Big Y supermarket entrance University Drive
The road renovation/redesign at the Big Y entrance on University Drive commenced last year and only finished last month when the new traffic control signals finally switched on. So some of you may be wondering why the white traffic lane markings are already fading?
According to one of our engineers, "There is a lot of remaining oils in the fresh pavement so the new paint doesn’t stick very well." Which is why the state always uses thermoplastic, a special heavy duty goo that adheres better than paint, lasts five to ten times longer and is more visible...but is of course more expensive.
And some would say a tad too slippery when wet.
No not to your car, but to bicycles and pedestrians. A few years ago the DPW installed bike lanes around town using thermoplastic and were roundly criticized by a bicycle enthusiast or two about the lines being slippery when wet.
So ever since, when the town does a road project, the markings are made with cheap paint that easily fades: By Sisyphus with a paint brush.
25 comments:
Wow! Pretty cool!
I smell some awards in the future for the reporting on this blog....
Larry, it is no secret that the pavement markings all around this town are deplorable. Look on North Pleasant Street and Southeast Street. I'm afraid the Main Street reconstruction is just going to look shabby because two months from now the pavement markings will have all but disappeared.
Am I the only one truly infuriated by the new traffic lights - how it takes FOREVER to get own UDrive -- and turn right on Rt 9?
The damn light is Always Red! Last night I sat through TWO green lights for the nursing home and there wasn't a single car anywhere in sight, if I hadn't decided to just run the damn thing, I probably would be there still....
I agree. The lights are ALWAYS red! They need to do something about that. I usually turn into the po and go thru the Big Y parking lot to avoid the long red lights on my way to route 9.
What I noticed tonight -- and this is dangerous -- is that folk coming from Hadley/Hamp for the Big Y no longer take the left onto UDrive and then the left into the lot. Instead, they make a U Turn on 9, and then go in by where the old Mobil Station used to be.
That didn't used to happen. This S**T is serious and someone is going to get hurt (or a well-intended vigilantee with a BB gun is going to do some target practice -- which might not be a bad idea....).
Those lights SUCK. They are messing up people's lives. Forget the trees and the old landfill and make a fuss about this!!!!
Has Mr. Mooning tried to drive through town recently????
And I am now going to S&S rather than Big Y (even though S&S is more expensive) because it is easier to get to. It is so much easier to cut across Lincoln or Dana/Sunset than deal with these damn lights....
This has to be costing Big Y customers -- although their driveway in Northampton is such a mess (after dark you really can't see the proper road in) so maybe their design person is on drugs or something...
Larry, forget hot water in bathrooms and deal with something SERIOUS....
Those lights are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now you can finally get out of that damn parking lot
Of course the lights help you get out of the parking lot -- they are always green in that direction -- and I wouldn't be as upset if there actually were people LEAVING the parking lot but there aren't.
There aren't likely because they couldn't get in to it in the first place....
Adding a turning lane was what was needed, not three sets of lights inside 100 yards...
Stop and Shop is cheaper than Big Y (everyday prices) - and I won't buy a membership card to get Big Y sale prices.
Actually- I'm shopping at Aldi's- it is owned by Trader Joes- Great items/ low prices.
Seen a lot of folks run the traffic lights (especially the nursing home one) folks go through it and then stop at the Big Y one.
Today I was stopped at the red lights on University Drive. There was no traffic exiting from either the shopping center or from across the street. Yet we were stopped.
What's the logic here? I thought we opposed unnecessarily idling vehicles in this town.
"or a well-intended vigilantee with a BB gun is going to do some target practice -- which might not be a bad idea...."
Will this be one of the nuggets that a future reporter digs up when Ed finally snaps? (And how will the jury look upon the phrase "well-intended"?)
love the sidewalk curb cuts and crosswalks at the reconstructed Big Y intersection. Hate that they don't actually help the people who use the curb cuts actually get anywhere, since there are no matching curb cuts on the inside of the Big Y parking.
I think there is a lot more car traffic on the access road that runs past the post office and CVS since the construction. That is not a good thing.
anon 1:24 you are right, I find myself using the Lincoln/Dana/Blue Hills detour more and more. The U Drive lights are invariably red for long periods. As far as the faded markings go, hell, the hopscotch diagrams our neighborhood kids draw on the sidewalk are more permanent.
I rarely drive past big y now. I avoid it at all costs. Even if I am going to big y. I enter via the po access road. Those lights are one of the worst things to hit amherst streets in years. I don't understand why they are ALWAYS red.
I think we should put traffic lights at every intersection. In fact, we should put stop signs on roads with even slight bends in them. I would prefer to sit idling at a red light half my commute, instead of let licensed drivers follow the rules of the road themselves. That way I can stop more often for gas, and change my brakes more often, leading up until my aneurysm bursts and I go on my own shooting spree.
F'n Nanny State.
Part 1 of 2:
It has come to my attention that an Anonymous Anonymous schmuck (or schmuckette) made yet another fallacious (and libelous) allegation relative to my mental health.
Children, if Dr. Ed was going to snap, it would have happened long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long ago.
