Road Warrior

Secor Road water line is finished

Installation of the new water main along Secor Road between Central Avenue and Monroe Street has been finished, Secor project liaison Steve Hamilton announced today, with the pipe having been tested both for pressure and sanitary condition.

Crews will begin hooking up service lines to businesses along Secor on Friday. The hookups will require one-hour service shutdowns, but no boil-water advisories, Mr. Hamilton said.

A connecting main along Executive Parkway remains to be installed, and its service connections will be made later. Those connections will involve boil-water periods.

Alas, rebuilding of Secor itself has a long way to go, and the right lane remains closed on westbound Central at Secor, too.

We've been told traffic delays on Secor have been predictably horrendous since its reconstruction began last month, and Central also has had some pretty bad backups because of lane closings at the Secor intersection. So if you don't have business to conduct in the Central-Secor area, it's a good area to avoid.

 

Illegal parking, and traffic mayhem, at Muni Court

If Toledo police are ever going to resume regular parking enforcement, their starting point should be just up the block from headquarters: Erie Street in front of Toledo Municipal Court. They could also write some obstructing-traffic citations to drivers who stop in the active travel lanes to let lazy passengers out.

Traffic behavior in front of that courthouse is a nightmare in the morning. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, since one presumes that many headed there are involved in court cases attributable to bad driving. But the illegal parking out front only makes it worse, as it induces those drivers unwilling to go farther away to drop their passengers off to stop right in Erie Street's active lanes -- often the left lane, from which passengers brazenly exit out the right-hand side door into the center lane, like the person in the picture did Tuesday morning. That often prompts traffic in the center lane to stop, too. Yep, that car behind him got to sit and stew while this was going on, but in other cases, those drivers stuck behind the dropper-offers simply veer into one of the other lanes. I nearly got creamed by somebody doing just that about 5 minutes earlier without checking his mirrors first, which is why I walked back over to the courthouse with a camera after parking. It didn't take me long to find various forms of traffic violations there, and it shouldn't be taking TPD so long to do something about it before somebody gets hit.

Of course, building the Toledo Municipal Court on the left side of a one-way street with no drop-off area was a ridiculously stupid idea, but that's water over the dam now. If the muni court building is ever replaced, put it in a better spot, OK?

Dead ends that aren't

"So you make a right on Sherwood, and take that until it dead-ends at River, and make a left...."

Where did this use of the term "dead end" come from? It seems to be a Midwestern, if not strictly Toledo, vernacular. But it's wrong. A street ending at a "T" intersection is not a dead end. If anything, it's a "live" end.

The picture here, from the Swanton area, shows what a dead end really is. It's a road that ends with no intersection, no turnaround -- it just stops. Even a cul-de-sac isn't truly a dead end.

I'm probably not going to bring a dead end to the term's misuse, but really, if there's an intersection, it's not a dead end.

Can anyone tell me how this particular usage ever got started?

In Toledo, there is free lunch ... parking

I have a monthly pass to park at the Vistula garage, near The Blade, but on nice days when I think I might want to drive somewhere during my hour lunch break, I'll often check for an open spot at one of the parking meters closer to the office, just to save the few minutes' walk to the garage, when I arrive downtown at about 10 a.m. Quite often a spot is open, and even better, there's usually time left on the meter. What amazes me is how much time is left on the meter.

Maybe once every other week, there is well over an hour worth of parking time left, which for the parking authority is pure bonus cash. I understand why some folks headed for downtown meetings or court appearances pay more into the meters than they end up using -- and I thank you very much for that time when I show up and vulture the leftovers. But here's a friendly Road Warrior reminder: parking in downtown Toledo remains free between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., as well as the other 15 hours of the day not covered by the signs and all day on weekends and holidays. That means that if you park at a downtown meter at 9:25 a.m., putting $2 in the meter gives you absolutely no more benefit than if you put in $1.50, which buys you the 90 minutes (plus the five-minute grace period) you need to get to 11 a.m. The last 50 cents is just gravy for the parking authority and, while I have nothing against them, don't you really have a better use for that money?

