Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.
WEEK 21
This has been a weird week. I know I can reasonably claim that about any week of my life, but this last one has been pre-pandemic level of all over the place, and since this series is about being car-free, I’m leaving out the irrelevant stuff.
Good weird: Last Friday, on Earth Day, VICE ran an article stemming from an interview with me. You can tell it was a phone interview because my speech patterns are accurately recorded. Being familiar with VICE, I knew it would be read. I’m happy to chip away at the notion that you need a car to live anywhere outside of NYC or the Netherlands. But the extra attention feels weird. . . I’m not someone who plasters social media with selfies. Regardless, I’m thrilled people are reading it and thinking about it.
Bad weird: SB4 (merged with HB5039) made it before the State Senate, which is not bad weird. That’s good. About damn time. The weird? I listened to a chunk of this debate (?) while working remotely (hooray for multitasking) and had to shut it off because it was not just enraging– it was icky. I listened to four Republican State Senators ask questions and/or ramble. One asked questions that were 99% thoughtful and relevant. One was about 50-50. One (State Sen. Kissel) was all over the fucking place, claiming he was not filibustering while filibustering. I’ll return to that in a second. And one ranted, who much like Kissel, was merely regurgitating half-baked conspiracy theories he heard on Fox News. What all four of those men had in common: none appeared to have done their homework.
It’s hard to say what was the lowest low of this spectacle.
There was the time when State Senator Cicarella (repping Durham, East Haven, North Haven and Wallingford) declared that “No one’s using the buses.” It’s the standard bullshit said by people who don’t ride the bus. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I’m not a nobody. The workers at KFC, Five Guys, Whole Foods. . .they’re not nobodies. The elderly women doing their shopping: not nobodies. My friends: not nobodies.
I could point to the times I’ve been on a bus at “off-peak” times and found all seats full. That was not before Covid. That’s circa now, within the last few months. I could talk about how on Saturday I rode the 63 bus (with others) to catch the 40 (with others), enjoyed Hartford’s Keney Park for a few hours, then took the 58 (with others) to Bishop’s Corner to do boring errands and procure coffee, and then caught the 62 (with others), which gets me to 0.6 miles from my house. I don’t need “studies” to tell me how many people ride the bus because I actually get on it and can see with my own eyes. Maybe our lawmakers ought to do the same before they try talkin about it.
Maybe the lowest moment of the SB4 debate (that I listened to) was hearing one Republican or another (they mostly blurred together, make of that what you will) express “concern” about our infrastructure. The “worry” — scare quotes intentional — was that there would not be enough electricity to fulfill demand, and that bus riders would not be able to get to their jobs. It felt like a gut punch because none of them are doing anything that I can see to improve our public transportation system now. Are they out advocating for expanded service at night and on weekends? Are they adding more routes to accommodate those using buses for reasons other than getting to jobs that start at 9 and end at 5? State Sen. Kissel’s district (repping East Granby, Enfield, Somers, Suffield, Windsor Locks and parts of Granby and Windsor) has less than amazing bus service. When I worked with clients in Enfield, one of their biggest hurdles was transportation. They might’ve been able to get to the mall if they could get themselves to that loop, but they couldn’t get to social services. From what I can tell, the only bus service in Suffield is a dial-a-ride type of program available only to those with disabilities or who are over 60. I asked Google how to go from Hartford to Suffield by bus. It sent me on the Hartford Line, put me on the airport shuttle, and then told me to walk my ass 6.2 miles the rest of the way. So, forgive me if I don’t feel like the Republican concern about people having reliable bus service was genuine.
(P.S. Why would anybody want to live in a town with lousy bus service? Even for the people who are diehard automobilists, what’s the plan for when their monster trucks break or crash or get stolen? How do those workers get to their jobs without any fallback system? This doesn’t feel like setting up your constituents for success.)
No. . . the low point may have been all of Kissel’s grandstanding. At the beginning, he claimed he was not trying to filibuster, but that’s 100% what he was doing. It was hard to tell if he believed the nonsense coming out of his mouth, or if his strategy was simply to keep going to waste everyone’s time. It made him look foolish. It made me cringe with embarrassment. Surely his district deserves higher quality representation. It made State Sen. Haskell (repping Bethel, New Canaan, Redding, Ridgefield, Weston, Westport, and Wilton) look like a damn saint, total professional.
