Traffic Cluster, Part One: Mt Tabor Road? It's the design. You know, the design we just paid millions ... to design.

We might blame it on the pandemic, but COVID-19 did not cause ongoing issues with New Albany's streets. It merely exposed the design flaws.

When there hasn't been congestion -- as on Mt. Tabor during construction-related diversions -- there has been mayhem, both there and amid the downtown street grid, with much speeding and bad driving behavior.

You see, it's the design. You know, the design we just paid millions ... to design, whether Mt. Tabor or the thoroughly botched two-way reversion: City Hall's "20% Of Two-Way Usefulness Solution."

But you see, anyone with a grounding in modernity always knew that speeding primarily owes to design. That's why the Mt. Tabor neighborhood protested from the start that modernizing the road would make things worse, because they reasoned correctly that the redesign would, in fact, lead to conditions making excessive speed more likely, and attracting more users.

The city pushed it through because it had the matching funds, because the pay-for-play already was transacted, and -- well -- because of sheer ego. Because it COULD. And now even the chief of police says that design is responsible for speeding.

The design.

You know, the design we just paid millions ... to design.

Engineer Summers speaks for City Hall; why, our powers that be are powerless to do anything about these annual traffic increases (which were invited by the speeding-friendly "new" design), and so they must continue forever adding even more lanes, roundabouts, and whatever else is deemed necessary -- by some of the mayor's principal campaign donors -- to make more work room for added traffic ... and by doing so, assuring there'll be even more traffic (induced demand, folks).

Don't look at me. YOU'RE the ones who keep voting for these people.

Mount Tabor Road traffic again a topic of discussion, by Daniel Suddeath (Tom May Insta-Pulpit)

 ... That project has been a contentious issue between the city and residents of the neighborhood. The roundabout idea was scrapped before the first phase of improvements were launched in 2019 by the city after a public meeting when several residents spoke out against the proposal.


Summers countered that the traffic congestion is a preview of what the road will look like in 10 years if nothing is done.

“This will present a problem for the intersection of Mount Tabor and Klerner as traffic continues to grow,” Summers said, citing a Kentucky Regional Planning and Development Agency study that suggests traffic will increase in the region by about 1 percent annually.

ASK THE BORED: Can't City Hall just stop lying about 4-way-stop upgrades on Spring and Elm between Vincennes and downtown?

Last week at the Bored with Works meeting some rote cowardice broke out.

It's genuinely maddening.

Of course, City (Mike) Hall just finished an artful mini-propaganda blitz for dupe-worthy CNU27 attendees, insisting that Jeff Gahan's half-ass two-way street conversion has magically resolved all automotive-related safety issues.

They're lying, but after all, it's an election year.

Once again, when presented with safety concerns pertaining to traffic speeds from a neighborhood resident who witnesses the problem every single day, Gahan's compromised minions spout craven nonsense: the "manual" prohibits them from doing anything at all, except in those case when they decide to do something from motivations of politics, as opposed to safety.

The criteria for action? It's written on a fortune cookie hidden in Jeff Gahan's down-low bunker.

Accepting city engineer Larry Summers' slippery explanation (above) at face value, and recalling that he used the same well-greased explanation as a convenient excuse not to convert Elm & 13th into a 4-way stop -- right up until the morning it WAS converted, sans coherent explanation -- how can there be enough traffic to justify a 4-way at Elm and 13th, and at Elm and 10th, but not on Spring, one block over?

Are we to surmise that there is a flood of cross traffic between Spring and Oak, which never crosses Spring to get to Market and Main?

Why can't someone in Gahan's administration, ANYONE at this point -- conceding city officials are so thoroughly discredited that Gahan can pick a random janitor to deliver the message, or maybe hand it off to the who sells weenies out front of the City County Building in summer -- simply tell the truth about the street grid?

"We are car-centric to the core. None of us know what it means to walk or ride a bicycle, much less to navigate a wheelchair, but one thing we know for sure is that we're absolutely terrified to offend drivers. We'll continue to make meaningless gestures and co-opt "progressives" who are just as car-centric as us, and we'll talk a great game about our brilliance even as we ignore safety concerns and refuse to take substantive efforts to slow traffic."

That's Gahan's only "manual," isn't it?

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 16: Last week's minutes from the Board of Public Works and Safety reveal big donors daintily lapping their gravy.

Previously: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 15: Beam, Longest and Neff -- they're why Jeff Gahan is HERE and awash in cash, 16,500 times over.

Some people canoodle, but during the coming weeks we'll be plucking highlights from eight years of the Committee to Elect Gahan's CFA-4 campaign finance reports. Strap in, folks -- and don't forget those air(head) sickness bags.

After a while, it makes your head spin. You see those donor dollars multiplying up there on Jeff Gahan's campaign finance tote board, then you spin the Wheel of Random Meeting Minutes and see the fats cats eagerly queuing for their treats.

To illustrate this, let's look at the minutes from the March 12 meeting of the Board of Public Works and Safety -- but first, this wonderfully revealing moment as the bored prepare to approve the HWC Beautifies IKEA-ly work currently underway on Market Street between State and Pearl.

Somehow awakened against all odds, board gatekeeper Warren Nash actually asks a good question of city engineer Larry Summers.

Mr. Nash asked if the properties on the south side

(of the street) have been notified.

Mr. Summers stated they will still have access.

You'll notice Summers did not answer the question -- but of course Nash didn't follow up. Who's he think he is, a News and Tribune editor?

This Mr. Oakes works for AllTerrain, which won the Market Street project with a bid far below what had been expected ... so far that David Barksdale envisioned trees outside the project area being felled so they wouldn't block the view of the Fork in the Road, but seeing it was easier just to remove the public art installation without bothering to inform the artist who designed it ...