It should go without saying that there's no need to feed the meter during the lunch break, but I occasionally see people paying anyway. Often, their cars have out-of-town plates, so I imagine they're just unfamiliar with Toledo's lunchtime freebie, even though it is stated on the meters themselves as well as the signs. I also get why someone arriving downtown at, say, 1:45 p.m. would pay the meter then, even though pay time doesn't start again until 2: it might not be possible to be there right at 2 when the meters go live again.

The parking authority officially states that the addition of a smart-phone payment option for the meters will be revenue neutral, but I hope they'll be tracking that to see how it actually works out. I suspect the net effect will be a revenue loss, because fewer people will get those $10 overtime-parking tickets once they've extended their time electronically. A 35-cent fee is certainly better than getting stuck for a tenner, isn't it? On the other hand, smart-phone parking will increase the revenue from parking vultures like me, because unused time paid for by smart-phone customers won't appear on the meters like it does if payment was from coins, credit cards, or "smart keys". This does lead me to wonder if the smart-phone system will allow customers to overpay (past 11 or 5) the way some do with coins.

 

The "pedestrian" bridge over I-475 at Douglas

Four summers ago, the Ohio Department of Transportation replaced the Douglas Road bridge over I-475 as a preparatory step toward the freeway reconstruction project in that same area -- the on-going project ODOT expects to substantially complete late this year.

But before the Douglas bridge could be replaced, fiber-optic telecommunications cables that crossed I-475 beneath that structure had to be rerouted. And thus was built, for AT&T's benefit and at its expense, a separate bridge that some folks apparently think was intended to be a footbridge, despite occasional reporting to the contrary.

When utility companies arrange to lay their pipes or cables underneath public roads and bridges, they do so with the understanding that relocation might be necessary during construction projects.
Such is the situation with AT&T fiber-optic cables running under the Douglas Road bridge over I-475 in West Toledo - a bridge that the Ohio Department of Transportation will demolish and replace, beginning in May, as a prelude to future freeway widening.
Since late October, the telecommunications company has been building its own bridge for its cables to bypass the Douglas bridge.
(The above is from The Blade on Dec. 3, 2008. At right is a picture of the utility bridge being built that ran with the story.)

So yes, there's a reason why the skinny bridge with the fences all over it next to Douglas Road has never been connected to a sidewalk, or otherwise opened to the public. And no taxpayer dollars were wasted by its construction.

It does strike me as somewhat overbuilt for its purpose, but perhaps all the fences on it are intended to keep people from getting onto it, but if they do, then more fences are needed to keep them from falling onto the freeway. In other words, it's a big liability-avoidance exercise on AT&T's part.

Slippery Toledo streets Thursday morning

Rapidly cooling temperatures Thursday morning caught Toledo's streets division off-guard, a city spokesman acknowledged later in the day.

While the division of Streets, Bridges, and Harbor had "bridge route" patrols on duty to protect against so-called "black ice" on bridge decks, officials did not expect moisture lingering after Wednesday's heavy rain to make regular pavement slick as the mercury plunged overnight, said Jen Sorgenfrei, a spokesman for Mayor Mike Bell.

"We got a little caught off guard by how quickly the streets slicked over," Ms. Sorgenfrei said. Among those complaining, she said, was Deputy Mayor Steve Herwat, who called in Thursday morning to ask why city salt trucks weren't out.

By midday, the spokesman said, salt trucks had covered all of Toledo's major streets, but that was a bit late for several people who called The Blade reporting they had slipped and slid on icy Monroe Street earlier in the day.

Theresa Pollick, the Ohio Department of Transportation's district spokesman in Bowling Green, said her agency had a full complement of about three dozen trucks assigned after midnight to cover metro Toledo. But the freeways and rural highways didn't become slick, she said, because high winds during the evening helped moisture on those exposed roadways evaporate quickly.

