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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Clever local government ideas by people who have never driven a large truck or attempted to park in Downtown Amity or visited the sites they designed...

I just took my daughter to school. I needed to get a refund on her unused lunch money as she is not returning next year.
I took a trip though downtown Amity.
I swear the problem with government is not that they don't have enough money, it is that they have too much money!
And no one has any perspective on anything.
Amity got some sort of grant to improve streets. It sounded like a really good idea. The town is located along 99W. It has a short downtown section with a couple antique stores and places to eat. There is only about two and a half blocks with sidewalks bordering 99W.
The rest is gravel shoulders full of potholes.
Parking is pretty limited downtown. You used to see big trucks parked on the shoulders and the drivers would run in to one of stores or the cafe for coffee. The clever city designers got rid of the truck parking with the first phase of the street improvement.
Now they have pretty much gotten rid of all street parking in the downtown area by adding pedestrian island things on the street corners and one at the crosswalk which is sort of pointless as you don't need crosswalks in Oregon any longer. (One foot in the street and everyone has to stop)
The other problem they solved was to keep trucks from hitting the telephone pole by the old US Bank building when they turned from Amity-Bellview highway onto 99W. Instead of asking why trucks kept hitting that pole they went with the idea of putting up a big curb around it and putting the stop sign out at the edge of the pedestrian island. This is a great idea as it will accomplish several things.
1. The stop sign will get knocked over first
2. Traffic will back up on Amity-Bellview Highway
3. Trucks will now make death defying plunges into rush hour traffic on 99W and block both lanes when they turn.
I'm sure the whole project will be considered a success as it looks good on paper and we need to make the city more beautiful for the bicyclists and the wine tasters. They are of course the bread and butter of the city. They are certainly the ones who eat every day at Ashe's cafe and shop at Dad's Market (Which will now provide all the parking for the one side of the street will all the businesses.)
Which brings me back to the Landfill Park issue.
I got a letter from the planning commission telling me the conditional use permit the Parks Department was going to use to put the park in was denied.
This moves it to Phase Two. Where the parks department appeals the decision to the County Commissioners and they approve it. Of course they will approve it. There names are signed to the comprehensive parks plan which has been in the works for several years.
And this is how government works.

6 comments:

  1. Just lucky they didn't put in a couple of traffic circles. Those are really fun with a 53 foot trailer.

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    Replies
    1. Yes but they are a lot of fun with your Smart Car! Zip! Zip!

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  2. I went through Amity the other day. I think they are trying to build a smaller version of Dundee. Probably so they can complain about the traffic and lobby for a billion dollar bypass. They are just forward-thinking, petty, bureaucrats on the (small)Amity, planning commission.

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  3. Small town bureaucrats seem to be fond of using curbs to apply the Venturi effect to traffic flow. There is an example near me where two lanes southbound on a busy highway through town are suddenly constricted to one before opening back up to two for a left turn situation. Popularity of that arrangement is demonstrated by all the tire casing kisses left on the Blarney Curb.

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  4. I think that traffic engineers just pull this crap out of thin air. I suppose all government scientist share the same laboratory. The imaginary laboratory which the slogan, "It's not a lie if you hold a seminar."

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