Eliminate jaywalking laws: "The core problem lies with street design, not human behavior."

Yes, we've been here before.

    

Walking is not a crime: Dunman and others on the scourges of jaywalking in auto-erotic America.

Like the jaywalker said: "People don’t obey the rules when they’re driving. Why should I?"

But any little chink to be taken from the imperialistic edifice of automobile supremacy is worth a well-aimed Molotov cocktail here and there. 

9 Reasons to Eliminate Jaywalking Laws Now, by Angie Schmitt and Charles T. Brown (CityLab)

They’ve rarely protected pedestrians, and their enforcement is racially biased. Two street safety experts say there are better ways to curb traffic violence.

On Sept. 23, Kurt Andreas Reinhold, a 42-year-old Black man, was trying to cross a street in San Clemente, California, when two officers from a special “homeless outreach unit” stopped him. An altercation ensued; minutes later, Reinhold, a father of two and down-on-his-luck former youth soccer coach, was shot and killed. In a cellphone video of the confrontation, Reinhold can be heard demanding, “Where did I jaywalk?”

This is a particularly troubling example of a pattern we see all too often. Black and Brown people, especially men, are routinely targeted by police for jaywalking or simply existing in public space. Often these stops result in an escalating series of fines and fees. In other cases — as in San Clemente, as well as in Sacramento, Seattle and New York City — they can end in violence.

Especially at a time when there is intense focus on police brutality and racism, Reinhold’s death should prompt us to pause and consider who is truly served by jaywalking laws. Their effectiveness as safety measures appears to be limited: Despite heavy handed and selective jaywalking enforcement, pedestrian deaths in the U.S. have increased rapidly in the last decade. As two of the top experts on pedestrian safety in the country, we think it is time for cities to consider decriminalizing jaywalking or eliminating the infraction altogether.

Here’s why.

1. Jaywalking is a made-up thing by auto companies to deflect blame when drivers hit pedestrians.
2. The concept of jaywalking encourages drivers to be aggressive toward pedestrians, and for third parties to ignore or excuse pedestrian deaths.
3. Our streets are not designed to make walking safe or convenient.
4. Pedestrians are almost as likely to be struck and killed at an intersection as mid-block.
5. When pedestrians jaywalk, they are often behaving rationally.
6. Jaywalking laws are not enforced fairly.
7. Jaywalking stops are frequently explosive.
8. The focus on jaywalking reflects the lower political status of those who walk — not the societal harm of the activity.
9. The safest countries globally allow jaywalking.

snip

Eliminating jaywalking laws may sound radical, but it’s been discussed before in cities such as Seattle. Other places, like Berkeley, California, are experimenting with new models for traffic enforcement that deemphasize police in favor of crash investigators who are trained to help promote infrastructure changes that improve safety. New York Attorney General Letitia James has advocated for removing police from traffic stops, and a new survey shows a majority of New Yorkers support the idea.

Wider reforms and changes to traffic safety enforcement are needed, from increasing diversity within law enforcement to enhanced data tracking, police training, inclusivity and investment in new social and criminal justice programs. Such efforts must be implemented with a vigilant eye towards reversing existing inequities: Early results from so-called “unbiased” enforcement efforts, such as intelligence-led enforcement, used by cities like Oakland, California, show disparities in traffic stops remain. The time is now, not later, to revisit or eliminate laws like jaywalking that are primarily used as a pretext to stop Black and Brown people — and rarely protected any pedestrians in the first place. 

Face the Face.

There's a reason for #DontBeAMaskHole.

I've said all along, and will now repeat, that it's the ultimate in despicable governmental cowardice to "encourage" face masks, but to allow retail workers to do the dirty work of enforcement.

A restaurant subject to health department guidelines regarding hygienic standards, generally now including face masks, must obey (and most are aboard) or face sanctions. Meanwhile elected officials from BOTH major political parties see no issue with issuing unenforced mandates leading to ordinary workers being compelled to act as police on behalf of spineless politicians.

It's bullshit, and it needs to stop. I live in a place called New Albany, Indiana, and the unmitigated, calculating drivelers currently serving in elective office here can be the place where rationality begins.

Fed up with anti-maskers, mask advocates are demanding mandates, fines — and common courtesy, by Marc Fisher

 ... In a country stumbling to control a rampant and deadly virus, masks are effective and popular weapons. Three-quarters of Americans favor requiring people to wear face coverings in public to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, including 89 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July.