There were too many moments. I could not keep up. There was the part where Kissel didn’t want anything to do with a bill that used California environmental standards because, according to Kissel, people are defecating on the streets there. To be more specific, he blamed the homeless for that. If he said he didn’t want to adopt these standards because Californians are flaky, dirty hippies who would benefit from having more negative vibes, I would’ve had more respect for his perspective. You might ask what people pooping on the sidewalk has to do with supporting clean air, and you would be right to ask that. Answer: nothing. You might ask how Kissel doesn’t know that people in Connecticut also shit on the sidewalks, including on that walkway between Bushnell Park and the Legislative Office Building garage.
There was his “concern” about how these electric buses would be charged, admitting to not know how buses are currently refueled, saying he doesn’t recall seeing them at the standard gas station. It feels like someone with this much ire toward anything not fossil fueled would’ve bothered to do basic research. How hard would it have been to talk with someone at CTtransit to get basic, oh so basic, questions answered? When I was a nobody on the bus yesterday, the driver — between under-his-breath cursing out motorists for playing with their phones and not noticing lights turning green — talked about needing to go up to the garage. Ride a bus, learn things. I mean, I already knew about the garage. It’s massive, viewable from the North Meadows dike. There’s lots of ways to gain knowledge.
Kissel pondered what would happen when all these electric vehicles needed tow trucks. What ever would the tow truck drivers do? Are you shitting me? This might’ve been a gripe he could’ve gotten away with in 1990. Not now. Not with electric vehicles already on the roads, already needing tow trucks. It takes three seconds to google the answer to this question, anyway.
The conjecture. The distorted views of reality. The claims that scientists are still debating climate change. Are scientists actually engaged in this debate? No. Didn’t hear that? Let me tell it to you in Spanish. No.
There were Kissel’s complaints about the cost of french fries, replacing a toilet in his house, the struggles of taking out the garbage when it’s cold. There was his excitement over getting a $2 reduction on price of a movie ticket because of the senior discount. His speechifying was like listening to someone’s internal monologue.
Meanwhile, you have State Sen. Haskell and State Sen. Cohen (repping Branford, Durham, Guilford, Killingworth, Madison and North Branford) who, as they say, understood the assignment.
The debate continues as I write this, and I’m feeling dread because we have elected officials in Connecticut who think climate change is not as severe as scientists have been saying, because these politicians don’t seem to see value in improving our air quality, because the Republicans want to kick the problem down the road. Dread isn’t the same as despair. But truly, I have to wonder why voters think this is the best representation that they deserve: people who can’t be bothered to do the research, who don’t care enough about future generations to make a few small sacrifices that will help make their lives substantially less miserable.
Add to all this the general disappointing weird that comes with Earth Day, and there’s a week.
So, let’s play a game called:
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Hint: the party bike was stationary when this photo was taken in New Haven.
Answer: Blocking the crosswalk and curb ramp. Someone trying to get into Wooster Square for cherry blossom pics can’t get through this way if using a wheelchair.
Hint: This is an intersection with apartments on two corners, a school, and a park on the others. This is Russ and Putnam in Hartford.
Answer: There are too many vehicle lanes for a densely populated area.
Hint: The person riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is a clue.
Answer: There is paint, but without flex posts or any other physical barrier, there is no bike lane. I see more people ride on the sidewalk than on the asphalt on Farmington Avenue in Hartford, and that’s because what’s there does not feel safe.
Hint: Gas prices are too low.
Answer: Even though there are several parking spaces at this gas station, people routinely park on the sidewalk. This is the same place where I needed #IndividualVigilance to get around the tractor trailer, at Park and Sisson in Hartford.
Hint: The pavers are where people walk.
Answer: For no reason, someone chose to park part of this vehicle on the sidewalk, even though there were open parking spots next to the building. A bollard or two would prevent this issue. This is across from the CTfastrak Parkville Station, and there’s a lot of foot traffic here.
Hint: It’s not the people playing sportsball.
Answer: There are twelve vehicles parked on the lawn in Pope Park. (One is not in photo)
Hold off on giving these illegal parkers the benefit of the doubt.
The photo below shows a few spaces remaining in the portion of the lot near to these fields.
