The Saturday News and Tribune gave prominent place to the idea that one of New Albany's anchors to a bygone era may soon be cut loose. The time for one way streets has come and mercilessly held on here. Call it ennui, call it too much money that we won't spend to turn traffic lights around, or call it "by God I bought these plaid bell bottoms and I'm going to get my money's worth out of them", but please, just call a halt to the one way streets in New Albany.
This town has much to offer when it recognizes what we have and then follows through with recognition of what to do with it. The twin catalysts of the YMCA coming to downtown New Albany, and the delineation of the Riverfront Development District, a.k.a. the cheap liquor license zone, led to a vibrancy in downtown that hasn't been seen in decades. The lesson here is, give people a reason to come downtown and, voila, they'll come downtown.
Could a possible counterforce be at work when we give people what they don't want? Or, could we inadvertently be sending out kryptonitic vibes about downtown when we establish traffic patterns which do nothing so much as move people through town with greater alacrity than a coffee house bathroom break after a double espresso and a bran muffin? Spring Street pretty much says to those who happen upon it from elsewhere, "keep moving folks, nothing to see here, get on back to your homes and places of business." And, there's a further bit of unspoken advice, "wrap yourself in a couple tons of steel if you want to navigate these streets." Between Silver Street and Clark County there is nothing to slow cars down, and this is a two-way section of the street. Towards the other end of Spring, at the government center and the Library, the one-way street is filled with drivers jacked up with visions of the Big Green sign leading out of New Albany; many of these people are focused on a goal that does not always see, or make allowances for, the un-carred.
It's good to look toward removing the one way signs around town. But, maybe the one way should refer not simply to a street direction or traffic pattern but to THE single way we look at ordering society. And that one way is, how can we, as humans, placate the motorized beings which dictate how our cities are gutted to make more room for the resting oil-eaters, how can we reorder our lives to make not only spatial but psychological room for our internal combustion buddies, how much more of here will be written off because we can so easily drive to there?
New Albany will soon face an increase in traffic to levels we could not imagine in our worst-case-scenario wargames, due to the closing of lanes on I-65 and following on the heels of that increase will be the onslaught of the bargain hunters who see New Albany as a No-Tolls detour around the EEC and I-65. ( as an aside...I originally thought the EEC referred to the East End Connector, apparently it actually refers to the European Economic Community, in recognition of the two socialist powerhouses, Germany and France,(( FRANCE, Governor Pence, did you hear that? the cheese-eating, wine-swilling, bidet-using, surrender monkeys are coming to bail our cheap, weak-kneed, Tea Bagger butts out of the fire)) which are funding the Indiana share of the bridge. Kentucky, which has no truck with socialists, won't participate in the EEC financing scheme in the same dilettantish way Indiana will.) Because drivers will be hell bent on a smooth passage through New Albany, they'll have little use for our quaint attempts at catching their attention. This increase in drivers will not add to the general welfare, except perhaps for some sated State Police appetites for new customers on thoroughly urban thoroughfares. The streets, with no built in safety mechanisms, calming devices, or calming practices, such as two way traffic, will be less safe than today, less welcoming to pedestrians or cyclists.
It is difficult to underestimate the sheer hell of noise pollution the citizens of New Albany who live within, and no phrase is better, earshot of the expressways will experience during the construction and preparation for construction of the bridges.
So, mark me down as a firm "aye" vote on any attempt the administration makes toward eliminating one way streets. Further mark me down as a solid and enthusiastic "aye" on any attempts the administration may offer on helping New Albany take a progressive stand in reordering our city away from automobile-centric development and toward human-scale development.
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