Now, with the nation reeling from more than 5 million infections and nearly 170,000 virus-related deaths, a rising sense of outrage is leading this silent majority to push back against the smaller but louder anti-mask contingent.

Instead of flashy protests and confrontations, however, mask supporters are expressing their exasperation in quieter ways, writing letters to local newspapers, posting on social media, patronizing businesses identified as mask-enforcers on dedicated Facebook groups and urging state and local officials to mandate mask-wearing in public.

So far, 34 states and the District have adopted mask requirements. Now, mask advocates want police to enforce those orders, a move some police chiefs have said they are reluctant to make. They are seeking legal protection for retail workers put in the awkward position of enforcing mask rules. And they are lobbying for a coordinated federal mask policy ...

Routine traffic stops? "Let's stop using the terrible design of our cities as a random pretext and, instead, be proactive about fixing the design."

I'm having trouble finding the extract from this essay that best conveys the central point, so I've chosen two.

Routine Traffic Stops Should Not Be Used to Fight Violent Crime, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

“I’ll bet we can watch him drive for five minutes and pick out a traffic infraction.”

Those were the words of a Louisville police officer speaking to a resident about her son. The young man had been pulled over for an improper turn, which led to a lengthy episode in which he was ordered from his car, frisked, and then handcuffed while his (turned out to be mom’s) car was searched and, to a degree, dismantled.

There is a lot of outrage about this video. It’s a case study in psychology, and not a flattering one. But I’m not going to focus on that. Instead, I want to return to a topic I’ve written and spoken extensively about: the routine traffic stop.

Back in 2016, I wrote a column calling for an end to the routine traffic stop. My arguments were simple. First, routine traffic stops are very dangerous for police officers. Second, they have little to do with traffic safety. And, third, the pretext for most routine traffic stops—that someone has committed a traffic infraction—is arbitrary, disingenuous, and ripe for all the worst kinds of abuse.

As I wrote in a follow up piece, also from 2016:

Randomly enforcing traffic laws that are routinely ignored in other times and places (because they are not well-correlated to actual safety) as a pretext to initiate contact with high crime populations is unnecessarily dangerous for all involved. In addition to breeding resentment, I also strongly suspect it does not reduce crime, although it creates the illusion of fighting crime.

If we're worried about traffic safety, let's deal with that. If we're worried about catching bad guys, let's deal with that. Let's stop using the terrible design of our cities as a random pretext and, instead, be proactive about fixing the design.

There is a breakdown of the Louisville incident, then several conclusions.

And because I care about traffic safety, when the GPS coordinates associated with traffic infractions show a cluster of violations in the same spot, we need to get our engineers and urban designers out there to make some changes to the site. Our streets should be designed to be intuitively safe. If people are repeatedly doing unsafe things in a specific place, that indicates a design issue. The answer is to fix the design.

And because tens of thousands of people die in automobile collisions each year, and many more people—inside and outside of vehicles—are maimed and crippled through auto crashes, I want traffic enforcement taken seriously. I want it to focus on serious deviants: those operating a vehicle in ways that are threatening. And I want it done by traffic police, not by a violent crimes unit using traffic law as a pretext for a fishing expedition.

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Democratic mayoral candidate David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing, and NA Confidential advocates just such a deep civic cleansing. 

After eight years on the job, Mayor Jeff Gahan's list of stunning "achievements" is long, indeed: tax increases, budgetary hide 'n' seek, self-deification, daily hypocrisy, public housing takeover, non-transparency, pay-to-play for no-bid contracts, bullying city residents and bullying city employees. Eight years is enough. It's time to drain Gahan's swamp, flush his ruling clique and take this city back from Gahan's Indy-based special interest donors. 

NA Confidential supports David White for Mayor in the Democratic Party primary, with voting now through May 7. 

Read it, Irv: "Design Is Better Than Enforcement To Make Cities Safer For Everyone."

I apologize for doing this, but since the article is very short and directly addresses current social media yammering over the Upper Spring road diet and (impending?) two-way street plan, I'm reprinting it in its entirety. Look at these ideas as the antidotes to the Stumlers, Padgetts and Seabrooks of our community.

