Monday, December 17, 2007

The joys of ownership


Rt. 116—one of the busier stretches of highway was once state owned and maintained. Five years ago the state decided to install a badly needed traffic control signal at this busy South Amherst intersection as well as other road improvements—all with state money.

With the design work about 80% completed, Amherst decided it didn’t like the cookie cutter design and wanted to “calm” traffic in the Village Square, enticing folks to pull up a park bench whip out a copy of the New York Times and slowly suck down a few cappuccinos while discussing global warming.

So now we own about three miles of busy roadway that yesterday required a fleet of DPW trucks, tons of chemicals and lots of peoplepower (many working on overtime). $10,000 here, $10,000 there…pretty soon you’re talking real money.

2 comments:

maryd said...

And where exactly is that park bench? Must be right next to the button you push for the "walk" signal.

Larry Kelley said...

Yeah, although they got the crosswalk paint down fairly quickly this September (not very visible with snow on them however,) the blinking Yellow light for a 'School Zone' seems to have fallen thru the cracks.