Stephen Triplett (owner) and AllTerrain Paving have shoveled a whopping $10,750 to Gahan since 2015. Meanwhile, with an emergency situation on Old Vincennes Road, normal procedures are circumvented for the sake of speed (for the repairs, not lead-footed drivers).

Jeff Eastridge (CCE) has donated $5,500 to Gahan's coffers, and various arms of Jacobi, Toombs & Lanz have poured some $33,225 of sugar on Dear Leader since 2011, contributing all eight years.

The beak wetting intensifies on Mt. Tabor Road.

United Consulting (including owners and employees) has accounted for $15,650. However we've saved the best for last.

I've yet to devote an episode of this series to the sheer numbing ubiquity of Clark Dietz, which serves as an unofficial department of city government.

Wanna know a secret? Clark Dietz sits atop Jeff Gahan's campaign finance suction magnet with $34,400 in donations since 2011, including his two largest bursts ever, $7,500 in 2017 and 2018. Still, Clark Dietz is only a whisker ahead of Jacobi, Toombs & Lanz ($33,225) and a combined grouping of John Neace companies and allies ($32,250).

That's still a cool $100,000 between only three power brokers. Think about this, and #FireGahan2019

Hold on ... 2-way streets from State to West 5th? Whatever it is, don't expect it in an election year.

Rebuttals are welcome and will be published unaltered -- so don't forget spellcheck. If you have supplementary information to offer about any of this, please let us know and we'll update the page. The preceding was gleaned entirely from public records, with the addresses of "individuals" removed.

Next: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 17: Denton-Floyd feels M(ighty) Fine -- and the resulting Reisz Krispies Treats never tasted better to Mayor Gahan.

ON THE AVENUES: Pretty in pink slips, aren’t they? Those who mutilated Speck need to be cashiered.

Yes, it's true that I've been indulging in reruns, but hear me out.

For the past two weeks I've been using all my spare moments to go swimming in the rank, toxic, soul-crushing sewer otherwise known as Mayor Jeff Gahan's CFA-4 campaign finance reports.

Y'all know I'm a hardcore cynic -- and the pay-to-play is worse than even I thought.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 5: In 2019, Gahan will pass the half million dollar mark in campaign fundraising since 2011.

There's another reason for dipping into the archive.

Many readers weren't with us back when a column like today's was first published (January 8, 2015). At the time, consultant Jeff Speck's draft report about the two-way future of the street grid had only just appeared.

It took another two years for Gahan to commission the ever servile HWC Engineering to butcher Speck's overall perspective, stuff the remnants into sausage casings, spread the largess among the usual suspects, and declare victory.

In short, Gahan gleefully botched the street grid modernization as trucking special interests applauded and the mayor's sticky sycophants sagely nodded -- among them the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association, the brain trust of which concluded with all due terror that "modernization" was far too dangerous a concept to risk in New Albany.

ESNA was catastrophically wrong, and its timidity was both short-sighted and unforgivable. Now Greg Phipps wants four more years as councilman because he's not finished yet -- doing the mayor's daily bidding, that is. We need a principled, independent choice in the third district, don't we?

As for Gahan's trashing of Speck, you can't say I didn't predict it. Read on, and don't forget to vote these under-achievers out of office as soon as you have the chance.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Pretty in pink slips, aren’t they?

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

On Tuesday, the very morning when City Hall at long last hazarded a first halting, wheezing, asthmatic step toward taking proper possession of Jeff Speck’s seminal street study, it was disturbingly sunny outside.

Now, I’m so old I can remember when Speck was Jeff Gahan’s Big Idea, prompting his very own commissioned mayoral study, at least right up until that fateful moment when the Tiger Trucking semi rig’s headlights froze Hizzoner dead in his tracks, at river’s edge, like a bedraggled, matted raccoon without a paddle, stuck in the middle of an arterial one-way Highway to Birdseye.

Where was I?

Oh, yes: It was sunny outside.

I muttered a choice epithet and spat as I walked downtown, past the doomed urban corner where a quarter million is about to be squandered to permanently anchor a temporary seasonal farmers market on one of the city’s hottest future infill parcels.

Damn. It really needed to be cloudy outside on this, our auspicious Speck Study Day.

After all, if Mayor Gahan (or more likely, the hardest working hologram in Indiana municipal governance) were to surface from Das Subterranean Command Bunker on Speck Study Day, only to see the sun actually shining, we’d be condemned to eight more years of foot-dragging, feeble excuses and DemoDisneyDixecrat appeasement, with little hope of street grid reformatting taking place in our lifetimes.

However, and we can only hope fortuitously, agoraphobia is the cruelest of mistresses. Mayor Gahan sent the city engineer, Larry Summers, to the Bored of Works in his stead, and poor Larry was far too nervous performing his assigned task of explaining how something and nothing can occur simultaneously to notice the prevailing atmospheric conditions.

Tinkerbell Dickey was there, too, but the Democratic major domo was preoccupied with feverishly emitting ear-lobe-tugging, nose-scratching procedural signals to the BOW chairman Nash, who gazed in bewilderment at the Power Point slides:

“Wow, Larry, you mean a road diet isn’t a Disney theme park ride?

"Why, this is the space age!

"Next thing you know, they’ll have color TVs playing at the Waffle House.”

---

Unsurprisingly, those of us most thrilled by the comprehensive efficiency and vigorous optimism of Jeff Speck’s Downtown Street Network Proposal are just as dour and pessimistic about the chances of it ever being carried out hereabouts in any substantive fashion.