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Design Is Better Than Enforcement To Make Cities Safer For Everyone, by Charlie Sorrel (Fast Coexist)

Ticketing drivers isn't the answer to create streets that are friendly for pedestrians and cyclists.


Much as cyclists might like to see bad drivers punished for their distracted driving and their bike-harassing crimes, enforcement isn't the most effective way to make the streets safer. The best way to stop "accidents" is to design better roads.

Slower cars means safer roads, and while adding speed cameras and reducing speed limits can help, nothing beats a design that stops drivers from speeding in the first place. Also, slower cars mean less injury in the case of a collision, but again, avoiding the collision to begin with is even better.

Alon Levy, writing for Pedestrian Observations, makes the argument for better infrastructure. One of the main causes of accidents is driver fatigue and sleepiness, which is in turn caused in large part by monotony. You're a lot more likely to doze of on a long stretch of featureless highway, with mile after mile of unchanging scenery, then you are to fall asleep while navigating curved country lanes or narrow city streets.

"It is better to design roads to have more frequent stimuli: trees, sidewalks with pedestrians, commercial development, [and] residential development," writes Levy. Another trick is to make lanes narrower. Drivers speed up in wider lanes, and they're also pedestrian-hostile, making it harder to cross streets safely. Narrowing them helps in both cases, and could create more space at the side of the road for bigger sidewalks or wider bike lanes.

Levy cites Sweden as a good example of road redistribution. In Stockholm, the few arterial roadways in the city have "seen changes giving away space from cars to public transit and pedestrians." Many roads only have one lane in each direction for cars, with other lanes given over to pedestrians, buses, and bikes. Levy also covers "setbacks," the wasted land in front of a building that sets it back from the road. Some U.S. zoning laws mandate these setbacks, and these should be repealed, for a more pedestrian-friendly space.

Another urban problem is drivers using residential streets as shortcuts between larger roads. In the U.K., these are called "rat-runs." The problem chokes otherwise quiet streets at rush hour, as well as making the streets more dangerous at off-peak hours, as cars hurtle down roads where children should be playing and bikes should be ambling. The solution, common in the Netherlands, is to block one end of the street to motor vehicles with posts that let cyclists and pedestrians pass unmolested.

Urban sprawl, and the unchecked ingress of the automobile into every area of our cities, is clearly the problem. And better infrastructure, designed to make driving more difficult in order to make cites better for everyone, is an obvious solution. But it requires bold decisions, like the Barcelona's controversial Super Block scheme, and those decisions require a political will that is often too weak in the face of bullying from car drivers. Design may be more important than enforcement, then, but it's strong politics that will make those changes.

Bored of works? Try this: "St. Paul launches effort to change the city's driving culture — by enforcing crosswalk laws."

This sentence bears repeating, again and again, until Jeff Gahan, Warren Nash and the rest of the politicians wearing blinders with pride decide to stick hesitant, tepid toes outside their auto-centric comfort zones and have a stab at reality.

But the crash was a classic example of the tragedy of the crosswalk, where safety and laws say one thing, but speed and the street say another.

Imagine public officials committed to changing a hazardous culture rather than burying their heads in the sand. Gracious, up there in St. Paul, it's almost like they're trying to lead.

Must be their water. Or ours.

St. Paul launches effort to change the city's driving culture — by enforcing crosswalk laws, by Bill Lindeke (Minn Post)

Shelby Kokesch was killed last week trying to cross the street, on her way from the Minnesota History Center to the other side of busy Kellogg Boulevard. As Kokesch and her mother stepped out into traffic, one car stopped to let her pass, following the technicalities of Minnesota's crosswalk law. But the second car, an SUV, did not.

I'm sure the driver feels horrible; nobody wants to drive into people. But the crash was a classic example of the tragedy of the crosswalk, where safety and laws say one thing, but speed and the street say another.

The death also marks an inauspicious beginning as safety advocates and the St. Paul Police Department launch the city’s most ambitious campaign yet aimed at changing St. Paul’s driving culture. All year long, teams of neighbors and police will conduct stings aimed at shifting the priorities of St. Paul streets, one ticket at a time.

Photo essay: Which one's a heavy truck, Warren?

Four years later, and City Hall still can't explain this sign. Feeling good about New Albany's "plan" to cope with tolls?