And, there is ample parking in the far end of the same lot:
If you’re thinking this is something police should be alerted to, well, cops already patrol the park. They were there, doing nothing to discourage people from driving where kids are playing.
There were also many open spaces for drivers to use on Park Street and Park Terrace. The lawn was not remotely “needed” for parking.
Ready for another round?
I mean, what isn’t wrong here?
Still wondering?
Answer: I don’t know about you, but when I go to the park, I want to choose between walking in the street that everyone speeds on, or walking on a strip of overgrown grass that is a covered in animal carcasses, bulky waste, and obscene amounts of litter, depending on the week. Pope Park Hwy #4 is shameful.
Last one:
Hint: It’s not a lack of parking.
Answer: There was ample space behind the building to unload merchandise from a truck, but this driver chose to block most of the sidewalk instead. Someone with a wheelchair or stroller could not have fit in the space remaining. It’s also, and this shouldn’t need to be said, dangerous as hell to be walking right in front of or behind a large truck.
THE DUMBEST SHIT I’VE HEARD THIS WEEK
(I wrote that sub-heading before I listened to the State Senate debate SB4, so this is more like the second dumbest thing now)
There was a pic of a few cars parked in a well-marked bike lane in West Hartford, and Someone On The Internet excused this behavior by saying something like “maybe the automobilists were visiting” and calling this a 1% problem.
There are many, many places to park in West Hartford where the photo was taken. If a person’s driveway is filled, the next option would be to find legal on-street parking. If that’s not available, then work something out with the neighbors. Someone has space in their driveway. Work it out amongst yourselves.
Why is someone visiting considered a legit reason for endangering people on bicycles? It’s not. Can you imagine if I went on a car stealing spree, got called out for it, and was like “oh, it’s fine, I was just visiting”?! What if I dumped my bags of trash on someone’s lawn? Just visiting folks, no need to get yourselves all worked up.
If you can see why this is a bogus excuse in any other sense, then you have to stop being okay with driver laziness/selfishness/thoughtlessness.
The other part of that remark that got me was how this person considered a blocked bike lane to be a first world problem. Pure ignorance. While I want to protect them too, I am not concerned with the super spandex recreational speedy cyclists who have $10,000 racing bikes (or whatever they cost…I have no idea) mostly because they are able to pedal lightning fast and do impressive maneuvers. Yes, protect them too, but, they are not the most common cyclists out there. I want protection for the dudes on piece-of-shit bikes who are carrying two bags of cans on their handlebars, trying to get to redemption centers. I want protection for the front line workers who aren’t donning neon colors or wearing helmets, who are riding because there’s no bus service when they get off shift. These are the everyday, “invisible” cyclists who are riding out of utility, and not because it’s their workout or whatever.
What wasn’t mentioned, but I’ll just say it: drivers parking in the bike lane, you all are acting against your own interests. Those pesky cyclists you hate so much can’t ride predictably when we have to swerve to miss an illegally parked car.
AND WHILE I’M AT IT, THE TRUTH ABOUT DARTIN
If I had a dollar for every time I heard people complain about those dastardly pedestrians who dart out into traffic, distracted by their phones and not wearing hi-vis.
Nevermind how unreasonable it is to ask people to dress for a rave when their work (construction, sanitation) does not put them in the roadway all day, clothing choice discussions are a true distraction from the actual problem.
Of the 333 pedestrians and cyclists struck and injured/killed in Connecticut, year-to-date [date being April 21, 2022], twelve were wearing reflective clothing. When you look at how few people wear reflective clothes. . . well. Do we overestimate how protective hi-vis is? (I’m not saying don’t wear hi-vis. Wear whatever you like. But hi-vis is only visible to those looking)
What do we know about those twelve people in reflective clothing who were still struck by drivers? They were all identified as male, ages 20-74. Several were working in construction zones or responding to a previous crash. One was a sanitation worker; a motorist decided to pass a garbage truck. There are multiple garbage truck workers hit every year, same way, wearing same hi-vis. Another person was hit while using the unmarked crosswalk at Routes 190 and 189 in Union; the driver had a stop sign, but opted to turn left into the pedestrian despite the person’s reflective clothing.
What about texting?
