TROUBLE CORNER

there is a corner down the block from my house...
this is a bit of a trouble spot
the whole intersection is a bit of a hazard

I have spoken to DDOT people about it
I have spoken to various DC Council Members about it
yes I know... there is a process that the community can go through to have these situations addressed
but really... come on... it should be simple enough to fix

I used to blog about this intersection on a daily basis
I used to send daily emails to various DDOT personnel... various council members... and whomever else's email address I wished to attach to that thread
there was a simple effort... a sign trying to get people to pay attention to the TURN ARROWS

there is a TURN ARROW for the right turn... a floating flowing right hand turn
the cars are to stop unless they have a GREEN TURN ARROW
it is standard for the cars to do as they wish when they get to this intersection

when downhill of this intersection I know that if the uphill traffic has a RED TURN ARROW and a standard RED LIGHT that there is no legal passage onto this block
it is NO TURN ON RED, NO LEFT TURN, and the right turn traffic has a RED ARROW, and the traffic going straight has a RED LIGHT
yet... each and every morning... each and every day... when I cross this street with my dog... when I cross this street with my children I am forced to watch out for the series of cars that not only run this RED TURN ARROW... but they run it at speed

it is a hazard

a few weeks ago when picking up PHO for the family at Nam Viet I ran into one of my neighbors who is also the director of a local day care center
I spoke with him about various things including that I had heard that groups of his kids had paraded down our block to check out the Halloween decorations in our yards

the response of the director was curt... he was shocked as he had forbidden his teachers to take his students across this street because of this turn

it shocked me... instead of trying to improve this intersection and make it more safe
he selected to have it avoided
knowing the clear and present danger he had forbidden his staff to take children up this way
which of course is not the solution to the problem
it is ignoring a problem... it is dodging a problem

my guess is this man has made requests for attention to be paid to this intersection
but just as I got no response... neither did he

this is just one corner in our fine city
but it is my contention if each neighborhood worked with the city to correct the trouble points
well... we would have fewer danger zones in the city

this is not a tough thing to fix
it would be as simple as altering the radial arc of the corner
extending the curb at the corner so that it changes the turn
making it less of a flowing turn but more of a right angle

this would also work to shorten the cross walk

this has been proposed... nothing has been done