Walking is not a crime: Dunman and others on the scourges of jaywalking in auto-erotic America.

Photo credit: Vox (below).

I walk.

I walk a lot.

There is me, and there are hundreds of vehicles. Conscious of the disparity between 235 lbs and several thousand, I try to pay attention, but every now and then, I'll get distracted. except that I'm not moving very fast, and comparatively speaking, the vehicles are ... and at this late date, is it necessary to remind readers of how often all of us are distracted while driving?

Of how drivers talk, text, sing, and play with their cigarettes?

Of how they approach an intersection with a one-way street and look only in the direction of oncoming traffic, and almost never the other -- where a walker may be trying to cross?

Of how while distracted, they're usually traveling at an unsafe speed, especially in densely populated urban areas?

When you're walking, you see all of it, because you must do so for the sake of your own safety -- and for the sake of your own safety, you use your own two feet as intelligently and resourcefully as you can. Jaywalking isn't a crime. It's a defense mechanism to circumvent wheeled stupidity, plain and simple.

The Vox piece referenced by Dunman is worthy of a highlight.

The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking", by Joseph Stromberg

... "In the early days of the automobile, it was drivers' job to avoid you, not your job to avoid them," says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. "But under the new model, streets became a place for cars — and as a pedestrian, it's your fault if you get hit."

One of the keys to this shift was the creation of the crime of jaywalking. Here's a history of how that happened.

Joe Dunman does a great  job of shining a light on another Fischer administration misstep: Blaming walkers for the behavior of drivers.

On LMPD’s jaywalking crackdown: We should not convert our police into well-armed tax collectors, by Joe Dunman (Insider Louisville)

... The idea that pedestrians don’t belong on the street and should only cross at narrowly defined places is a recent invention of the automobile age. Earlier this year, an illuminating article by Vox explored the history of traffic laws and jaywalking. In the old days now long gone, cities were a space for people, not cars. Now, especially since the Urban Renewal age of the 1960s and 1970s, all public space belongs to the almighty automobile. Where once it was the primary duty of vehicle drivers to avoid pedestrians, we now expect people on foot to get out of the way or risk death.

Not unexpectedly, there's this. How do supposed "Democrats" rationalize it?

It may or may not surprise you that the brunt of “broken windows” policies like jaywalking crackdowns falls disproportionately on the poor and non-white. Minor violations are used as an excuse to harass and financially exploit. In New York, 81 percent of the 7.3 million minor citations and summonses issued by police between 2001 and 2013 went to black and Hispanic people, who comprise much smaller minorities of the city’s total population.

Two years ago, NAC pointed to the following. It's worth a reprint. The passage below emphasizes solutions, but there is more to it. Hit the link, and learn.

Walking is Not a Crime: Questioning the Accident Axiom, by David M Nelson (Project for Public Spaces)

Solutions
There are many things that can be done to keep pushing the message back to a place that values human life first, and speed and efficient movement of automobiles second. On the policy side, get a Vulnerable Users Law introduced into your state legislature. Vulnerable Users Laws shift the burden of evidence onto the more dangerous individual. Drivers are responsible for cyclists, cyclists for pedestrians. I’m a huge fan of these laws, because pedestrians are put on a pedestal. They’ve been popular in Europe and are catching on in the United States.

You can also pursue other policies like Vision Zero, famously applied in Sweden and currently being campaigned for by Transportation Alternatives in NYC. Essentially, Vision Zero is a directive to eliminate all pedestrian and cyclists fatalities in quick order. The central premise being, “that no loss of life is acceptable.” Concerning law and order, you can find local lawyers to represent and advocate for justice on the behalf of pedestrians and cyclists injured or killed by drivers.

You can work to lower the speed of traffic. More specifically, advocate to decrease the range of speeds driven over a segment of road. A fundamental belief in traffic engineering is that differences in operating speed causes higher risks of crashes. Spread can be reduced by lowering speed limits and using roundabouts instead of signalized intersections. The end result is travel times remain the same but maximum operating speed and the range of speeds are significantly lowered. Other geometric changes include narrower lanes, pedestrian refuge islands, neck-downs and Rightsizing.

