Bass Street Petition

Short Week this week folks.
If you haven't seen it or signed it yet, here's a petition to keep Bass Street safe.

BASS STREET PETITION 

(If the link doesn't work, copy paste this): 
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keepbassstreetsafe/

What's Bass Street? Its a street in the West End that Ainbinder wants to connect to the feeder road going in along I-10 to encourage an additional entrance and exit to the development from the feeder road. Here's a map of the area:

Bass Street is represented on this map by the thin green line.  While not 100% to scale, it mostly is, because the street is roughly 16 ft wide presently. As you may also be able to tell, there are a number of Houses in the vicinity and along the proposed entry route to the Northern portion of the development. These are represented by the word 'Houses' and the Red Lines pointing to them on the map above.

But what  happens if you double the size of the street (about 35' wide) to make it bigger for more access? Totally safe, right?

Au contraire kids. Not only do you have more cars coming through nearer to the houses (See Map Above), you also get trucks trying to make deliveries. This is kind of a dumb idea because it creates an 'arc of doom'. Here's what I mean: 

As you can clearly see, if a Car is parked in the lane going to make a right onto the feeder road (obviously to chase after the other car), then your car will get run over by the truck making the right turn, resulting in the 'Arc of Doom'. Even if it does have armor, machine guns, and spikey things coming out of your wheels, you're still screwed because 18 wheelers are bigger than you and your Honda. 

Hence, please sign the petition, and have a great holiday weekend.

18 Wheelers In the West End

In all fairness, nothing to do with the development as far as I'm aware, but an example of what the city can't do right now ... enforce no trucks in the West End.

This is a picture of Koehler and Thompson Street this morning at about 730am. This truck took about 5 minutes to try to get through. And yes, that is a CoH Public Works truck parked there. He was putting up a No Parking Sign.

The no parking signs are a new feature in the West End. They typically stay up for an average of 3-5 days before they are torn down. Tow Trucks have been coming through the neighborhoods once the signs go up, they tow for a few days, then people tear the signs down and say they didn't know there was no parking there. This is the 3rd time that signs have been put up in this location in the past 2-3 months.

Patterson is presently a 'No Through Trucks' zone, albeit again not enforceable so far. There is still no plan for any improvements to my street ... my street being the one that the Wal-Mart is supposed to be built on.

Ashes to Ashes, Dirt to Dirt

Well, the Lenten season is wrapping up for all of us Catholics out there, so the title comparison seemed appropriate.

The Dirt Bar is now, well, dirt ...

... And as predicted, whomever is responsible for demolition (presumably Ainbinder) is utilizing the Yale Street Bridge already for 18 wheeler traffic.

Its good to know that some public officials however are finally taking note and speaking up on the traffic issues.


I