Paper to pedestrians: Drop Dead!

The outgoing mayor and council in Glens Falls approved a multi-million dollar roundabout for the five-corner intersection in the city's downtown. Mayor-elect Roy Akins said he would revisit the boondoggle. He was taken to task for it in a snide little editorial (do they write any other kind?) in The Post-Star.

The paper writes:

Read this out loud.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi ...

... five Mississippi. Six Mississippi. Seven Mississippi. Eight Mississippi. Nine Mississippi. Mississippi. 11 Mississippi. 12 Mississippi. 13 Mississippi. 14 Mississippi. 15 Mississippi. 16 Mississippi. 17 Mississippi. 18 Mississippi. 19 Mississippi. 20 Mississippi. 21 Mississippi. 22 Mississippi. 23 Mississippi. 24 Mississippi. 25 Mississippi. 26 Mississippi. 27 Mississippi. 28 Mississippi. 29 Mississippi. 30 Mississippi. 31 Mississippi. 32 Mississippi. 33 Mississippi. 34 Mississippi. 35 Mississippi. 36 Mississippi. 37 Mississippi. 38 Mississippi. 39 Mississippi. 40 Mississippi. 41 Mississippi. 42 Mississippi. 43 Mississippi. 44 Mississippi. 45 Mississippi. 46 Mississippi. 47 Mississippi. 48 Mississippi. 49 Mississippi. 50 Mississippi. 51 Mississippi. 52 Mississippi. 53 Mississippi. 54 Mississippi. 55 Mississippi. 56 Mississippi. 57 Mississippi. 58 Mississippi. 59 Mississippi. 60 Mississippi. 61 Mississippi. 62 Mississippi. 63 Mississippi. 64 Mississippi. 65 Mississippi. 66 Mississippi. Mississippi. 67 Mississippi. 68 Mississippi. 69 Mississippi. 70 Mississippi. 71 Mississippi. 72 Mississippi. 73 Mississippi. 74 Mississippi. 75 Mississippi. 76 Mississippi. 77 Mississippi. 78 Mississippi. 79 Mississippi. 80 Mississippi. 81 Mississippi. 82 Mississippi. 83 Mississippi. 84 Mississippi. 85 Mississippi. 86 Mississippi. 87 Mississippi. 88 Mississippi. 89 Mississippi. 90 Mississippi. 91 Mississippi. 92 Mississippi. 93 Mississippi. 94 Mississippi. 95 Mississippi. 96 Mississippi. 97 Mississippi. 98 Mississippi. 99 Mississippi. 100 Mississippi. 101 Mississippi. 102 Mississippi. 103 Mississippi. 104 Mississippi. 105 Mississippi. 106 Mississippi. 107 Mississippi. 108 Mississippi. 109 Mississippi. 110 Mississippi. 111 Mississippi. 112 Mississippi. 113 Mississippi. 114 Mississippi. 115 Mississippi. 116 Mississippi. 117 Mississippi. 118 Mississippi. 119 Mississippi. 120 Mississippi.

One hundred-twenty seconds. Two minutes. That's how long it can take for just one turn of the traffic light at the five-way intersection in downtown Glens Falls. That's how much time you waste sitting in your car waiting to get to your destination. And that's assuming you get through the intersection the first time. If you don't make it, you have to start the count over. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi ...

In a roundabout, traffic is moving constantly. That's the roundabout's appeal.

It's also its downfall.

While non-stop traffic is great for drivers, it's hell for pedestrians. How can you cross the street if there's never a break in traffic?

If the roundabout is constructed, pedestrians may have to wait through SEVERAL '120 Mississippi' in order to simply cross the street, especially during rush hours.

And before dismissing such analysis as the ideological rantings of a leftie/Green/utopian as some might, it's worth noting one simple, indisputable fact: in order to be a customer at any downtown business, except Burger King's drive-thru, you must leave your car and WALK into a building. (Unless you're one of those countercultural freaks who doesn't drive everywhere in the first place)

But this fact wasn't considered when the roundabout was being discussed.

And this really gets to the heart of the debate over downtown's future: pedestrians (and bicyclists and users of public transportation) are never taken into consideration when such discussions occur.

(Actually, the editorial did make a token reference to pedestrians. The essence was "It's already hard for pedestrians to cross the street and they're used to the hassle, so who cares if it gets a little harder?")

The outgoing administration and The Post-Star aren't overtly hostile to pedestrians; they're not advocating walkers be run over. Pedestrians simply don't enter into their mindset. They just don't factor pedestrians in to any equation. And it really doesn't make sense.

As I mentioned before, in order to be frequent a downtown business, you MUST become a pedestrian. Yet the roundabout's purpose is to make it easier to drive through the business district without stopping or slowing down?

The roundabout will make it harder for people to be pedestrians and thus frequent downtown shops and restraurants while making it easier to drive past those places without giving them a second look. The Northway (Interstate 87 from Albany north to the Canadian border) offered the same 'convenience' and we see how it ruined the business districts of countless Adirondack towns.

So why does The Post-Star think this is such a brilliant idea?

The incoming mayor shouldn't revisit the counterproductive boondoggle roundabout; he should summarily rubbish the idea altogether.


Update: The very same issue of the paper notes that the city's debt is approaching $17 million. The roundabout boondoggle would add at least another $3 million to that total.