However, only so much will be accomplished until our local papers and the nightly news starts putting pressure on state DOTs and public works departments to keep our citizens safe on foot. So, first and foremost, pay closer attention to the way that pedestrian deaths are portrayed by the local media in your area, and don’t be afraid to put pressure your local news outlets when you see improper coverage that blames the victim. It is easy to find language in your State Statutes that debunk published misconceptions about crosswalks and jaywalking. We all have the right to walk—and like most rights, it’s one that must be defended.

Gahan: Body cameras utterly redundant in perfect human societies like New Albany's.

There are times when I feel a fleeting twinge of sympathy for Mayor Jeff Gahan's handlers, as when he somehow squirms out of their leaden grasp, improvises off script, and unleashes a whopper like this one.

“Fortunately, our community doesn’t feel the pressure to implement a body camera program at this time,” New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan said Friday.

The NAPD has a good relationship with the community, and there hasn’t been an outcry from the public or any specific organizations to require officers to wear body cameras, he continued.

It isn't easy reducing this bizarre sentiment to its most bedrock, fundamental "WTF," but we must try. First, the link to Daniel Suddeath's piece in the News and Tribune.

No body cameras for New Albany police, yet

NEW ALBANY — A growing trend locally and in cities throughout the nation has been a call for police officers to be equipped with body cameras.

Well-documented cases, including the police shooting of a man in Louisville last month who was attacking a cop before being fatally wounded, have placed more attention on interactions between law enforcement and the public.

But the New Albany Police Department doesn’t appear likely to be getting body cameras soon, though officials said the idea has been, and will continue to be, a point of discussion.

Interestingly, my fellow mayoral candidate Kevin Zurschmiede heard the same thing I did with reference to cameras, namely that the body cameras already been purchased. Props to KZ for airing the issue, which was denied by Chief Todd Bailey.

Zurschmiede questions recent purchases of NAPD cameras (Suddeath)

NEW ALBANY — There have been some misconceptions by officers when it comes to New Albany Police Chief Todd Bailey and Mayor Jeff Gahan’s statements about a body camera program, City Councilman and mayoral candidate Kevin Zurschmiede said Friday.

After a News and Tribune article published Monday about the city’s decision not to implement a body camera program at least in the near future, Zurschmiede said multiple NAPD officers informed him that up to 45 video recorders had been recently purchased by the department.

Such is the state of polarization in America that a truly balanced discussion of the body camera issue is difficult. It may or may not be the case that the NAPD has a "good relationship with the community," but agreeing to this assertion still does not preclude working to make the relationship better (as the officers with whom I've spoken favor) or supporting technological applications capable of providing facts when what matters most is the truth.

Another Police-Involved Shooting Marks a Turning Point in the Debate on Body Cameras, by Kriston Capps (City Lab)

 ... Outstanding questions on how body cams should be implemented deserve answers. Should police themselves decide who sees the footage—and what parts people see? Should it be as easy to dial up a local law-enforcement body cam as it is to view footage on a traffic cam? What laws will safeguard the privacy rights of officers? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Legitimate policy concerns notwithstanding, we would not have a clear picture of DuBose’s death without the officer’s body-cam footage. The dark suspicions of his family may be right: Without that body camera, we might not have ever discovered the truth.

There was no clamor, pressure or outcry to install a water park, and yet Gahan was pro-active to the tune of $20 million in park system construction. Perhaps his basic tone deafness pertaining to public safety issues best explains this weird, reactive ambivalence about body cameras.

It should make us all pause and ask: How many other public safety measures are not being considered owing to Gahan's faulty perceptions of supply-and-demand, and how many potential problems will be addressed only after they occur?

How does this make us "fundamentally better," Mr. Mayor?

Amanda Beam's column about human trafficking and the sex trade, and Kevin Zurschmiede's spa denial.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Earth to Warren & the Boardettes: Speeding is a DESIGN issue, not an ENFORCEMENT issue.

But the good news is that Mr. Nash is providing valuable, if inadvertent, tutelage in other areas of critical detective work.

Such a shame that a city like ours is unable to make appointments by virtue of inherent skill sets rather than distantly burnished DemoDixiecrat political credentials, but such is life in Under Knob. 

Board of Works adjusts speed limit on Division Street in New Albany (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — In response to safety concerns raised by business owners and residents, the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety lowered the speed limit on a portion of Division Street on Tuesday.