That’s because in Come to City, we’ve never really come to, and what’s Groundhog Day, anyway? In New Albany, it’s just another word for tomorrow, and the day after that, and …

---

In 1989, several previous fallen dominoes (Solidarity’s election victory in Poland and the partial opening of the Austro-Hungarian border, to name just two) culminated with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The USSR stood aside, and the Warsaw Pact was no more.

The subsequent experiences of these East Bloc nations varied, but to some extent in all of them, surely more so in Romania and Bulgaria, the period of post-Communism possessed a decided aura of déjà vu, because there, in the seats of power, occupying elected as well as appointed offices, sat the very same functionaries as before.

Rather like a species of rapidly evolving insect (remember, Franz Kafka was Czech), they either chose the proper moment to switch sides just prior to the outbreak of revolution, or merely shifted into a dormant stage of Down-Low to wait out the post-crash euphoria, reasoning that in the cold light of day, their bureaucratic skills would be deemed essential, and their previous careers worthy of selective forgetfulness.

In this context of adaptability, formerly Communist officials in newly democratic Eastern Europe drew upon an irrefutable pedigree, because after all, denazification in Germany following World War II proved to be schnauzer that simply wouldn’t hunt. Apart from a low percentage of high-profile examples, numerous adherents of the “Heil Hitler” persuasion made a seamless transition from discredited losers to irreplaceable stalwarts of the new/old system now harnessed to a different master, whether West or East.

Why mention Europe’s 20th-century totalitarian hangovers?

It’s because Speck’s street study is more revolutionary than all the (Groucho) Marxists and (John) Lennonists combined, meaning the chances of its implementation in the Land of C and D Students is embarrassingly slight.

But what if a miracle occurs?

What if Speck Happens?

Maybe Tricky Dickey was right all along, and all it takes is faith, and a little bit of pixie dust, and BOOM – Speck in our time!

The good guys win, the city’s future brightens … prosperous times are around the corner, with Tippecanoe and Walkability Too … get out those bikes, people, and skates, and … hold on.

Just wait. It couldn’t be, could it?

Those guys with the clipboards, managing the Five Year Speck Conversion Plan, working for the New Boss … OMG, say it ain’t so.

Not him.

Anyone but him.

---

That’s right. You guessed it. Even in the very rosiest of street scenarios, which most of us reckon might – just might – yield a Speck Study Quotient conversion rate of 15%, quite likely we’ll be asked to accept a state of affairs wherein the same street-disfigurement criminals wreaking havoc all along are magically transformed into courageous reformers.

We’ll be asked to believe that zebras can shed their stripes, as they set out at the usual bloated pay scale to dismantle the very same dysfunctional one-way, auto-centric edifice they spent the previous three decades perfecting, the sheer idiocy of which comprised the fundamental cause for the revolution in the first place.

Specifically, if John Rosenbarger has anything to do with the implementation of the Speck plan, which clearly calls for ridding the landscape of previous masterworks undertaken at Rosenbarger’s dull instigation, like the rock-strewn bump-outs on State Street, then we’ll have final, irrefutable proof of New Albany as default Groundhog Day, every day, forever.

Wonderful. Rosenbarger and his compatriots, some departed, and others still secured within the Third Floor woodwork like termite larva, built a street grid that Speck’s study relentlessly, mercilessly eviscerates – block by block, and lane width by asphalt expanse. Now, he’ll fix it.

Not only is it bullshit, but it’s also unconscionable, absurd and intolerable. In New Albany, these four words are considered synonyms for “bound to happen” – again, and again, and again.

Good grief, people.

Just during the brief period of the Speck study’s gestation in 2014, Rosenbarger merrily shepherded our Main Street equivalent of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s destructive pre-1989 boulevards and palaces chaos in Bucharest, placing a colossal raspberry of damp flatulence on the street grid he has had such a prominent hand in pillaging over 30 long, wasted, impotent years.

Imagining him at the triumphant Speck photo op, equipped with kiddie hardhat and requisite rubber shovel, those glow-in-the-dark reddened eyes leering, makes me reach for my garlic cloves and nice, sharp, wooden stakes. Ceaușescu wasn’t the only vampire on his Romanian bloc, you know.

Yet, in the end, there is very good news … and also very bad news.

The good news is that Rosenbarger probably will have no part whatever in implementing the Speck study in New Albany.

The bad news?

There’ll probably be no implementation of street modernity in New Albany.

Once upon a time, Speck was to have been Gahan’s Big Idea, but now the odds makers are unanimous, and persuasive: All we get is this lousy Potemkin Village – Hooterville and Caesartown, and again tomorrow, and the day after that, and …

Wouldn’t it be nice, just for once, to escape the recurring cycle of stupid?

---

Recent columns:

February 22: ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL: Take your cult of personality and shove it, Dear Leader.

February 19: ON THE AVENUES: I'd stop drinking, but I'm no quitter (the 2019 Gravity Head remix).

February 12: ON THE AVENUES: If it's about learning and knowledge, then by definition it's a Gahan Free Zone. You're welcome.

February 5: ON THE AVENUES: Our mayor hates non-elected boards -- except when they're his own, which is why "hypocrisy" is spelled G-A-H-A-N.

January 29: ON THE AVENUES: How has the 3rd district councilman fared since this question from 2015: "Et tu, Greg Phipps?"

Speed Thought Control: Board of Works, city engineer still unable to grasp reality when it comes to speedway street grid dangers, so they spout meaningless drivel.

Team Gahan can be like a pile of wet rags. It can also be like a cat.

There are a number of reasons cats arch their backs, but here are the three main ones ... first is that of the fear aggressor. In this classic Halloween pose, a cat arches his back and shows piloerection (i.e., his hair stands straight up) as a way of making himself look bigger when confronted with danger. When a cat looks like this, he is basically saying, “I’m scared of you but I’m ready to defend myself if you come any closer.” The cat may also make it clear that he’s ready to defend himself by doing things like growling, hissing, spitting and showing his teeth. If you encounter a cat giving this display, the best response is to slowly back away and give the cat his space.

