Will someone please explain to me why the NM Democratic Party has let the Martinez/Duran cabal at the state capitol just get away with murder on killing the ability of voters to pull a straight party ticket? Has someone done some math that shows that will help democrats? Should a severing of options for the citizen voter be allowed to just take place without anyone filing suit? Please, some good statistician out there needs to explain for us math deprived folks what is going on here. And the leader of the Democratic party, Javier Gonzalez(a nice guy) should at least let us know what decisions were made within the party about this. Here is a hint Javier, if Martinez/Duran wanted it then maybe it is not a good idea. It is one more example of vote suppression by the right wing.
If NASA can put a Rube Goldberg device successfully on Mars then why cant the Berry administration complete construction on one new roundabout intersection on Indian School road NW? Indian School has been closed to through traffic for the summer as they spend little time on the project. This is an indication to me that the Berry Public Works Department works at the beck and call of construction company CEO's rather than the taxpayer. Mayor, get your eyeballs on the scene and figure out what is going on. And while you are at it just forget any more roundabouts, especially at Candelaria and Rio Grande.
2 comments:
I can see a marginal benefit to traffic circles in terms of traffic flow, if, if, people knew what to do in them, which we Americans do not. Maybe the next generation will get used to them, if they survive getting used to them, but so far, no. The other night I almost ran head on into someone in the one out there at the Route 66 casino. I was in the semi, stopping to get me a couple chili cheese dogs and a chocolate shake for the ride out to Holbrook and a car came in there the wrong way. The car was coming out of the truck stop area (to the left on your graphic) and granted, a design flaw makes it so people coming out of there have their choice of which way to go, instead of there being the median like in your graphic, and this car wanted to get into the casino part (top) and took the short cut.
But I say 'marginal." I think the advantage evaporates when you consider a couple things. One, they aren't designed to handle semi trucks. They aren't big enough and in many streets can't be made big enough. It would require the amount of space to do a u-turn with a semi and then some. You can't go around one in a semi without dragging your trailer up into the center area, the green on your graphic.
More important though, any advantage disappears in comparison to 4-way intersections when people are taught how to behave at four way intersections. Where people follow the rule that the car to your right has the right of way, and if everyone knows that rule, things operate like clockwork.
Where this works, people barely stop if at all, but in other parts of the country people have no clue. You got first. No you. They sit there and pretty soon someone is rolling down their window and flapping their hand at you.
But where people know what to do there's not this hesitation you have at traffic circles where it's not really clear who has the right of way despite what the signage tells you. The signage gives the right of way to people in the circle, but that many times contradicts our natural navigation instincts, one of which counts us as in the circle as soon as we begin entering it (we naturally anticipate and drive ahead of where we are) in conjunction with another that causes us to navigate in relation to other vehicles, such as the one we see approaching the traffic circle from the other side.
If we didn't have that instinct we'd be colliding with each other all the time. We still have that instinct from birds, where an entire flock moves as one, and from fish, where the whole school moves as one. It's why we can fly down an expressway at 70 and pour coffee from a thermos and fiddle with the radio and go over our notes and do our makeup all at once, if there's traffic around us, something to navigate by. We navigate -- steer -- not only by fixed objects but by moving ones, too. In fact that's easier. It requires fewer mental calculations. Just one, not continual ones as when you navigate according to things you're approaching and moving past.
Voting rights is a hot topic. Military groups have jumped into the fray in Ohio. Our Democratic party leaders need to step it up.
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