The limit was ordered to be reduced from 25 mph to 20 mph between Vincennes Street and 15th Street along Division Street. The street winds behind the Calumet Club as well as a church, and when there are functions at those organizations officials said traffic can cause some issues.

ReStartled: Without so much as a street sweeper in sight.

Could it be true? A dump truck, actually pulled over by a policeman? I just hope the cop wasn't asking the drive for a job application.

I'm giddy -- giddy, I tell you. Thanks to Mikey for the photo.

Paging Mr. Speck -- say, old man, while you're at it, can you write some street use guidelines for monster trucks, too? We seem to have misplaced ours.

Thanks to the miracle of the camera shutter, this monster truck is NOT speeding down Market Street.

Chief Todd Bailey did the research as promised, and produced what most of us would have guessed: Nothing, in that in typical slothful fashion, the city of New Albany has not bothered itself with the question -- ever.

Perhaps inadvertently, the street commissioner tells us something else we already knew, too: Nothing, as in nothing's going to happen until after Jeff Speck provides political cover.

 ... New Albany Street Commissioner Mickey Thompson, who is also a member of the board of works, said the issue of heavy truck traffic needs to be addressed in the ongoing street study being conducted by Jeff Speck.

You have to wonder: Does Speck know that he's doing a truck use study, too?

New Albany police chief: No local laws limiting traffic weight on city roads; Street official says heavy-weight vehicle issue should be addressed in street study, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — New Albany Police Chief Todd Bailey hasn’t located any city ordinances that restrict vehicle weight, though he said Tuesday he would support working with local officials on such restriction measures.

Residents approached the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety last week about tractor-trailer traffic downtown.

Intellectual flabbiness and political cowardice best explain the city's far-off gaze as monster trucks speed through the streets.

I'll hazard a guess that the same question asked of INDOT would yield a similar answer: "It ain't the state, baby, it's the municipality."

“I concluded that the city could make a determination that since trucks above a certain weight damaged the roads they could limit them to certain routes,” Bastress says. “In other words, they could regulate weight at a level that would preclude coal truck traffic downtown.”

The city of New Albany's enduringly dysfunctional political entities have kept pro-activity in enforcement at arm's length since the Scribners washed ashore, and it is safe to assume that in our case, as in Morgantown's, an element of not wishing to "offend" is part of the equation.

Merely note that escalating levels of heavy truck traffic down our speed-friendly arterial streets also "offend" in like fashion: It is damaging to the streets, noisy, dirty, dangerous for non-automotive walkers and bikers, and constitutes the very negation of quality of life by any meaningful definition.

The returning police chief seems to get it. What about City Hall?

Can Morgantown officials ban trucks clogging downtown roads?, by Bryan Popkin, Kelsea Lynch and Stephen Sleeper (Mountaineer News Service)

Kentucky wishes not to unduly trouble inattentive drivers.

The vigil continues. Will the Floyd County Democratic Party's convention at Applebee's with Miller Lite and Wal-Mart gift cards address genuinely local issues like these?

"The more greatly a place conforms to post war auto centric design, the more injurious it is to people."

From PPS: "Walking is Not a Crime: Questioning the Accident Axiom."

Why bicyclists almost never bitch about traffic calming.

Or do the grandees prefer their hegemony? Here's another beauty.

Right to Road Challenged in Kentucky, by Eliot Landrum (I Am Traffic)

 ... Reading the news reports, it’s clear that a reverse logic is working here. Instead of holding motorists responsible for inattentive driving, the police and county attorney are persecuting a law-abiding bicyclist.

Todd Bailey: NAPD traffic enforcement officers to monitor Spring Street.

Enforcement alone isn't going to turn any tides.

Streets designed to be traveled at high rates of speed for maximum pass-through effect will encourage speeding.

But it is refreshing to have a police chief who does not come out of the gate denying there is a problem. It sounds as though Todd Bailey might offer more than setting up a cursory hour's worth of radar research, as occurred last year. He even sounds like he gives a damn.

Mark my words: If the Jeff Speck study comes back as most of us think it will, and even if the city adapts every single proposal, you can bet your paycheck that Spring Street will be the last section of it to be completed. That's why the city's propensity to wait for the study results must be combated; it's merely an excuse to continue ignoring the problem. That's why I appreciate the chief of police's support these past two days.

