On election eve, "Democrats (and Coffey) Skip New Albany City Council Meeting."

They don't even pretend well, do they?

Democrats, Independent Skip New Albany City Council Meeting, by Nick Vaughn (The Aggregate)

On the eve of municipal elections across Southern Indiana, the New Albany City Council meeting did not have a quorum and could not conduct business. The only council members in attendance were Council President Scott Blair (I) and Republican Councilmen Al Knable, Dave Aebersold, and Dave Barksdale. All Democratic members as well as Independent Councilman Dan Coffey were not in attendance.

While it is not immediately clear why so many council members missed, a source who was present at the meeting stated that Democratic Councilman Greg Phipps "had something come up" while Bob Caesar (D) stated he was going to be campaigning during the meeting's time. Councilman Matthew Nash (D) reportedly gave a personal reason for missing the meeting ...

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.

For Pinocchio Rosenbarger and the Bored: Synchronized traffic lights on State Street won't solve anything.

At last week's Bored of Works and Auto Safety meeting, Grandaddy Naps tried to wrap his arms around traffic problems on State Street.

At issue was the prospective acquisition of land to place signal boxes in preparation for a federally-funded project to make State Street more navigable for greater numbers of automobiles, without taking minor factors like walkability into mind, so as to approve whole new parcels of auto-centric retail development, presumably to be financed by Scott "Banker" Blair's firm.

It may help to recall that even before it began picking its collective nose, the very first thing the Bored of Works did upon receiving Jeff Speck's Downtown Street Network Proposal was to omit State Street from it.

Surely this was no coincidence.

One year later, the very same time-serving luminaries who brought you dainty sidewalk numbers for the motorcycle club ...

... will yet again pay no heed to the notion of induced demand, as explained here in relation to Los Angeles.

If you can find anything in any of this to inspire confidence that a gang perennially unable to plan straight will (a) begin two-way street reversions, and if lightning strikes and they actually do, (b) execute them according to spec ... let me know.

Do Synchronized Traffic Lights Really Solve Congestion Woes?

... Although many traffic experts agree that LA’s money was well spent on the synchronization, some are skeptical that the new system will reduce congestion in the long run. Statistics indicated an initial reduction in congestion … until people realized that the city’s roadways were less awful and a new population of previously avoidant motorists took to the roads.

It’s like loosening your belt after a particularly large meal — while it creates more room for your burgeoning belly, the space is quickly filled because you can finally relax (or eat dessert). The same thing is happening with LA traffic. By reducing average travel times, synchronized traffic lights allow more people to travel. The benefit may not necessarily be speedier traffic, but rather a greater number of cars passing through during the same amount of time. The level of congestion may stay the same simply because there are more cars on the road.

As long as those paychecks keep coming, John Rosenbarger cares not one jot about crosswalkability downtown.

Here's where 3rd Street crosses Market. The crosswalk is clearly marked. It doesn't mean drivers pay attention, as illustrated by another photo taken elsewhere ...

... but it's somewhere to start. Moving just one block east, where 4th Street meets Market, the only markings are from midday utility line shadows.

I drew in some white lines, just to show you what it might look like.

One of my favorite "WTF" crosswalk stops is at the T intersection of 8th Street and Spring. We went to the trouble of drawing lines across what used to be a three-lane street, without a stop light to slow traffic, and then cleverly had them end at a curb. Hope you weren't using a wheelchair, pal.

A far more recent example of head-scratching is just down Spring Street between 3rd and 4th, at the alley by Centenary Church. A fresh coat of asphalt was applied to the alley, and leveled on the west side.

But on the east side of the alley, no such effort was made. It's several inches up.

One evening in early June, we were walking eastbound behind a fellow in a motorized wheelchair. He started across the alley, saw the bump ahead, and diverted into the bicycle lane against oncoming traffic.

Yep, we're all about public safety in New Albany.

These are only a few examples of the variable crosswalk experience downtown. Perhaps John Rosenbarger spends too much time thinking about how to guarantee speedway-mode passage for J & J Pallet and Tiger Trucking down arterial Spring Street, and not enough time contemplating the ways that his chosen street network discriminates against other forms of human transport.