Just like at this week's Bored with Public Works and Safety meeting, from which we learn that one whole year after erecting completely useless, HWC Engineering-inspired crosswalk signals-to-drivers-to-maim-pedestrians, the city now proposes to make a helpful instructional video. Let's hope drivers watch it BEFORE hopping into their speeding cars.

Does HWC get the contract for the video, too?

It's awesome the way the city's expert functionaries are questioned, and ZOOM -- up go their backs. Meanwhile, the stenographer Chris Morris still refuses to question the bilge spewed at him from all directions.

Please, Bill, may we have a reporter who possesses a minuscule iota of intellectual curiosity about the planet?

Seriously, can it get any dumber than this?

I'm not sure whose eyeballs city engineers Larry Summers is using when he surveys supposedly obvious "reduction in speed" on Spring Street, but isn't it inadvertently hilarious that in the immediate aftermath of the story related here ...

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: The curious case of the speeding ticket, the honest cop, his fuming chief and the city's abject failure to calm downtown traffic.

... we now have "evidence" in the form of droll claims that fewer speeding tickets have been issued, when in fact the police department vastly curtailed its usual downtown speed traps after two-way streets were implemented -- and rightly so, this being one objective of proper design to reduce speed, which we largely failed to put into place out of political squeamishness, if not stupidity.

Yes: the cops can't write tickets when they're not monitoring speed, can they?

The police presence became noticeable only AFTER neighborhood residents complained to BOW, only to be told smugly that city officials who never walk the streets are a far better judge of such matters than people who live astride them.

Anyone seen my pitchfork?

It's been an utter fiasco, and City Hall remains in a Orwellian state of institutional denial and serial tone deafness. The only sensible thought uttered by any of the officials quoted in the article below is this, from Al Knable:

"I am for whatever works to slow traffic.

Exactly. Shouldn't each of them, mayor and minions, begin any instance of commenting about speed and safety with an affirmation of this simple, single objective?

Shouldn't they be fighting to implement safety measures, rather than making the sort of "we can't do nuthin' at all" excuses, just like this oldie but still goodie:

Summers said he does not think a stop sign or signal can be installed at Fourth and Spring because a traffic count would not warrant one. He said there is not enough traffic on any of the side streets, off of Spring, that would require a stop sign.

Jeeebus, Larry: then conduct the fucking traffic count as a prelude, and if the state's cars-first standards aren't serving the cause of walkable street grid safety, can't we fight against THEM, to do what's right for US, rather than dismissing safety because enhancing safety is too much trouble?

Ah, but wait. 

We'd have to consult with Republicans like Ed Clere to do that, wouldn't we?

And that's why we don't bother fighting for safe streets, isn't it?

Our New Gahanian milieu may be comprised of counter-productive anti-intellectual squalor, but it's our DEMOCRATIC PARTY's counter-productive anti-intellectual squalor. If New Albany can only be as bright as its leading elements, then literally, we're a place where the sun don't shine.

#OurBananaRepublic

Speed Control: New Albany collecting Spring Street speed, by Chris Morris (Tom May's Summa Theologica)

NEW ALBANY — One of the reasons the city of New Albany converted Spring Street to two-way traffic last year was to control speed. And for the most part, it has worked.

Instead of three lanes of traffic heading in one direction, Spring Street was cut down to two lanes going east and west. It's obvious traffic moves at a slower pace from Vincennes to State Street.

"I know from talking to the police chief that traffic tickets along there are down significantly. People are not going as fast as they used to," Larry Summers, New Albany city engineer, said. "If you just eyeball it you can see a marked reduction in speed."

But there are still issues with speed along that stretch of Spring, and following the death of skateboarder Matthew Brewer, who was struck by a minivan at Spring and Ninth streets in August, residents came before the New Albany Board of Public Works & Safety pleading that something be done to make the street safer.

The city decided to collect speed data to see if more needs to be done.

This week, crews will begin setting up six radar detector signs, three in each direction. Data will be collected for a month and motorists will be able to see how fast they are traveling once the signs are turned on. Summers hopes it's a wakeup call for some motorists who drive down Spring without paying attention to speed limit signs. Once the data is analyzed, the city will decide its next move.

"When we did the two-way conversion project we said we wanted to do further analysis on the grid," Summers said. "This is a continuation of that in some regards. Speed reduction is very important. We want to make this more of a walkable community."

The radar detector signs will be similar to the ones along McDonald Lane. Paul Lincks, with HWC Engineering, said signs will be placed eastbound near Fourth and Ninth streets, and between 11th and 13th streets. Westbound, signs also will go up between 11th and 13th streets, beyond Ninth Street and before Fifth Street.

Lincks said the radar detector signs should produce results city officials are hoping to achieve when it comes to analyzing speed.

"Let's get the data, look at it, and go from there," he said. "We will be able to compare the speeds cars are traveling to the speed limit to see what is going on."

New Albany City Councilman Al Knable said converting Spring Street to two-way traffic was done to make it less of a thoroughfare, and more of a neighborhood street.

"At times people are still treating it like a thoroughfare," Knable said. "I am for whatever works to slow traffic. I hope this will give us meaningful data to see what the next step might be."

Summers, who lives along Spring Street, believes motorists will pay attention to the speed signs.

"People drive distracted. I hope this is something that gets their attention," he said.

