May 23 are in, and the low bid for this season's citywide paving extravaganza ... like always ...

MAC! MAC! MAC!

No word on the inevitable re-dos, do-overs, or other famous stuffed-envelope-driven hallmarks of beak wetting borne of annual paving -- but guys, low bid!

Meanwhile, two other items about grid modernization (i.e., paving) and the W. 1st and Main work.

Elm Street paving begins now. There'll be a second street where average traffic speeds increase by 15% prior to the two-way restriping.

Finally, the quarter-million dollar W. 1st Street and Main Street Crosswalk project, photos of which follow, draws nearer to completion.

For a reprise of the long exhausting march toward a human-friendly intersection, with Team Gahan resisting every step, consult this popular previous post.

ASK THE BORED: It's a pretty penny, but safety for humans at the intersection of Main and W. 1st draws nearer.

This is welcome news, and takes on added importance given the resistance with which City Hall initially greeted the idea. I'll never forget being informed in detail as to the absolute impossibility of such a human-friendly notion -- although negotiating with INDOT to ensure 2015 election-year street paving on Main rather than substantive dialogue about safety proved to be a very do-able priority.

They do excel at certain things.