Everlasting municipal dysfunction, bowel movements and political cowardice.

On Sunday, I did not rest. I ranted. It didn't make me feel better. It made me feel worse.

Ranting on John Rosenbarger's fundamental contradictions in the aftermath of an atrocious day in the neighborhood.

... Conversely, while many of the complete street platitudes uttered yesterday make me feel good, the reality that there is no discernible will on anyone's part to implement them induces a very bad feeling. If you really believe the city will wither and die unless something is done, as Rosenbarger actually said aloud -- for heaven's sake, John (and your political bosses over uncounted generations) -- doesn't it mean you're ready to dispense with the idiotic charade and actually DO SOMETHING to change it?

My blogging co-conspirator weighed in at FB, and perfectly encapsulated my feelings.

Jeff Gillenwater: Whenever someone like Rosenbarger claims, as they often do, that New Albany and surrounding areas are just too scared and stupid to take very obvious steps toward improvement, that there's little to no hope, no valid reason to invest any more of one's mind or money here thinking it will get better any time soon, I believe them a little more each time -- as I've learned over the past few years just how dedicated they are to proving it. 

Others believe them, too, and smart, engaged people - many with both the talent and intent to contribute in important ways - end up leaving as it quickly becomes the only reasonable thing to do in response. As it turns out, most people with choices don't actually want to sacrifice their intelligence, their passion, and their overall better selves to a bunch of sadly dysfunctional twits and their senseless, self-imposed limitations. 

Along those lines, a note to political wannabes in New Albany, incumbent and otherwise, starting with the Democratic Party Chair and trickling down just like their 30-year-old, failed economic plan: If your stump speech does not include a rather strident section about the need to and your willingness to immediately and completely revamp the city's planning and development/redevelopment departments from scratch, don't bother calling me, emailing me, sending me paper mail, or attempting to schmooze me at events and, for decency's sake, stay the hell off my porch.

Roger A. Baylor: Obviously, when it comes to everyday business, I can't throw in the towel, and I won't, because I tend to be an ornery and stubborn SOB. But as of yesterday, self-interest increasingly will define what I do. These regressives just aren't worth my time and effort.

JG: New Albany needs your business a lot more than your business needs New Albany. The same is true for others. I sincerely think that should be much more fully explored en masse. I dislike the subsidy/quid pro quo game but, if that's going to be the primary deal for the foreseeable future - if city officials are going to stand by and not only tell people that what they're doing is impossible while they're doing it but also actively work to prove and reinforce impossibility as some sort of self-immolation - then hand them fuel and a match and keep your distance. 

There are any number of towns or neighborhoods in the metro that would be happy to have those business and personal investments and would likely do more to acknowledge the respective contributions with contributions of their own. The desire to feed people is noble. Allowing one's self to be starved in the process so that others can advance their pitiful, "public" careers isn't. This City that so regularly and so openly disrespects the many people and ideas doing the work on the ground every day makes people mean, distrustful, and resentful but those feelings, too, as legitimate as they are in context, can be much better directed.

RAB: Adam Dickey might be interested in this thread, although last time I wrote him back, the conversation ended rather abruptly ... which probably owes to the fact that in this town, talking a good game is all there really is. If accomplishment genuinely mattered ...

I'll stop there. How does one end a post like this?

By scoffing at the usual suspects for the umpteenth time? By beating up on myself for every believing any of their perennial bullshit? By thinking that maybe, some day, a genuine reformer will claw his or her way through the unbearably anti-progressive local political party structures, when the likelihood of it happening is roughly equal to my cat setting up a soapbox in Rent Boy Park and reciting Aristotle in letter-perfect ancient Greek?

I'm not sure why Saturday's vacuous folderol should be any more annoying than the palpable nonsense I've heard repeated for ten uninterrupted years, but it was, and the same old song and dance has become colossally tiresome. It's way past time that they came running to us, rather than the other way around. I'd consider an Occupy The City County Building movement if I wasn't afraid the doltishly endless cowardice would rub off on me.

How about a bowel movement instead?

Now, that's more like it.