Nine pedestrians/cyclists were described as being distracted by an electronic device at time of collision. This includes manually-operating (texting, typing, swiping, etc.), talking on hand-held, and talking on a hands-free device. That’s 9 out of 333. What is that? 2.7% of collisions?
One of those nine was a person using an electronic device while outside of a disabled vehicle on Route 9 in Haddam. Her condition was described as “emotional.” There was freezing rain. It appeared that a car crashed nearby, sending a vehicle perhaps sliding on the freezing rain, into her. I point this out because one of those nine definitely does not fit the stereotype held by those who get all bent out of shape about pedestrians on their phones. It actually seems like standard driver behavior, right? If you crash or have car trouble on the highway, you’ll probably be emotional too, especially if the weather is ultra crappy. You’re probably going to take out your device to call AAA or Uber or something. Text someone about what happened. Take photos of the damage. Your whole state in this situation is distraction. Of course, this is only what I can piece together from what’s in the Crash Data Repository and maybe that’s not what happened at all, but it sure sounds like it.
How many drivers are even going to identify as pedestrians when standing outside their vehicles, phone in hand, waiting for a tow? I’m almost tempted to reclassify this person, but let’s just go ahead and leave it as 9 out of 333 pedestrians distracted by electronic devices when hit by drivers.
If 2.7% of pedestrians/cyclists are distracted by devices, does that seem to warrant all the outcry about it? Because the outrage over distracted pedestrians is really outsized compared with the reality.
Stats aside, if someone is driving slowly enough and paying attention to the road, they should be able to stop for a pedestrian who is texting or eating a grinder or having a conversation with her child while using the crosswalk. End of story.
That holds true for the pedestrian who “darts into traffic out of nowhere.” Of the 333 pedestrians and cyclists injured or killed by motorists YTD, 26 were noted as having darted or dashed into traffic. The breakdown of that is 23 pedestrians, 2 cyclists, and 1 person in the overly vague category of “wheelchair, person in a building, skater, pedestrian conveyance.” Regardless, we’re talking 7.8% of all pedestrian/cyclist collisions involving someone who allegedly darted into traffic. Some of these collisions have no witnesses listed – pedestrian’s word against the driver’s. Who darts? Apparently people from age 3 to 89. Yes, an 89-year old was reported to have dashed, and it seems given a written warning for doing so.
Why might that 89-year old have been “dashing”?
I’m looking at this site on the map and seeing that there is no marked crosswalk, no stop sign, no lights that might have helped her cross from a condo complex to the park across the street. But sure, let’s write her up and not whomever designed this trash!
You know where people aren’t dashing? Where the roads are designed to keep people alive. I looked through the maps of where those 26 people did their so-called dashing – yes, as boring as it sounds – and only five of those 26 collision locations looked like streets with decent enough design.
But most looked something more like this:
or, this:
You tell me you’re going to cross at the corner where there are multiple vehicles parked in the crosswalks. This location doesn’t seem worse, since it’s dealing with vehicles coming at you from two directions instead of four. Also, Bridgeport, WTF.
Most locations where people are dashing have no ped heads, no painted crosswalks, missing painted crosswalks, overly wide streets, and other forms of chaotic evil.
Of those 333 pedestrians/cyclists hit with injuries, 133 were declared to have taken no improper action, and with another 48, it was unknown if they did anything to contribute to their own injuries. (Note: my own definition of “improper action” would be different from theirs because behaving based on what street design dictates feels excusable to me)
So, 54.4% of those injured were definitely and probably doing exactly what they were supposed to when hit by a driver.
There’s the point: if most of us are where we are “supposed” to be, not talking, not eating, not wearing dark clothing, not darting around, not futzing with our phones, why do we get blamed as if pedestrians are in the wrong 99% of the time?
That’s a rhetorical question.
**That 333 number is much lower than actual number of pedestrians/cyclists struck as not all municipalities have submitted data.**
THE TWEETS THAT GIVE ME LIFE
Despite the bloviating nonsense out of a few Connecticut Republicans, SB4 passed through the State Senate on Tuesday night!
WHAT NEXT
1. Thank your legislators if they voted in favor of the Connecticut Clean Air Act
2. Demand that we treat public transit like a public service. We can have free buses and good bus service. Don’t fall for the false dichotomy some are spreading — it’s not one or the other. Let the politicians who are supposed to represent you know that people want this.