Furthermore, it is Dr Ed, damn it. I have a piece of paper from the Board of Trustees that says I am entitled to all the "honors and privileges" and that includes respect for my rank. Like the Black Judge in a few good men, I am quite certain that I've earned it.
Harvey Silverglate made an interesting point - people out here can say whatever they want about me, but UMass awarded me its highest and most precious degree, and what does that say? Two members of my committee had a form of "dean" in their titles, and the third could have if she had wanted it -- a point people might also want to reflect on.
Were I to go vandalize a relatively expensive piece of public property, accepting the consequences thereof, I wouldn't do something as impotent as plink at it with a BB gun - or water pistol, subtlety is not one of my many faults.
No, I would do one of two things -- I would either get an Oxy/Acetylene torch and literally cut the damn things down like trees, or in the ultimate reductio ad absurdum, I would "hotwire" it so that it was rapidly flashing all kinds of pretty colors in random combinations, like a circa 1978 Disco display.
Yes, the "evil" Dr. Cutting could do this -- could but won't and that is because of character, not inability.
(continued)
Part 2:
If Dr. Cutting actually gave a damn about the Purgutorial Cesspool known as Amherst -- he would do the same thing he was going to do if Lincoln Avenue stayed closed -- file a complaint with the Mass Department of Treehugging & Frogkissing which I think Deval has renamed just to make our lives interesting, but the state "environmental protection" folk in Boston, a place where the influence of this place does not extend. Dr. Cutting knows how to read regs, including the one about when something "inadvertently" worsens air quality -- which unnecessarily stopping cars (and heavy trucks), forcing them to idle, and then accelerate is explicitly defined as constituting.
It's a "4-hour round trip" drive out here from Boston, so if you are a lazy bureaucrat who wants to justify taking off early for the weekend and "kill" an entire day (or two with an overnight motel stay - and attempts to hit on the college girls), you go out to Amherst for something, possibly not completely sober because your boss will never know. So you are gonna get some bullying incompetent schmuck coming out to "investigate" -- not the competent professional who has other things to do.
This, children, is what Dr. (and Professor) Cutting would do, if anything. Something as impotent (and dangerous) as firing a BB gun which likely would ricochet -- please -- I wouldn't use anything lighter than a .30-06 -- my grandfather lost an eye from a BB ricocheting off a barn door. Something I could do, but choose not to, I have self-discipline and the like, which perhaps others in this community lack.
The attacks on me and on my mental health actually speak volumes to those who make them, and their own deficits as they perceive them. When the truth finally comes out, people are going to ask in amazement how I could have endured all I did and somehow maintain my sanity - and I will respond "now do you see why I say if I ever was going to "snap", it would have happened long ago?"
People may also want to remember that a subpoena to Google -- months if not years from now -- gives me your IP address which includes the identity & contact information for your ISP, and a second subpoena to the ISP gives me all of your personal contact information. You are not anonymous - something that the perverts trading kiddie porn often learn the hard way - and you can be personally liable for libel...
Dr. Ed Cutting, MEd, CAGS, Ed.D (and CDL)
One other thing: The USAF has a saying -- "they are shooting at you because you are over the target."
There are very conspicuous individuals who are ignored. I am not -- and what does that say????
There was a time when I didn't care what people thought or said about me - but we live in an increasingly intolerant and quite fascist society and I have learned that one must challenge such libelous defamation as there are consequences if one doesn't.
The schmucks libeling me are of such insignificance that I more feel sorry for them than anything else -- their lives are so insignificant that the only way they can make themselves feel good is to attack someone else.
I, on the other hand, well could be in front of the US Congress seeking confirmation to an appointed position a decade from now. Seriously.
They don't have the courage to confront me directly because they know what my IQ is, what my debating skills are, and that I not only can fight back but will win. That Ed Cutting has friends whom he can ask for help if he really needs to.
My point -- and this is an advisory and not threat because I try to be a "Good Christian" and I don't do things halfway -- if I have to sue people personally for libel because it is harming my career, I will. I won't enjoy it, but I will do it, and I won't do it halfway.
Enough said?
Dr. Ed Cuttring
Ed, I like the random flashing lights concept. Traffic flow could only improve.
I'm holding my breath for those confirmation hearings.
Ed's three part rant is proof of the tenuous nature of his mental health.
Dr. Ed Cutting? Is that the same "Ed" that everyone's been baiting all these years? He sounds very important, albeit in a talks-about-himself-in-the-third-person kinda way.
Oh. My. GOD.
Do my eyes deceive me, or did Ed really just out HIMSELF, thereby insuring that all his ravings will be searchable by whoever conducts his confirmation hearings for a post at Burger King (in ten years, of course; wouldn't want to rush into anything)?
Priceless!
Is anyone else completely spooked by this guy's ramblings?
He seems so filled with anger.
In a summer featuring disaffected males shooting up places, perhaps we should be concerned.
Who gave Ed subpoena power?
Dr. Ed Cutting just gave one more crazy piece of evidence to whoever will be doing internet searches on him for any future job. All they have to do now is search this blog for any "Ed" postings and they will drop him pronto.
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