Here is another idea. One thing that ped and bike advocates have been doing
in recent years is temporary "demonstration projects". The idea began as
"guerrilla engineering" where advocates would paint bike lanes and stuff on
the road late at night, in secret, under the cover of darkness. Of course
that is totally illegal and dangerous in a number of ways, and I'm not
suggesting we do that. But since that started happening, more legitimate
organizations including the Bicycle Coalition of Maine have taken the idea
and done similar demo projects in a more organized way, in daylight, *with
the permission and logistical **support* of the local public works and
police departments. You can see some examples on their website here
<http://www.bikemaine.org/advocacy/legislative-advocacy/imagine-bikes-here>.
I was thinking about this last night in terms of the speed limit on Main
Street. I think I'm remembering a recent comment by someone that the posted
speed is 25 MPH all along Main Street, but I don't recall how many signs
there are to that effect. I've never noticed any, but I haven't especially
looked. People are supposed to know it, but I'm sure many don't, or don't
care. It occurred to me that maybe a decent demo project would be to
stencil "25 MPH" at various points in the road. Or, maybe something about
watching for pedestrians in front of certain crosswalks.
All such demo projects are temporary, with paint that washes off in a few
months. The goal is to try something that might be considered experimental,
more cheaply, quickly, and easily than an official project. Typically, it
is done with volunteer labor from the advocacy organization, although some
expense is required, such as a police presence to do traffic control while
the changes are being made. I think a temporary project like this would be
ideal for this location, since it is already slated for upgrade next year,
when hopefully the ideal improvements would be made. But this would allow
us to do some kind of cheap temporary improvement in the meantime.
On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Lee Prince <leeleeprince51@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
About 20 minutes ago I was in the Main Street crosswalk *the one I call
"my crosswalk". I made sure motorists could see I was going to cross by
turning my head left and right a few times. When the lane of traffic
closest to me stopped, I waved and proceeded slowly. A bit more then
half-way across, I noticed a white car approaching to my right. I "figured"
the driver saw me, but instinct told me to stop and make sure...he/she BLEW
RIGHT PAST ME! Cars all around were honking and I screamed and waved my
hands; they never stopped.
I know I need to get more brightly colored stickers, lights, flag, vest,
etc, but right now I don't have the funds to do so.
Eric..is there ANYTHING that may help? I know it's on the project list and
I thank you, I'm just striving to keep myself safe and not end up as
frazzled as I am now.
Please please pay attention no matter what mode of transport you use. In
memory of Holly, Sherrie and the 19 people killed this year alone, let's
continue to work together to see postive, life-saving methods put into
place.
Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving.
Leelee Prince
Founder/Co-Administrator of WSMAC
