Traffic Calming

An Op-Ed piece by City Councilor Roxanne Meyers published in the 3/28/13 Albuquerque Journal (about a so-called roundabout) got me thinking about this strange phenomenon we call traffic calming, and how our city has pursued some street alternatives that are incomprehensibly inconsistent with a reasonable goal of growing our city economy.  While there are more policies with specific goals in mind, I’d like to mention three that I think fall under this category.

The first is a trend that I began to notice during the Baca mayoralty in which street lanes are either reduced in width or eliminated altogether.  In some cases, bicycle lanes are added – via striping – but in general the area of pavement available to motor vehicles is reduced or eliminated.  Examples are Indian School between Wyoming and Pennsylvania and Morris north of Candelaria, both lane reductions.  I understand that it is green policy to promote bicycle use, but note how many bicycles actually use the allotted space compared to motor vehicles!  I have to wonder if this is a good or proper allocation of resources, when we should be more concerned about having a vibrant city with quick commutes and thriving businesses where people can get to their jobs in a timely and non-frustrating manner.  Slowing down traffic by eliminating lanes is not only counter to this, but it logically has to produce substantially more potential air pollution as a result of slow running (cars are more efficient at 40 mph than at 20mph) and increased stop-and-go traffic.

The second trend is what I call SpeeBuRBoo (Speed bumps, road blocks and one-way.)  Some of the most beautiful residential streets in the city have been reduced to ugliness by grotesque bands of bloated asphalt that only serve to throw the occupants of cars going above 20mph into the headliners and by amoeba-like shapes of concrete and curb topped by huge arrows, red slashed circles, and the stationary equivalent of orange visibility vests to keep residents and visitors alike in perpetual confusion and need to re-Google their routes.

Finally, there are the “roundabouts.”  Back in the day, we used to call these traffic circles.  In big cities, and I mean BIG cities, traffic circles historically have been part of grand designs for parks and vast open areas.  In theory, a vehicle in the circle could keep going around counterclockwise in perpetuity without ever having to yield to another vehicle, as depicted so memorably in one of the Vacation movies.  Therein is the humor.  Sticking a “roundabout” in the existing space of a small, non-vast intersection becomes hysterical as drivers attempt to figure out where other vehicles are actually coming from and going to in a confined space with less room than allowed a bumper car in a street carnival.  Both of the last two trends have got to have negative effects on the quality of life perceived by visitors and those businesses and individuals who might relocate to the Duke City. 

I realize there may be safety arguments for all of the above and more, but I say, “Educate.”  Using one of many possible metaphors:  Train the dog to heel rather than using a choke chain!  But education arguments are for a different piece.

Another Fine Mess - 2 Months Worth

Our fine legislature has been meeting for two months.  TWO MONTHS! The session ends tomorrow at exactly noon.  What have we got to show for it:
1.  A Budget.  The governor won't sign it, and rightfully so.  It does noting to promote job creation, or drag the public schools out from the muck they've been in for years, or really address the financial state of the State.
2.  No new taxes.  Inaction, I suppose, does have it's merits.
3.  Mariachi bands.  Yeah, that they had time for.
4.  New drivers license laws.  NOT!  The state appears to be rolling right along giving ordinary licenses (instead of specially designed ones) to people who are in the country illegally.  One day the Real ID act will kick in and all of the rest of us who voted for these inactive dolts in the legislature will be sorry.
5.  Last minute efforts to make the legislators look good.  We've got plenty.
6.  Special legislative session.  Likely.
At least we don't pay these guys and gals full time.  That would be too much like the federal government.
Bueno!

What's Important?

The last time I posted to this blog, before the holidays, I knew that another New Mexico State legislative session was coming up.  Since it started, it's been coming up and up and up.  I haven't seen something come up this often since eating a bag of Doritos after a half-gallon of moose tracks.  (Rimshot!)

Seriously, our local rag - newspaper to the folks back home - feels the need to give column inches to every crazy law proposed by every crazy lawmaker.  They may all be - both laws and lawmakers.  In any case, the most serious discussion occurring right now is over a statewide minimum wage to match that passed by Albuquerque voters last November.  (I was a voter but voted no for this one.)

'Snot that I don't like people getting paid a fair wage for a fair hour's work, but I do think that government shouldn't meddle.  Once upon a time, the worker had the choice of quitting a job for which he (or she - don't want to catch a case of mysogeny) was underpaid, and the worker had a reasonable expectation of finding a better one.  The politicians and the TBTF banks have done away with any reasonable expectations, particularly those of finding a job, even a badly paying one.

I feel for the struggling business owners running on a very thin margin.  How can this help their employees?  If you have 10 employees and raise the minimum wage from $7.50 to $8.50 an hour for each, then you have to come up with ten more dollars for every hour's work.  OR, YOU CAN JUST CUT ONE WORKER'S TIME AN HOUR AND YOU COME OUT AHEAD.  Business operators are not stupid.  Well, I've tried to run my own business and they may be crazy, but they're not stupid.