Car-Free Diaries: Week 21
Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.
WEEK 21
This has been a weird week. I know I can reasonably claim that about any week of my life, but this last one has been pre-pandemic level of all over the place, and since this series is about being car-free, I’m leaving out the irrelevant stuff.
Good weird: Last Friday, on Earth Day, VICE ran an article stemming from an interview with me. You can tell it was a phone interview because my speech patterns are accurately recorded. Being familiar with VICE, I knew it would be read. I’m happy to chip away at the notion that you need a car to live anywhere outside of NYC or the Netherlands. But the extra attention feels weird. . . I’m not someone who plasters social media with selfies. Regardless, I’m thrilled people are reading it and thinking about it.
Bad weird: SB4 (merged with HB5039) made it before the State Senate, which is not bad weird. That’s good. About damn time. The weird? I listened to a chunk of this debate (?) while working remotely (hooray for multitasking) and had to shut it off because it was not just enraging– it was icky. I listened to four Republican State Senators ask questions and/or ramble. One asked questions that were 99% thoughtful and relevant. One was about 50-50. One (State Sen. Kissel) was all over the fucking place, claiming he was not filibustering while filibustering. I’ll return to that in a second. And one ranted, who much like Kissel, was merely regurgitating half-baked conspiracy theories he heard on Fox News. What all four of those men had in common: none appeared to have done their homework.
It’s hard to say what was the lowest low of this spectacle.
There was the time when State Senator Cicarella (repping Durham, East Haven, North Haven and Wallingford) declared that “No one’s using the buses.” It’s the standard bullshit said by people who don’t ride the bus. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I’m not a nobody. The workers at KFC, Five Guys, Whole Foods. . .they’re not nobodies. The elderly women doing their shopping: not nobodies. My friends: not nobodies.
I could point to the times I’ve been on a bus at “off-peak” times and found all seats full. That was not before Covid. That’s circa now, within the last few months. I could talk about how on Saturday I rode the 63 bus (with others) to catch the 40 (with others), enjoyed Hartford’s Keney Park for a few hours, then took the 58 (with others) to Bishop’s Corner to do boring errands and procure coffee, and then caught the 62 (with others), which gets me to 0.6 miles from my house. I don’t need “studies” to tell me how many people ride the bus because I actually get on it and can see with my own eyes. Maybe our lawmakers ought to do the same before they try talkin about it.
Maybe the lowest moment of the SB4 debate (that I listened to) was hearing one Republican or another (they mostly blurred together, make of that what you will) express “concern” about our infrastructure. The “worry” — scare quotes intentional — was that there would not be enough electricity to fulfill demand, and that bus riders would not be able to get to their jobs. It felt like a gut punch because none of them are doing anything that I can see to improve our public transportation system now. Are they out advocating for expanded service at night and on weekends? Are they adding more routes to accommodate those using buses for reasons other than getting to jobs that start at 9 and end at 5? State Sen. Kissel’s district (repping East Granby, Enfield, Somers, Suffield, Windsor Locks and parts of Granby and Windsor) has less than amazing bus service. When I worked with clients in Enfield, one of their biggest hurdles was transportation. They might’ve been able to get to the mall if they could get themselves to that loop, but they couldn’t get to social services. From what I can tell, the only bus service in Suffield is a dial-a-ride type of program available only to those with disabilities or who are over 60. I asked Google how to go from Hartford to Suffield by bus. It sent me on the Hartford Line, put me on the airport shuttle, and then told me to walk my ass 6.2 miles the rest of the way. So, forgive me if I don’t feel like the Republican concern about people having reliable bus service was genuine.
(P.S. Why would anybody want to live in a town with lousy bus service? Even for the people who are diehard automobilists, what’s the plan for when their monster trucks break or crash or get stolen? How do those workers get to their jobs without any fallback system? This doesn’t feel like setting up your constituents for success.)
No. . . the low point may have been all of Kissel’s grandstanding. At the beginning, he claimed he was not trying to filibuster, but that’s 100% what he was doing. It was hard to tell if he believed the nonsense coming out of his mouth, or if his strategy was simply to keep going to waste everyone’s time. It made him look foolish. It made me cringe with embarrassment. Surely his district deserves higher quality representation. It made State Sen. Haskell (repping Bethel, New Canaan, Redding, Ridgefield, Weston, Westport, and Wilton) look like a damn saint, total professional.