POSSIBLE FOUR-WAY STOPS

Ron Howard knows exactly how to make Spring Street safer, he said. For starters, he would place a four-way stop at Fourth and Spring, at the New Albany Fire Headquarters and Sweet Stuff Bakery. He said motorists on Fourth, looking to cross Spring Street, can not see traffic in either direction when cars are parked along the street. He said they have to cover the crosswalk and almost get out into Spring Street to see if it's safe to cross.

"Your direct line of sight is blocked when cars are parked along the street," he said. "You would have to do away with parking there. It would take a minimum of four spaces and I don't think the bakery would like that. I don't see any other way but to put a stop sign there unless you put up a traffic signal."

Howard said making Fourth and Spring a four-way stop would cost "next to nothing."

"The only way to get out there [on Spring] is to ignore the crosswalk," he said. "You are blind in both directions. It seems to me the safest thing to do."

Others have also suggested putting in a four-way stop and 13th and Elm streets to slow traffic.

Summers said he does not think a stop sign or signal can be installed at Fourth and Spring because a traffic count would not warrant one. He said there is not enough traffic on any of the side streets, off of Spring, that would require a stop sign.

EDUCATING DRIVERS

Summers said the city plans to release a video on its website to educate the public on the new crosswalk signals that were put in when Spring Street was converted to two-way.

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.

Team Gahan's condiments are aligned and measured, and these trees likely are doomed by yet another non-transparent "beautification" plan.

It's another backroom design contract (HWC?), another campaign finance-loaded bid (Allterrain), and another non-transparent Team Gahan "fix."

Summers announces plan to "Walk the Walk" by enhancing car-centrism via the Market Street medians. We advocate nuking them to outer space.

In an e-mail, I asked David Barksdale a few questions.

He's one of three at-large city councilman who have the job of representing us all, even public housing residents, and he also is a member of the redevelopment commission as council appointee.

Lately he's embraced the role of de facto project manager for Jeff Gahan's sanitized suburban overlay for the historic downtown business district.

Which should remind us that there is a tendency among autocratic personality types to harness design and appearance toward the reinforcement of their personally pervasive patterns of grandiosity -- like the time Frank Burns explained to Hawkeye Pierce why he was having the ketchup and condiments measured.

"Well, if you kneel at the end of the tent and get the tabletop at eye level, you will see that each bottle of ketchup lines up behind the other, unless there's only one bottle of ketchup. Now the same is true of your condiments which, if you will note, are arranged according to height and popularity. There's your ketchup, your mustard, your relish, your mayonnaise, your oil and vinegar, your salt and pepper, and your sweet and sour gherkins all in a row."

In short, just like our anchor-laden crosswalks, beautifully doing absolutely nothing to protect walkers from drivers.

Where was I?

Oh yes, my futile e-mail to CM Barksdale.

It has been announced that there'll be changes made to the block of Market Street between State and Pearl, these coming without any chance for the public to see what's planned, or to provide input. Property owners and business people located on or near this stretch might like to be informed of these changes, don't you think? Are there any plans to accept input, or is it another trademark top-down diktat?

He is to be credited for replying, which is more than his favored comrades at Develop New Albany are capable of doing.

Hello Roger,

This is a NARC project and was discussed at the May 9 & 15 meetings..

Larry Summers is the lead person on it.

Dave

Unfortunately it's a lame, bureaucratically evasive reply, kicking the ball to the non-elected city engineer Summers, who I'd have asked in the first place had Summers not already blocked me on social media. What's more, I can't seem to find the city engineer's e-mail address anywhere on the city's web site, so in a return e-mail, I asked Barksdale if he had an e-mail address for Summers.

Pins drop, crickets chirp. To date, only silence. This closing comment recently was overheard during a curbside discussion of Gahanism in New Albany.

"Why do the folks on 'Mansion Row' get to keep their trees (which sport two lights each and underground watering as well) but the plebiscite have to endure Market Street trees cut down to 'improve the appearance’"?

A damned fine question. Good luck convincing the self-appointed community pillars to answer it, as they're busy confusing their own wants for the city's needs.

These useless crosswalk gadgets are Team Gahan's most wasteful expenditure ever -- at least BEFORE the prioritization of a luxury city hall.

If we disguise them as trees, perhaps David Barksdale will have the Tree Board commence another orgy of removal.

These useless "enhanced" (or "high visibility" -- but please, select your own code words for "this dog won't hunt") crosswalks are such an obvious and profound failure that even 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps grasps it, but because the error was cemented into place by the ruling clique to which Phipps is beholden, there cannot logically be a solution involving the councilman.

This would mean challenging Big Daddy G, and that's a good way to have the AdamBot kneecap your next campaign.

Maybe DNA can hang member advertising placards on them.

Crosswalk safety: Phipps goes on TeeVee; Summers gulps the Kool Aid. Jeff Speck had the street grid answers, but Jeff Gahan urinated on them. Unwalkable New Albany -- what a thrill!

 ... Focusing on the topic at hand, maybe Phipps is beginning to see that without Jeff Speck's principled approach to comprehensive street grid reform, two-way automotive friction alone cannot magically produce walkability -- and the majority of bicycle-friendly design components never made it past Gahan's ingrained cowardice.

Can you explain, Jeff Gillenwater?

"Greg Phipps and Larry Summers are both very aware that much more could have been done via this significant expenditure to protect against and start reversing auto-centric culture. It’s too bad both of them chose silence as a means of protecting their vaunted personal positions while a solid plan to do just that was being butchered by their boss. As lots of us have mentioned, two-way conversion as implemented is a bare bones step. Now we’ll have to spend years more and lots of additional money working toward eventually getting it right."

Paving news, but before that, a review of pro-Gahan campaign finance "engineered" by HMB and HWC.

Let's talk about paving, but first, who's this guy popping up on Mayor Jeff Gahan's 2017 campaign finance report?