Don't shovel - or plow - snow into the street

I took a call Wednesday night from a Toledo citizen who I've heard from in the past complaining about Toledoans' common disregard for the city law requiring them to clear snow and ice from public sidewalks in front of their properties within 24 hours of storms' ends. He apparently has despaired of local landowners ever mending their ways in this regard, and instead raised a different, but related, issue: people who shovel or plow their snow into the street.

This, too, is a violation of Toledo's city code, and while after a weak storm like the one just ended here dumping snow in the streets may not be a major hazard, doing so could cause accidents after a heavier snow.

The problem, of course, is that it's hard for Toledo police to catch anyone doing this because by the time they show up, the guilty shoveler, or snow-blower-user, or plow driver has often left the scene. So just ask yourself: Do you want to be the guilty party if a car loses control on street-dumped snow and hits a child on a sidewalk? It's not that much harder to put the snow where it belongs -- in a pile next to the driveway, or on a "tree lawn," or just about anywhere else besides the street or sidewalk. And remember, if you hire someone to plow or otherwise clear your snow, you as the property owner are still responsible for where it ends up -- especially if the person you hire has no business liability insurance.

 

Crosswalk conundrum

I had an odd experience driving back to the office this morning after an interview in West Toledo. As I drove north on Erie Street approaching Government Center, a young man strode out into the street at Jackson, completely ignoring the Don't Walk signal and taking a diagonal path, out of the crosswalk, that lengthened the amount of time he would be in the way of on-coming traffic. A block later, a couple of older ladies stood at a crosswalk at Beech, and I stopped and waved them to cross in accordance with the law, but they wouldn't go, apparently out of fear that vehicles in the other lanes on Erie wouldn't stop for them.

So on the one hand we have certain pedestrians who have absolutely no regard for vehicular traffic, and on the other we have those who sufficiently fear motorists' disregard for them that they won't step out even when properly acknowledged by a driver. I'm reminded of George Carlin's routine about the guy who sailed through red lights because "my brother does this all the time" but stopped at greens because "my brother might be coming the other way!" And it leads me to think that a lot of Toledoans, both on foot and behind the wheel, need a refresher course on how to behave around crosswalks.

 

Paving under way at Vistula garage entrance

This is one project we've had no trouble keeping up with: reconstruction of Orange Street at the Vistula Garage entrance is right outside The Blade's front door! After a couple of weeks of digging, grading, and curb-building, paving started Tuesday on the outside lanes. It's a good thing most garage traffic is going the same way at the busy times of day, because the two open lanes in the center are rather skinny. They'll be rebuilt once the outside lanes are finished.

I've been especially interested in watching this work's progress because sometime this summer, the city's going to rebuild the street in front of my house. That will be a happy thing once it's finished -- no more rattling in the house when heavier vehicles rumble over the street's worn-out concrete joints -- but I'm not especially eager about all the noise and dust and the one-way traffic pattern that I expect will have to be set up to do the work.

Follow-ups on knocked-over marker, NS "heritage"

City crews righted the Great Trail marker at Detroit and Cherry on Friday morning that was reported to us Thursday as having been knocked over. In response to our story, we got an email and several phone calls alerting us to a recent traffic accident in which the marker had been knocked over. Oddly, I am unable to find the police report for any crash at that location since March 1 that fits the description of the damage; I have used both "Cherry" and "Detroit" as keyword streets and founds lots of accidents on both, but no matches. Not that I'm questioning that an accident occurred -- something big had to have hit that heavy marker to knock it over -- but I haven't found the details yet. The police department says it is reviewing its records to see what it can find.

Meanwhile, Norfolk Southern cooperated with the appearance of my Blade Sunday Magazine article about its "Heritage Fleet" of locomotives by running another one of them through Toledo on Sunday morning. The engine commemorating the "original" Norfolk Southern -- a line that unsurprisingly ran south from Norfolk, Va., into North Carolina -- led a coal train bound for River Rouge, Mich., from West Virginia. The engine came back through Toledo late at night on Tuesday and was, at last report, at Mingo Junction, Ohio, along the Ohio River. I'll be adding a picture here later, and will probably post other special-engine pictures to this blog as they make their appearances in the region.