There were too many moments. I could not keep up. There was the part where Kissel didn’t want anything to do with a bill that used California environmental standards because, according to Kissel, people are defecating on the streets there. To be more specific, he blamed the homeless for that. If he said he didn’t want to adopt these standards because Californians are flaky, dirty hippies who would benefit from having more negative vibes, I would’ve had more respect for his perspective. You might ask what people pooping on the sidewalk has to do with supporting clean air, and you would be right to ask that. Answer: nothing. You might ask how Kissel doesn’t know that people in Connecticut also shit on the sidewalks, including on that walkway between Bushnell Park and the Legislative Office Building garage.
There was his “concern” about how these electric buses would be charged, admitting to not know how buses are currently refueled, saying he doesn’t recall seeing them at the standard gas station. It feels like someone with this much ire toward anything not fossil fueled would’ve bothered to do basic research. How hard would it have been to talk with someone at CTtransit to get basic, oh so basic, questions answered? When I was a nobody on the bus yesterday, the driver — between under-his-breath cursing out motorists for playing with their phones and not noticing lights turning green — talked about needing to go up to the garage. Ride a bus, learn things. I mean, I already knew about the garage. It’s massive, viewable from the North Meadows dike. There’s lots of ways to gain knowledge.
Kissel pondered what would happen when all these electric vehicles needed tow trucks. What ever would the tow truck drivers do? Are you shitting me? This might’ve been a gripe he could’ve gotten away with in 1990. Not now. Not with electric vehicles already on the roads, already needing tow trucks. It takes three seconds to google the answer to this question, anyway.
The conjecture. The distorted views of reality. The claims that scientists are still debating climate change. Are scientists actually engaged in this debate? No. Didn’t hear that? Let me tell it to you in Spanish. No.
There were Kissel’s complaints about the cost of french fries, replacing a toilet in his house, the struggles of taking out the garbage when it’s cold. There was his excitement over getting a $2 reduction on price of a movie ticket because of the senior discount. His speechifying was like listening to someone’s internal monologue.
Meanwhile, you have State Sen. Haskell and State Sen. Cohen (repping Branford, Durham, Guilford, Killingworth, Madison and North Branford) who, as they say, understood the assignment.
The debate continues as I write this, and I’m feeling dread because we have elected officials in Connecticut who think climate change is not as severe as scientists have been saying, because these politicians don’t seem to see value in improving our air quality, because the Republicans want to kick the problem down the road. Dread isn’t the same as despair. But truly, I have to wonder why voters think this is the best representation that they deserve: people who can’t be bothered to do the research, who don’t care enough about future generations to make a few small sacrifices that will help make their lives substantially less miserable.
Add to all this the general disappointing weird that comes with Earth Day, and there’s a week.
So, let’s play a game called:
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Hint: the party bike was stationary when this photo was taken in New Haven.
Answer: Blocking the crosswalk and curb ramp. Someone trying to get into Wooster Square for cherry blossom pics can’t get through this way if using a wheelchair.
Hint: This is an intersection with apartments on two corners, a school, and a park on the others. This is Russ and Putnam in Hartford.
Answer: There are too many vehicle lanes for a densely populated area.
Hint: The person riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is a clue.
Answer: There is paint, but without flex posts or any other physical barrier, there is no bike lane. I see more people ride on the sidewalk than on the asphalt on Farmington Avenue in Hartford, and that’s because what’s there does not feel safe.
Hint: Gas prices are too low.
Answer: Even though there are several parking spaces at this gas station, people routinely park on the sidewalk. This is the same place where I needed #IndividualVigilance to get around the tractor trailer, at Park and Sisson in Hartford.
Answer: For no reason, someone chose to park part of this vehicle on the sidewalk, even though there were open parking spots next to the building. A bollard or two would prevent this issue. This is across from the CTfastrak Parkville Station, and there’s a lot of foot traffic here.
Hint: It’s not the people playing sportsball.
Answer: There are twelve vehicles parked on the lawn in Pope Park. (One is not in photo)
Hold off on giving these illegal parkers the benefit of the doubt.
The photo below shows a few spaces remaining in the portion of the lot near to these fields.