Brad Meyer is the president of HMB Professional Engineers, Inc.

By an amazing coincidence, HMB is the employer of AdamBot, someone we all know and love.

And HMB formerly employed Paul Lincks, who sensibly moved from one set of engineers to another a couple of years back, because ...

 ... it was just in time to get in on the greatest de-Specked sausage of all, HWC Engineering's two-way street grid plan.

As engineers, HWC can spot which side of the bread slice to butter from as far away as China, while wearing blinders, and fully juiced on Kool-Aid. For instance, this Mr. Jolliffe fellow?

You catch on quick.

By the way, city council talked about paving last week. It's so vitally important that Mayor Jeff Gahan didn't attend the meeting, and isn't picking up the phones.

Mike Hall, a spokesperson for Mayor Jeff Gahan, said road paving selection is based on the city's Asset Management Plan that was developed by Clark Dietz Engineers.

Miraculously, no 2017 campaign donations can be traced to Clark Dietz, so give us a little more time.

At last Monday's meeting, the reporter missed some of the very best performance art in recent memory, when city engineer Larry Summers repeatedly and meticulously detailed his crushing workload as hod carrier to the mayor as proof that he couldn't possibly meet for as little as an hour with CM Scott Blair, who along with CM Bob Caesar recently has taken to discussing various new and innovative ways of patching potholes.

But before patches can be connected to potholes, campaign finance must be connected to the mayor!

You could see the exasperation on Summers' face: must I say this aloud for these idiotic council minions to "get it"?

Hence the unintended irony of the editor's subhead: Some council members think more is needed.

Hell yes. It's always the mayor who needs more, isn't it?

See that conveyor belt over there, disappearing into the bowels of the earth?

Feed it and see. It doesn't mean Gahan ever will attend a meeting or climb out from the bunker, where an abacus works overtime, just like Summers, but it does mean Hall might return your calls more quickly.

If your credit's good.

New Albany City Council allocates $1M for paving, by Chris Morris (Tom May Forever)

Some council members think more is needed

NEW ALBANY — Old Man Winter has finally left the area, but not before leaving plenty of potholes behind. Cold temperatures can be hard on road surfaces, and New Albany has its share of crumbling asphalt.

City officials are now finalizing a list of streets and begin the paving season.

But there seems to be more potholes than money, so many of those streets in need of a new surface may have to wait another year.

The New Albany City Council approved $1 million for paving this year at its meeting on May 7. The money will come out of the Economic Development Income Tax fund.

The council advertised $1.5 for paving in case the majority wanted an extra $500,000, but after discussion the council voted unanimously to approve $1 million.

While $1 million seems like a lot of money, it doesn't go a long way when it comes to laying new asphalt. Some New Albany City Council members would like to see more money dedicated to road and sidewalk repairs.

Summers announces plan to "Walk the Walk" by enhancing car-centrism via the Market Street medians. We advocate nuking them to outer space.

As the photos show, reducing the sidewalk width of the north side of Market between Pearl and State means having to cut even more trees -- and shortening the median (which by all rights should be dynamited, not "preserved," historically or otherwise) suggests dismantling and moving David Thrasher's signature fork in the road sculpture.

Better ask the Tree Board.

On second thought, the Tree Board probably is the prime mover of this latest deforestation plan.

Worst of all is testimony from city engineer Larry Summers, who apparently cannot fathom the sad irony of announcing a plan to remove trees, uproot art, maintain a car-centric median, add a turning lane for autos AND take ten feet off sidewalks while still insisting, drone-like, it will "create a place for people to gather and make the street more functional."

If Summers is genuinely interested in this outcome, and he's not, he'd be advocating for reducing lanes to one each direction, ditching the median and extending sidewalks (at the very least).

However, in defense of the city's engineer, by his own testimony he's already working 80 hours a week (his words at last Monday's city council meeting, not mine), as well as fending off the usual territorial pissing challenges from councilman David Barksdale on behalf of redevelopment.

Time and again, Mayor Jeff Gahan and his minions have proven that of all possible outcomes in a situation like this, the one that benefits drivers and their cars will be the one chosen and glorified in Orwellian Newspeak as "walkability."

If aesthetic atrocities are inevitable ... can we #FireGahan2019 ?

Block of Market Street in New Albany to get facelift, by Chris Morris (Plain Tom May Content Dealer)

NEW ALBANY — A section of Market Street, between Pearl and State streets, will soon receive a facelift. But who oversees the project is still up for debate.

Larry Summers, engineer for the city of New Albany, told the Redevelopment Commission about the proposal Tuesday, which will include several aesthetic changes including new lighting, widening the median in certain spots but shortening it near State Street to add a turning lane. He said the sidewalks on the north side in front of businesses will be shortened to 10 feet and benches will be added. The project is being paid for by a grant from the Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County, although Summers did not have the final cost. He said the hope is to have the majority of the work completed by Harvest Homecoming in October for safety reasons.

Summers said the changes will create a place for people to gather and make the street more functional.

"It will be very unique; it will be its own place," Summers said.

Summers also said the improvements would go through the Board of Public Works and Safety since that board meets weekly, instead of monthly, and must approve all projects that fall into the right of way. However, that did not sit well with all redevelopment members.

"This is a redevelopment project, not a board of works project," redevelopment member, and New Albany City Councilman, Dave Barksdale said.

The bids are supposed to be open prior to Tuesday's board of works meeting. The redevelopment commission members agreed to meet at 11 a.m. Tuesday to review those bids and said they want to have control of the project moving forward. Work may begin as early as this month. A pre-bid meeting was held May 7 and only one contractor attended, but Summers said it was not mandated.