Then there are the protesters.  Boycott business A or B into compliance.  How does this help the worker?  Business A may say to hell with it and fire everyone, turning to his family for assistance in keeping the business going.  Business B may just try to keep on going, but are customers going to come in past the picket lines?  No customers, no money coming in, no tips.  I ask again, How does this help the worker?

If I get a chance to post again before the legislature adjourns - and I hope they do before they do more damage - I'll cover the drivers licenses for illegal aliens.

Shut Up Already

You can always tell when Progressives or Liberals (the two overlap like the circles on the front of a Mastercard) think they have won something.  They won't shut up about it.  They also won't shut up about what they think is wrong with the other side.  From advise to out and out criticism, they just keep going as if the election never happened.  Who are they trying to convince?

In fact, I've found that the biggest difference between the political left and the political right is not in social policy, economic policy, or environmental policy.  The left just won't ever, ever let you forget they have something to say.  The right, for the most part, will shut up until something can be said that will accomplish something.  Again, I ask, who are they trying to convince?

Perhaps themselves.

How Long Would It Take Today?

This is an instructive game to play, and the title of a tabular piece in the most recent (August 2012) issue of Trains Magazine written by Fred W. Frailey.

As a game, it can really bring home the impact of government regulation and intervention in all sorts of things.  In the case of Mr. Frailey's piece, its about building a transcontinental railroad, and is written on the 150th anniversary of the Union Pacific Railroad.  Mr. Frailey posits that, instead of the 7 years that it took (1862-1869) to build the Union Pacific, today it would take from August 1, 2012 until May 2069, about 57 years.

Tongue in cheek, he throws in all the possibilities:  Federal court intervention, ten years for an environmental study, EPA intervention, both Democrat and Republican intransigence, environmental activist intervention, endangered species, and forest fires.  In this scenario, it takes until 2057 just to break ground.  You know what, although this piece reeks of sarcasm, I think it is closer to the truth than not.

This post was originally written for by blog, Passenger Rail, but, as a matter of fact, this kind of thing reminds me so much of what goes on in New Mexico, and in Albuquerque in particular, that I am doing this same post on my political barb blog, Turn Right At Albuquerque.

©2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Paying Through The Nose

First, let me note that I really don't get a chance to post to this blog often enough.  There are a whole lot more stupid political things that happen in New Mexico than I have the time to write about.  Unfortunately, not just on the left side of the political spectrum.

But, today, I want to tell you how much money I had to blow keeping the "tree huggers" happy.

My wife and I own a very old vehicle - over 30 years old to be exact - and it has all the pollution controls that were applied to the vehicle intact.  I maintain it well, and it has passed the so-called smog test every time since the County of Bernalillo and the City of Albuquerque decided it had to be done.  Today it cost me a total of $55 just because the gas cap rubber didn't pass.  I mean it.  This is a vehicle that had a complex system of vacuum hoses to capture and keep all traces of fuel vapor out of the atmosphere, but the fill pipe wasn't designed for a pressurized gas cap.

But the gas cap o-ring didn't seal on their little test thingy.  So:
I paid for the first smog test, which failed.
I paid for a new gas cap.
I paid for the second smog test, which passed.  Had to have them do everything over again and waste about 20 more minutes because they can't just test the cap.  Hello?  If everything else is all right, why not?

Yes, I could have driving 14 miles round trip downtown and gotten the second test for free, but that would have been at a "govermint" facility.  The difference being that employees at Jiffy Lube are at least tactful, courteous, and conscious.

Now I can pay to register the vehicle.

Ugly Thing Politics

You can take my title with or without a comma after "thing."

In Bernalillo County, New Mexico, the county in which Albuquerque is the largest city, sits a commissioner named Michael Wiener.  Mr. Wiener (whether he is appropriately named has yet to be determined) was recently photographed with four young ladies who are more than likely sex workers in an international red light district.  Fortunately, this district is not in Albuquerque.  Even our Republican governor has called for Mr. Wiener's resignation, but he says he's staying.  This seems to be like any of a hundred other scandals where the person who gets caught resists taking his (or her) medicine.  (See John Edwards, under "still resisting.")

We also have an ex-mayor of this town.  His name is Martin Chavez.  He's running in the Democrat primary for  a congressional seat.  He is admittedly the one-time- and allegedly now ex-boyfriend of a lady who is under indictment for embezzlement of considerable amounts of money from a Santa Fe hospital.  When asked, Mr. Chavez says the only important thing is that he did not spend any public money on her.  We think the most important thing to ask is whether she spent any embezzled money on him.

Ugly Thing, these Politics.

Anybody but Obama.