Stronger than Covid
The ability of Portland City Hall to waste money is more robust than any deadly global pandemic. Case in point: We got this beauty in the mail late last week:
We haven't had an actual Sunday Parkways event for two years, but still we have one or more bureaucrats pumping this stuff out at the Portland "transportation" bureau. Plus, healthy recipes!
These are the same geniuses who have taken to putting orange barrels up in the middle of crosswalks that say "local access," when the street in question isn't closed at all and you're entitled to drive through all you want. It's all just there to remind you that cars are evil, and if you are busy with a real job and a family and a life, you aren't wanted here.
God forbid we should hire a second traffic cop for the city (we're down to one) or pave a few of the unpaved streets on the east side.
Anyway, I'm sure the proponents of "Vision Zero" will be quick to point out that Kaiser and some other private outfits pay for some of this. But I'll bet not for all of it. If Kaiser thinks it's such a great idea, Kaiser should take it over entirely. The clowns churning this stuff out and racking up the benefits in City Hall need to be laid off.
Agreed. I live on a designated bicycle street in SE. The street used to host a streetcar line, so it is a mite wider than typical and many of the houses along the street were built so close together and largely before the masses owned their own motor vehicles, so off-street parking is rare and curbside parking is the norm. This means that the streets rarely get swept adequately because of all the parked cars. Does PDoT even try to work with neighbors? No. They can paint silly 'corporal in the bike unit' logos all over hell, but can't clean the streets worth a damn. Result: The storm drains are plugged and when it rains enough, we get dandy little lakes at various intersections....and then, Environmental Services comes out and spends god knows how many tax dollars rectifying a situation which could have been avoided by PDoT working with neighborhood residents and doing the goddamned job they are supposed to.
ReplyDeleteOne of the funnier comments from your old blog way back when was something like "Hey my street just earned it's Corporal Bars!"
ReplyDeletePlus, who can forget... http://bojack.org/2011/07/over_here_near_blog_headquarte.html
DeleteAs a reader points out, without sticker hunt clues in Klingon, the bureaucrats are really falling down on the job.
ReplyDelete