Police monitoring speeding along Spring Street in New Albany; Traffic enforcement enhanced in response to residents' complaints, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — Responding to complaints from city residents, New Albany Police Chief Todd Bailey said traffic enforcement has been enhanced along Spring Street.

Two residents that spoke during the New Albany Board of Public Works Meeting Tuesday also questioned the city’s policy regarding weight and safety standards for tractor-trailers.

Bailey said he will research the city’s laws — if there are any — regarding weight limits for vehicles, and report back to the board of works next week.

The issue has also been raised by New Albany City Councilman John Gonder, who said he was concerned about the damage habitual use of the roads by heavy commercial vehicles will cause to streets.

With East Main Street constricted due to construction, Roger Baylor, co-owner of the New Albanian Brewing Co. who resides off Spring Street, said more tractor-trailers are appearing on other city streets.

Large, fast-traveling vehicles such as tractor-trailers are hazardous to residents, particularly pedestrians, Baylor said.

He added that speeding is a general problem on Spring Street regardless of the type of vehicle.

Speeding as it is facilitated by the city's street design.

New Albany's one-way streets are built to encourage lawlessness, to which the city responds by utterly flaccid enforcement, issuing as many as one speeding ticket a day in the entire city, if that.

Is it that the people we elect (and the ones they appoint) are this astonishingly uncomprehending, or they simply don't care?

Apart from the seemingly bottomless vapidity of Bob Caesar, exactly where is the opposition to law enforcement and street reform? Can anyone find it? Hint: Look first at the Democratic Party's politburo.

The following account is provided by Bluegill, and was posted at Fb on Saturday morning.

I drove up New Albany's Market Street about 11:15 last night doing the speed limit. I was passed like I was sitting still on every block from 7th to 14th. Why? Because the other drivers had an extra lane going the same direction and faced no oncoming traffic. Their decision to speed was well facilitated by the City. If Market Street were two-way and there was oncoming traffic present restricting the ability to pass, my adherence to the speed limit would've meant that everyone behind me would've been adhering to it, too, whether they liked it or not. Without even getting into issues of sprawl subsidy, multimodal use, and the like which could be easily fixed as well, those sorts of things are not difficult to figure out.

New Albany's streets: Screwed by design. Why?

The YMCA is on the south side of Main Street, with parking on the building's west side. Feast BBQ and The Exchange (sorry, but the Hour/Tower/Shower of Power doesn't count) are on the north side of Main. Soon, across W. 1st Street on the north side of Main, there'll be the Seeds and Greens Natural Market and Deli, and of course the antique store already operates on the corner.

A half-block to the north are the municipal parking lots where the farmers market probably should be, if we were in the habit of thinking and acting in the interest of multiple usage.

The are multiple traffic lanes at W. 1st and Main in the approach to the stop light at State, and people crossing the street from the western parking areas more often than ever before. All that's missing is a crosswalk, as can be seen in the photo. I'd just bounded across after being cursed by a driver who'd be forced to wait an entire 10 seconds for my passage.

As it pertains to rationalizing the city's street grid, there are two 800-lb gorillas perched downtown. One is Padgett, which uses East 4th and Spring as its private driveway for maneuvering block-long heavy equipment from its site, which quite simply is increasingly obsolete in a revitalizing urban context.

The second is QRS (formerly Riverside) Recycling. Heavy trucks formerly bound for QRS from the east now divert from Main Street and barrel down Spring, unimpeded by the city's non-enforcement regime; meanwhile, those approaching from the interstate thunder past downtown businesses on State before turning onto Main at a point just to the left of the view in the photo. Of course, Main also serves as the conduit to the casino.

Naturally, when called upon to address the section of Main most in need of a refrofit, the city is devoting its time and resources to the residential stretch of the street in front of John Rosenbarger's house, picking winners in one neighborhood, and shifting pressing issues elsewhere (monster trucks on Spring), thus dully ensuring that the counter-productive situation with unregulated heavy truck traffic downtown will be downplayed for another decade or three.

Of course, we are perpetually assured that somewhere behind closed doors sans public input, this problem is being carefully studied -- but let's leave Democratic Party central committee bowling events out of it.

In the meantime, any number of calming and enforcement measures might be deployed to improve street scenes like the one depicted above. But in New Albany, we've only gotten one design issue right: Our streets are designed for chaos, and chaos is what they produce, on a daily basis.