And, there is ample parking in the far end of the same lot:
If you’re thinking this is something police should be alerted to, well, cops already patrol the park. They were there, doing nothing to discourage people from driving where kids are playing.
There were also many open spaces for drivers to use on Park Street and Park Terrace. The lawn was not remotely “needed” for parking.
Ready for another round?
I mean, what isn’t wrong here?
Answer: I don’t know about you, but when I go to the park, I want to choose between walking in the street that everyone speeds on, or walking on a strip of overgrown grass that is a covered in animal carcasses, bulky waste, and obscene amounts of litter, depending on the week. Pope Park Hwy #4 is shameful.
Last one:
Hint: It’s not a lack of parking.
Answer: There was ample space behind the building to unload merchandise from a truck, but this driver chose to block most of the sidewalk instead. Someone with a wheelchair or stroller could not have fit in the space remaining. It’s also, and this shouldn’t need to be said, dangerous as hell to be walking right in front of or behind a large truck.
THE DUMBEST SHIT I’VE HEARD THIS WEEK
(I wrote that sub-heading before I listened to the State Senate debate SB4, so this is more like the second dumbest thing now)
There was a pic of a few cars parked in a well-marked bike lane in West Hartford, and Someone On The Internet excused this behavior by saying something like “maybe the automobilists were visiting” and calling this a 1% problem.
There are many, many places to park in West Hartford where the photo was taken. If a person’s driveway is filled, the next option would be to find legal on-street parking. If that’s not available, then work something out with the neighbors. Someone has space in their driveway. Work it out amongst yourselves.
Why is someone visiting considered a legit reason for endangering people on bicycles? It’s not. Can you imagine if I went on a car stealing spree, got called out for it, and was like “oh, it’s fine, I was just visiting”?! What if I dumped my bags of trash on someone’s lawn? Just visiting folks, no need to get yourselves all worked up.
If you can see why this is a bogus excuse in any other sense, then you have to stop being okay with driver laziness/selfishness/thoughtlessness.
The other part of that remark that got me was how this person considered a blocked bike lane to be a first world problem. Pure ignorance. While I want to protect them too, I am not concerned with the super spandex recreational speedy cyclists who have $10,000 racing bikes (or whatever they cost…I have no idea) mostly because they are able to pedal lightning fast and do impressive maneuvers. Yes, protect them too, but, they are not the most common cyclists out there. I want protection for the dudes on piece-of-shit bikes who are carrying two bags of cans on their handlebars, trying to get to redemption centers. I want protection for the front line workers who aren’t donning neon colors or wearing helmets, who are riding because there’s no bus service when they get off shift. These are the everyday, “invisible” cyclists who are riding out of utility, and not because it’s their workout or whatever.
What wasn’t mentioned, but I’ll just say it: drivers parking in the bike lane, you all are acting against your own interests. Those pesky cyclists you hate so much can’t ride predictably when we have to swerve to miss an illegally parked car.
AND WHILE I’M AT IT, THE TRUTH ABOUT DARTIN
If I had a dollar for every time I heard people complain about those dastardly pedestrians who dart out into traffic, distracted by their phones and not wearing hi-vis.
Nevermind how unreasonable it is to ask people to dress for a rave when their work (construction, sanitation) does not put them in the roadway all day, clothing choice discussions are a true distraction from the actual problem.
Of the 333 pedestrians and cyclists struck and injured/killed in Connecticut, year-to-date [date being April 21, 2022], twelve were wearing reflective clothing. When you look at how few people wear reflective clothes. . . well. Do we overestimate how protective hi-vis is? (I’m not saying don’t wear hi-vis. Wear whatever you like. But hi-vis is only visible to those looking)
What do we know about those twelve people in reflective clothing who were still struck by drivers? They were all identified as male, ages 20-74. Several were working in construction zones or responding to a previous crash. One was a sanitation worker; a motorist decided to pass a garbage truck. There are multiple garbage truck workers hit every year, same way, wearing same hi-vis. Another person was hit while using the unmarked crosswalk at Routes 190 and 189 in Union; the driver had a stop sign, but opted to turn left into the pedestrian despite the person’s reflective clothing.
What about texting?
