Sunday, June 28, 2020

Good ol' Main Street, there she goes

There's an interesting controversy going on here right now. With little fanfare or warning the town council is setting our Main Street as one direction only, starting July 1st. A parallel street will be set as one way only in the opposite direction. I heard about it at the Reservoir one day and went online to find out more and there was nothing. Not even on Facebook or the official town website. However I did read a comment on the Facebook page for the town about there being a petition against this new policy and already it had 800 signatures. Someone else commented that in a town of our size that indicated that hardly anyone was against it, but considering how few of us actually knew about the change let alone that there was a petition against it, kind of argues against that. Anyway, I've not heard anyone say they think it is a great idea, most people I've talked to think it is a disaster in the making.

Initially I agreed that it was a stupid move but when I thought about it a little more critically I couldn't really come up with a logical argument against it, other than that a big sudden change is going to cause a lot of initial confusion. I just wish it had been made more public further in advance. But in these days of Facebook and Zoom, everybody goes public in those venues and if you're not there, well, too bad for you. Maybe the town council should be posting decisions at the Reservoir, haha.

Something else I heard at the Reservoir was that the town did post about the change on Facebook, but the negative reaction in the comments was so overwhelming that they deleted the post. I have no evidence to support what that person said, because if it was there before it is gone now.

It is supposed to be a pilot project so we will see how it goes.

I was looking for a photo of Main Street in my collection to illustrate this post, but I couldn't find it, it might not be scanned in yet. However, I did find this photo of the family dogs when they all came to visit back in 2011. Hapi ended up staying but Hiro and Dobby returned home.

Hiro, Hapi and Dobby at the Reservoir, 2011
Unfortunately Hiro and Hapi ganged up on Dobby and he returned home temporarily injured. A couple of years later Hapi and I visited Dobby's home in Toronto and Dobby let Hapi know that she was not welcome on his turf. Their relationship was civil but not friendly.

2 comments:

Wisewebwoman said...

Wow you wonder why they decided to do that. It happened here on a road (to huge objections) a few years back and ti caused complete havoc until it was rescinded it 2 years later. It forced residents to drive endless blocks just to get home and those who bypassed visiting a home by accident to go ten minutes out of their way to get back.

Bureaucracy.

XO
WWW

ElizabethAnn said...

Well we don't really have enough bureaucracy here to blame, but they are calling it a "pilot project" and municipal elections are in the fall. Fortunately we also don't have endless blocks so it will only be a short detour for anyone bypassing their destination. My Toronto son says they have made some major changes to streets in his part of town and he thinks they are a huge improvement. The pandemic is proving to be an opportunity to try things out that have only been talked about for decades. Walk and cycle routes, working from home, interesting home entertainment projects.