Does it have to be this way?

The reporter vents, and he has a fine point.

He's spot on, don't you think?

Parking: No code or ordinances necessary for failure to enforce any of them.

Yesterday there was an instructive conversation about parking, during which several comments made reference to sidewalks and driveways.

No parking meters necessary for sidewalk parking.

Which leads me to believe there is a rule against parking on the sidewalk unless permission has been asked from the Board of Public Works.

New Albany's code of ordinances offers helpful definitions, and for a fascinating journey into the mysterious realm of the unenforced New Albanian ordinance, visit the site and search "parking."

You'll find an exhaustive list of rules that Doug England suspended in the name of ... well ... something; maybe Maalox remembers. But, as in the NBA, we have continuation, and although the current administration has privately or publicly distanced itself from the England Er(a)(ror), it has refrained from downtown parking enforcement as well.

Understand one crucial point: I couldn't care less where the Copier Mart car is parked. The point I'm trying to make is that the overall absence of parking enforcement downtown is patently absurd, and contributes to our ongoing, flabby infirmity.

As for the relevant city traffic ordinance definitions (§ 70.02 DEFINITIONS), there's this one:

SIDEWALK. The portion of a street between the curblines and the adjacent property lines.

And these, all dating from 1939 ... before World War II:

PARKING. The standing of a vehicle upon a roadway, otherwise than temporarily for the purpose of and while actually engaged in loading or unloading, or in obedience to traffic regulations or traffic signs or signals.

PRIVATE ROAD OR DRIVEWAY. Every road or driveway not open to the use of the public.

ROADWAY. The portion of a street between the regularly-established curblines or improved and intended to be used for vehicular traffic.

STREET. Every way set apart for public travel, except footpaths.

TRAFFIC. Pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances using any street for the purpose of travel.

VEHICLE. Every device by which any person or property is or may be transported upon a public highway, except devices moved by human power or used exclusively upon stationary rails.

(Ord. 4074, passed 11-12-1936; Ord. 4139, passed 11-27-1939)

Then there's this.

§ 72.18 PROHIBITED PARKING AREAS.

(A) (1) No person shall stop, stand or park a vehicle in any of the following places:

(a) On a sidewalk ;

(b) In front of, or otherwise blocking access to, a public or private drive;

(D) For the purpose of this section, a DRIVEWAY shall be defined as a private road giving access from a public way to a building on abutting grounds.

(E) Only authorized and constructed curb cuts and driveways permitted by the city shall be used for ingress and egress. Driving, parking or stopping across the curb, tree lawn or sidewalk is not permitted.

If the sidewalk begins at the curbline and ends at the property line, then the whole expanse of concrete in question is, indeed, the sidewalk. And, if it's a driveway, given Barturtle's research on the building that used to stand there, it isn't supposed to be blocked. And, if it is a "tree lawn" or verge, it isn't supposed to be a parking space, either.

But see, it doesn't matter, because the city enforces none of it.

And we wonder why we're perpetually backward.

No parking meters necessary for sidewalk parking.

I'm confused about something, although this isn't uncommon; often I pause from walking to remove my headgear, scratch my head and wonder -- as when those few who bother to clear snow from their proximity choose to deposit it on public right-of-way, with the city doing absolutely nothing to prevent it or penalize it.

But I digress. As I was strolling through the frozen tundra the other day, I passed this car. As is evident in spite of the accumulated white death, it is parked on the sidewalk. In fact, it's parked on the sidewalk most of the time.

Fair enough, I suppose; no harm, no foul; but then again ... when I attended a Board of Public Works meeting last November, the Fire Museum (since departed for Jeffersonville) was there to preview its chili cook-off at The Grand, asking the board for permission to park a vintage fire truck on the sidewalk for a few hours.

Which leads me to believe there is a rule against parking on the sidewalk unless permission has been asked from the Board of Public Works.

Given that downtown street parking rules have been somewhat bizarrely suspended since the most recent England administration, making hash of any sensible notion of supply and demand, doesn't it mean that the car pictured above could occupy a curbside parking space in perpetuity, without penalty?

Does it mean that the Board of Works has approved the sidewalk parking space?

Or, does it mean what I think it means?

After all, this is Nawbony.