Nine pedestrians/cyclists were described as being distracted by an electronic device at time of collision. This includes manually-operating (texting, typing, swiping, etc.), talking on hand-held, and talking on a hands-free device. That’s 9 out of 333. What is that? 2.7% of collisions?
One of those nine was a person using an electronic device while outside of a disabled vehicle on Route 9 in Haddam. Her condition was described as “emotional.” There was freezing rain. It appeared that a car crashed nearby, sending a vehicle perhaps sliding on the freezing rain, into her. I point this out because one of those nine definitely does not fit the stereotype held by those who get all bent out of shape about pedestrians on their phones. It actually seems like standard driver behavior, right? If you crash or have car trouble on the highway, you’ll probably be emotional too, especially if the weather is ultra crappy. You’re probably going to take out your device to call AAA or Uber or something. Text someone about what happened. Take photos of the damage. Your whole state in this situation is distraction. Of course, this is only what I can piece together from what’s in the Crash Data Repository and maybe that’s not what happened at all, but it sure sounds like it.
How many drivers are even going to identify as pedestrians when standing outside their vehicles, phone in hand, waiting for a tow? I’m almost tempted to reclassify this person, but let’s just go ahead and leave it as 9 out of 333 pedestrians distracted by electronic devices when hit by drivers.
If 2.7% of pedestrians/cyclists are distracted by devices, does that seem to warrant all the outcry about it? Because the outrage over distracted pedestrians is really outsized compared with the reality.
Stats aside, if someone is driving slowly enough and paying attention to the road, they should be able to stop for a pedestrian who is texting or eating a grinder or having a conversation with her child while using the crosswalk. End of story.
That holds true for the pedestrian who “darts into traffic out of nowhere.” Of the 333 pedestrians and cyclists injured or killed by motorists YTD, 26 were noted as having darted or dashed into traffic. The breakdown of that is 23 pedestrians, 2 cyclists, and 1 person in the overly vague category of “wheelchair, person in a building, skater, pedestrian conveyance.” Regardless, we’re talking 7.8% of all pedestrian/cyclist collisions involving someone who allegedly darted into traffic. Some of these collisions have no witnesses listed – pedestrian’s word against the driver’s. Who darts? Apparently people from age 3 to 89. Yes, an 89-year old was reported to have dashed, and it seems given a written warning for doing so.
Why might that 89-year old have been “dashing”?
I’m looking at this site on the map and seeing that there is no marked crosswalk, no stop sign, no lights that might have helped her cross from a condo complex to the park across the street. But sure, let’s write her up and not whomever designed this trash!
You know where people aren’t dashing? Where the roads are designed to keep people alive. I looked through the maps of where those 26 people did their so-called dashing – yes, as boring as it sounds – and only five of those 26 collision locations looked like streets with decent enough design.
But most looked something more like this:
You tell me you’re going to cross at the corner where there are multiple vehicles parked in the crosswalks. This location doesn’t seem worse, since it’s dealing with vehicles coming at you from two directions instead of four. Also, Bridgeport, WTF.
Most locations where people are dashing have no ped heads, no painted crosswalks, missing painted crosswalks, overly wide streets, and other forms of chaotic evil.
Of those 333 pedestrians/cyclists hit with injuries, 133 were declared to have taken no improper action, and with another 48, it was unknown if they did anything to contribute to their own injuries. (Note: my own definition of “improper action” would be different from theirs because behaving based on what street design dictates feels excusable to me)
So, 54.4% of those injured were definitely and probably doing exactly what they were supposed to when hit by a driver.
There’s the point: if most of us are where we are “supposed” to be, not talking, not eating, not wearing dark clothing, not darting around, not futzing with our phones, why do we get blamed as if pedestrians are in the wrong 99% of the time?
That’s a rhetorical question.
**That 333 number is much lower than actual number of pedestrians/cyclists struck as not all municipalities have submitted data.**
THE TWEETS THAT GIVE ME LIFE
Despite the bloviating nonsense out of a few Connecticut Republicans, SB4 passed through the State Senate on Tuesday night!
WHAT NEXT
1. Thank your legislators if they voted in favor of the Connecticut Clean Air Act
2. Demand that we treat public transit like a public service. We can have free buses and good bus service. Don’t fall for the false dichotomy some are spreading — it’s not one or the other. Let the politicians who are supposed to represent you know that people want this.
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