BRATTLEBORO — Since the recent hoo-hah about Evasion Junction and the new traffic plan in town, absolutely nothing has happened! Except that in the Reformer, pedestrians have been admonished to not jaywalk downtown, and in your car it now takes 10 minutes to get through Evasion Junction if the train comes in as it does on no fixed schedule twice a day.
I recently wrote an editorial for Vermont Views, repeated in The Commons [“Transportation evasions at Malfunction Junction,” Feb. 2], but before I published it, someone in the know in the town called and said that the trick would be finding anyone who would claim to be responsible for the new arrangements.
There is a word: response-able. And this caveat was true: there has been no response.
Meanwhile, traffic habits continue to be atrocious in the town. Far too many people are driving too aggressively with cell phones in their ears in the middle of high-density motor and pedestrian traffic - and at a time of year when pedestrians and motor traffic are slowed down because of icy conditions.
How come, on the way to the library, I can stand by one of those huge pedestrian green-yellow, day-glo crossing triangles outside the courthouse and 100 yards from the police station, and 15 vehicles go by, most of them actually accelerating up the rise toward the park, where there is another crossing in 150 feet, now going too fast to stop anyway? Finally, one car stopped in the near lane, and I started to cross, but another car overtook it in the far lane and passed 5 feet from me, already shifting up and doing 35 miles per hour.
But I know why people do it! They have been stopped so long in town that they want to get on with their lives, and they are impatient.
It's a pity Brattleboro doesn't have a central square where things could get worked out by the people themselves - they do these protests better in Egypt. Of course, for every rally there needs to be a counter rally. Maybe the other groups could chant: “All we are saying, is give pedestrians a chance.”
And the other group could chant right back at them: “Hell no! We won't go slow!”
Anyway, if you are responsible for sorting this traffic nonsense out or know who is, please drop me a line. Quality of life is not just some abstraction only artists can address; pedestrians can also comment on the very tangible experience of walking around in the town. Currently the quality is down, on foot or in cars, and silence has been the stern response.