Nothing Is Ever Easy, But . . .

sometimes the ease at which things can be accomplished takes your breath away. The following is very hyperlocal news, but there's a message in it for all Hudsonians. 

For years, I have been trying to get stop signs placed on Allen Street at Second. (Gossips Central is just a few doors up from there.) Every east-west street in Hudson has a stop sign at Second except Allen, and the absence of stop signs encourages people to speed on Allen from Front Street to Third Street (a.k.a. Route 9G) and from Third Street (a.k.a. Route 9G) to Front Street and the train station.

When I was an alderman for the First Ward (2006-2009), I figured getting stop signs at this corner was something I could easily accomplish for my constituents. Besides encouraging speeding, the absence of stop signs made turning onto Allen from Second very precarious. Cars approaching from the east were often not visible to people turning onto Allen from Second because of the parked cars on the north side of the street. (As a resident of that block, whose car has no alternative to being parked on the street, I don't want the sight lines improved by extending the yellow lines because that would eliminate needed parking spaces.) 

I imagined that, since I was an alderman, getting stop signs at this intersection would be a slam dunk, but it wasn't. Former police chief Ellis Richardson was unsympathetic. Former alderman Sheila Ramsey (Fourth Ward), who chaired the Police Committee at the time, checked out the corner and reported that, because Second Street dead ends at Allen, there was no place to put a stop sign on Allen heading east.

Fast forward to this evening, at the Police Committee meeting. A discussion about speeding on Allen and Union streets (and an incident earlier in the day when I had to drag my aged and feeble William out of the path of a car speeding up from Front Street) emboldened me to suggest that there should be stop signs on Allen at Second Street. Police commissioner Gary Graziano was receptive to the idea and immediately made a note of it. An hour or so later, Graziano called to say that he had visited Allen and Second streets and while there, by pure happenstance, had encountered DPW superintendent Rob Perry. Graziano made the determination that stop signs were needed on Allen at Second Street, and Perry agreed to have them installed. It is anticipated that the stop signs will be in place by the end of the week.

How terrific is that?
COPYRIGHT 2014 CAROLE OSTERINK