PEEVED
Your driving home at 4:30pm St. Rt. 28 is moving along at about 5 mph and you see the green turn to red... “But I just got going!” Red lights suck. More than any other traffic related issue we face everyday the dreaded red light is the worst. AC/DC said it best “It’s another red light nightmare... yeah yeah another red light street... I ain’t to old to hurry... I’m not to young to die... but I sure am hard to beat”.
Unfortunately for us we can’t beat the lights. Honestly the lights could be our best friend. The lights downtown are a fine example of traffic control devices working efficiently. You will inevitably get stopped at a red light however, when you do get a green you have several more coming (if you observe the speed limit).
It all works out for the best. Most people can get completely across the city with only three or four red lights in the way. Considering the number of lights you pass catching a few is something I can live with.
I live on the Eastside though. Here we put up lights that have all sorts of nasty habits. We even have standard four way intersections that have been butchered up into a maze of one ways and no left turns.
Take the entrance to the Eastgate Mall for example. Eastgate Blvd. runs North and South (from Old 74 to Aicholtz) and Eastgate North Dr. runs East and West (from Glen Este Withamsville to the Mall entrance.) The two roads cross directly in front of the Mall’s main entrance yet, you cannot go straight into the entrance. You must turn right at the light and then turn left at the side entrance (which doesn’t even have a left turn lane light). Same deal if your leaving the mall. If you’re finished up with your mall shopping and need to stop by Meijer you’ll find you cannot go straight across the intersection onto Eastgate North and into Meijer (someone’s bright idea was to block it off with a hundred stupid reflector sticks). Instead you have to turn right, get on 32 head East, turn right at the light at Glen Este Withamsville Rd., then turn left at the light at Eastgate North and into Meijer. Unbelievable. All they need to do is take down the reflector barrier, re-paint the lines and program the lights for a standard four way with turn lanes. Everything would be easy peasy. Mall to Meijer in under five minutes. Not to mention taking more cars out of the terrible Eastbound 32 traffic.
That case is an easy one to fix, many other idiotic intersections we have around here are far more costly to correct. I don’t expect the county engineers to justify the expense of the expensive ones but come on people they could easily fix many. First we have to get them to admit they did it wrong to begin with and that’s like getting kindness from a cop... ain’t going to happen.
The issue with the red lights is another story, our lights on 125, 32, 28 and countless others are definitely programmed wrong. I sit in traffic watching miles of cars crawling along as the lights turn completely out of sync and I’m peeved. You stop at a light and as your moving towards the very next light it’s turning yellow, then when you get close it’s red. The next light does the same again and again all the way down the entire road. It’s stupid!
Our county engineer needs to recruit the City of Cincinnati’s traffic light guy to get over here and fix this sh#t! How hard could it be? If only people could catch three or four greens in a row we wouldn’t have this savage gridlock straggling our main Eastside routes. A couple buttons pressed and BOOM... magic traffic.
Based on the way things are now I wouldn’t give our county engineer a job driving the train at Coney Island. Our traffic is getting worse month by month. New home builders love to squeeze a hundred or two houses up anywhere they can find around here and our growth is unmatched in the state. Where will all these extra 2.5 cars per home fit in? We’re already overloaded now. Do we have too many cars for our community? No, we have stupid people doing stupid things with our traffic lights resulting in a very stupid waste of everybody’s gas and time. I say the ignorance and incompetence must end.
“Mr. Clermont County Engineer.. I beg you, I plead with you, I’ll contribute to your 2008 election, put up your signs and even write high praise of you and rescind all of the bad things I’ve said, printed, written about you and put you on the cover as man of the year if you find out what secret magic formula they have downtown and bribe, beg, borrow or steal it for us”. I guarantee it.
Will he respond with quick and decisive action, scouring the streets with high tech screwdrivers in hand and rapidly reprogram our lights in the middle of the night? Will we wake to a new tomorrow and find our traffic is moving along and our deep dread of 32 at rush hour has been relieved? Who knows.
What I do know is the address, e-mail and phone number of the county engineers office. If you want to help our cause write, call or e-mail them and demand we have the same quality of traffic control our downtown neighbors enjoy.
Patrick Manger Clermont County Engineer
Up for re-election in 2008.
2381 Clermont Center Dr. Batavia Oh 45103
www.cceo-oh/Engineer.htm (513) 732-8857