Barksdale also said the two medians on Market will be different looking when the work is completed. He said he hopes money can be found in the future to improve the lighting and overall appearance of the median in the "lower" block.

Summers said there was not enough money to make changes to the other median, but added that would be a priority in the future to improve the landscape and lighting in the median, from State Street to Hauss Square.

"There is a lot of traffic there so we are always looking to improve that section," Summers said.

VIDEO: "That's why we're here," Gahan flails amid a pack of lies in this classic footage from last night's Mt. Tabor project meeting.

Thanks to whomever posted this video at YouTube.

There's a reason why the forever agoraphobic Jeff Gahan's handlers keep him secured in the bunker, and it's because the moment any public scenario strays from the script, he cannot improvise. The more he tries, the worse it gets -- and the angrier he becomes.

In this video, observe his petulance escalate with each "that's why we're here," until he's demanding to know why citizens aren't listening to him, even as he insists his Potemkin facade of a meeting was to prove he's listening.


Chins up, Mt. Taborites. Your comments may be "unlikely" to produce change, but in 2019, your votes will help forcibly detach Jeff Gahan from the public teat.

Until the past couple of days, I felt sorry for Larry Summers. Sadly, it's time to get past this, and to get started.

#FireGahan2019

Chins up, Mt. Taborites. Your comments may be "unlikely" to produce change, but in 2019, your votes will help forcibly detach Jeff Gahan from the public teat.

As an aside, has anyone else noticed how short John Rosenbarger's leash has become?

Any time the former Rasputin of Redevelopment becomes part of the public record, city officials hurriedly reel him back in, panic-stricken, as though they're actually aware of Pinocchio's chart-busting toxicity quotient.

Why not retire Rosenbarger -- or does he have copies of the same photos Coffey keeps in a safe deposit box at Birdseye Bank & Trust?

To the overarching point: If one plans for farce and debacle, these are the likely outcomes.

Jeff Gahan does not react maturely to being challenged, and when he is, expect scorched earth. It isn't enough for his opponents to lose. They must be ritualistically and publicly demeaned and humiliated, as with last night's shambolic "public information" meeting.

To his weird sort of credit, city engineer Larry Summers -- pushed to the front to take eyes off Rosenbarger's sneering depravity -- doesn't even try to lie (underlined in the passage below). By Team Gahan standards, this constitutes heroic virtue, and the newspaper's reporter helpfully records every word.

Last night's public information spoonfeeding gave Gahan's functionaries the opportunity to taunt the rubes who stand in the way of auto-centric enrichment. You don't know what's best for your neighborhood.

Dear Leader does. but remember that paybacks are hell -- and 2019 draws ever closer.

Residents voice opinions at Mount Tabor Road public info session, by Danielle Grady (That Jeffersonville Newspaper)

Comments 'highly unlikely' to produce change

NEW ALBANY — A group of New Albany residents got what they had been asking for on Tuesday: another chance for public comment on the reconstruction of Mount Tabor Road. But responses were mixed on whether residents thought the information session would result in change ...

 ... INDOT told the city that it should complete an additional information document and involve the public with its plans again in order to become NEPA complaint, which is a requirement for federally funded projects.

The city could have just completed a memo to file for the public, said Larry Summers, New Albany’s city engineer, but because of the amount of public outreach to INDOT, the department recommended a full information session.

While the city will be taking the public comments made at the meeting, looking over them and submitting them to INDOT with their information document, Summers said it was “highly unlikely” that there would be any changes made to the city’s plan for Mount Tabor Road. Instead, the meeting was more about informing the public about the project’s final details.

“I mean, the city is always looking to hear public comments, but at this point, we’re letting the project in February so the plans are final,” Summers said.

He did add that if there was something “substantial” brought up, the city could make a change.

Crosswalk safety: Phipps goes on TeeVee; Summers gulps the Kool Aid. Jeff Speck had the street grid answers, but Jeff Gahan urinated on them. Unwalkable New Albany -- what a thrill!

When the somnolent finally awaken, it's cause for acknowledgement, if not champagne toasts.

Maybe my 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps genuinely (albeit belatedly) grasps the way he's been used and comprised, time and again, by both mayor and political party for the past six years. They laugh at Phipps, not with him, and even I find this to be sad. Once discarded, principles are hard to re-establish.

If the anesthesia-flavored Kool-Aid is wearing off, that's progress, and proof of Phipps being "woke" will or will not be displayed in the months to come. Here's a friendly hint, Greg.

Gahan's rancid public housing putsch is an abominable moral and ethical failure, and your silence only abets it. Where is your Human Rights Commission when it's needed the most?  

However, focusing on the topic at hand, maybe Phipps is beginning to see that without Jeff Speck's principled approach to comprehensive street grid reform, two-way automotive friction alone cannot magically produce walkability -- and the majority of bicycle-friendly design components never made it past Gahan's ingrained cowardice.

Can you explain, Jeff Gillenwater?

"Greg Phipps and Larry Summers are both very aware that much more could have been done via this significant expenditure to protect against and start reversing auto-centric culture. It’s too bad both of them chose silence as a means of protecting their vaunted personal positions while a solid plan to do just that was being butchered by their boss. As lots of us have mentioned, two-way conversion as implemented is a bare bones step. Now we’ll have to spend years more and lots of additional money working toward eventually getting it right."

In a nutshell, yes. Let's look at WDRB's coverage.

New Albany councilman concerned about safety at newly installed crosswalks, by Chris Sutter (WDRB)

NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WDRB) -- Pedestrians have the right of way, but apparently those lessons of driver's education are a distant memory for several Hoosiers.

Pedestrian signs and lights were put up at several intersections in downtown New Albany during the two-way street conversions, but City Council Vice President Greg Phipps said few drivers seem to notice or care, blowing right through the intersections ...

