#271 Less in More

Narrowing roads and creating bike lanes in an apparent nod to the needs of non-road tax paying bicyclists isn’t all our city parents have been up to. There are decorative traffic islands. Decorative traffic islands are all the rage in the road departments these days. I suppose it’s the nature of bureaucracies to keep people working, even when there’s nothing to do, so if that means a little traffic-obstructing make-work plan, so be it. Take a perfectly good road, where you can turn easily into a house or store and then clot it up with an attractive firetruck-repellent decorative traffic island. I’m not sure what the purpose is for the ones I’ve seen going up lately. I can’t see how they make traffic better. It certainly doesn’t help it any while the construction is going on. And ultimately, their aesthetic qualities were minimized by safety concerns. That’s because traffic islands appear to be designed by committee. Or worse, a joint committee. Regular committees represent in-department diverse concerns. Joint committees enjoy both that impediment to efficiency, and the further impediment of a different department’s committee concerns. I suppose it’s fitting you get as many impediments as possible in the planning phase of building something who’s sole purpose seems to be to function as an impediment in its execution phase. Poor joint committee planners. That means they have two of them, you know who I mean, the self-important like-to-hear-myself-talk yappers. They always seem to be on any committee I’ve ever been on. They like nothing more than the sound of their voice and drone on and on about excruciatingly small meaningless ramifications to the larger issue under discussion. Until now, I never thought it was contagious.
Here’s why I think traffic islands miss the point. First off, they not only block access, they also block vision. Especially when they put trees on ‘em. A great place for kids to dart out from. Or a cat hopped up on antifreeze. Second, once they pour the curbs and fill in the soil and plant the trees or shrubs it’s beautiful. For about ten minutes. Then they put a big, ugly as sin, yellow sign up in front of the formerly attractive foliage. The sign has an arrow, which directs people around the island. I sometimes think all the cities must have got a deal on around-the-traffic-island directional signs. And had to build islands to use them. So the beautification department agrees on the design of the island and the safety department insists on putting up an ugly warning sign so drivers won’t crash into it. And neither one of them has the sense to paint the curbs reflective yellow so you don’t accidentally run up onto them on one of our wet, blinding, rainy nights. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned, traffic-directing, non-vision obstructing, reflective-in-the-rain, turtles? We were so happy together.
America, ya gotta love it.