And a predictable response from the very same engineer who at one time told me that some form of traffic cones or flexible stakes were being actively considered for use at certain of these intersections. Looks like Larry's been given a high-proof dose of Jeff Gahan's intellectual acquiescence serum.

New Albany City Engineer Larry Summers thinks that could just cause more confusion.

"It's more of an educational component that needs to occur than additional modifications that need to take place," Summers said.

Summers added that the city will be posting Facebook videos to the city's account and sending safety information with the sewer bill so that people are aware of what they need to do at each crossing.

Phipps should consider how different this might have played out had City Hall been willing to publicize HWC Engineering's de-Specked plan before implementation. Collective eyes surely would have spotted this and other issues, but no, it had to be a secret -- because secrecy is what Jeff Gahan is, and he knew all along he'd be gutting Speck's recommendations.

Remember this in 2019, when the secret ballot will come in handier than brooms for the necessary sweeping. As an addendum, below is NAC's post from December 12.

---

ASK THE BORED: Crosswalk safety and the silent CM? Hey, we're delighted whenever someone repeats what we've been saying for weeks on end.

In other words, precisely what was written here on November 28 -- and we thank the councilman for reading.

Grid Control, Vol. 30: These weird, useless "enhanced" crosswalk gizmos remind us that HWC's and Deaf Gahan's "complete roads" downtown are not "complete streets."

This passage might have been written by HWC Engineering, hence the sad reality of the imperfect implementation of two-way roads (are they streets?) in New Albany.

That's because as a non-automotive user of the city streets, I've found these credit-card-sized flashing beacons to be complete and utter jokes.

People walking still will find it far safer to look both ways and cross in the middle of a block; in spite of claims that traffic is moving more slowly since the reversion, the fact is that far too few calming measures were built into the rebooted grid. Team Gahan bet the farm that "friction" alone would calm traffic sufficiently for the myriad other two-way benefits to emerge.

Maybe, though these streets are still straightaways, just like before. They're still built to promote speed and indifference, just like before, though now with "enhanced" crosswalk beacons intended not as a legitimate means of rectifying a root problem, but as a "hey, we did something" gesture, another bright, shiny paste-over symbol, this one pointing to how the fundamental mobility issues downtown have not been addressed at all by a "modernization" program that preserved (certainly on purpose) the downtown grid as composed of "complete roads" rather than altered into "complete streets."

By the way, Greg ... it's just the way your political mentor Deaf Gahan wanted it to be. You, me and all the others have been the victims of a bait 'n' switch. I hope you continue to speak out publicly about it, and don't worry; I'm sure Greg Fischer won't unfriend you.

NEW ALBANY: Crosswalk safety questioned, by Chris Morris (Hanson Diffusion Compiler)

Education on flashing yellow lights needed, councilman says

NEW ALBANY — New Albany's grid modernization plan, which converted downtown streets to two-way traffic, has been well received by the driving public. But that is not what brought City Councilman Greg Phipps to Tuesday's New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety meeting Tuesday.

Phipps told the board he is concerned about pedestrian safety at the new crosswalks. He fears a majority of drivers don't understand when the yellow light is flashing to yield to pedestrians. He said that is a formula for disaster.

"I'm afraid a pedestrian will start out in the crosswalk and a driver will be distracted and not see them," Phipps said.

The news crosswalks are activated by a chip. City engineer Larry Summers said some of the chips are not functioning correctly and will have to be replaced. He also said a list is being made of crosswalks and areas along the conversion grid that need to be addressed.

Phipps said a few intersections are more dangerous than others, singling out the one at 10th and Elm streets. He said the red flashing light there has been taken down and drivers are "not coming to a complete stop."

"Motorists are not stopping when lights are flashing," he said.

He said he has seen similar issues at crosswalks at 13th and Spring streets, Eighth and Elm streets and in front of St. Mary's Catholic Church on Spring Street.

Educating the public is key, Phipps said. He said there has been some information about the new crosswalks tucked inside monthly sewer bills. He also told the board he would be in favor of the city paying for and placing flexible yellow cones at intersections to warn the public.

"They [motorists] are used to stopping at red flashing lights, but they need to understand a yellow light flashing alerts them to pedestrians, and pedestrians always have the right of way," Phipps said ...

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

In Vol. 21, we asked questions about the soon-to-be-repaved intersection at Spring and 10th Street, and the disappearing "No Trucks" sign at the intersection of Spring and Vincennes.

Afterward, city engineer Larry Summers swooped into a discussion at the New Albany Indiana page at Facebook and gave these answers.

First up: Spring and 10th.

On the western leg of the intersection, the center line stripe was put in 6 feet too far to the south which created the exaggerated jog. Brian is correct in noted the street was milled because relocating the stripes without milling would have left grind marks along side the correct striping. The potential for confusion necessitated the milling of the asphalt.

All together now: Six feet!

This wasn't a small error. Unfortunately, removing the mistaken dogleg and straightening the lanes likely will have the effect of speeding traffic through an intersection that SHOULD BE GIVEN A FOUR-WAY STOP, though the city seems determined not to discuss this topic.

As for the "here today, gone tomorrow" sign:

The original sign was removed prior to the project but the plans were put together when the sign was there. The intent still remained for the sign to no longer be present so the contractor was instructed to remove it.

Another contractor error, though once again, questions are left unanswered -- in fact, they've been raised oft times before at the Board of Works, and never once given definitive replies:

Does a "truck route" through New Albany still exist, and if so, where is it? And if it exists, does the city plan on enforcing it?

Thanks to Larry for answering these questions. He probably willingly engages the public more than the remainder of Team Gahan combined, and as such, deserves credit.

---

Previously:

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.