My Traffic Circle

If you've been following for a while, you may remember when I wrote this post, titled "A Sad Day."  In retrospect, that seems a terrible title.  I should have called it "A Horrific Day" or perhaps, "The Worst Day of My Life."  I'm not sure if that was, in fact, The Worst Day- but I'd definitely place it in the top three.

What happened on that day was that my cat was killed by a car in front of our home.  Where I sit right now is about a foot away from the last place I saw him alive.  He liked to curl up on my husband's desk, usually in the middle of his papers.  To make it easier for Dave to work, we installed a cat bed on a small shelf on his desk.  This made my cat, Dante, very happy, and he spent much of his time in that little cat bed.  The night before That Horrific Day, he was curled up in his cat bed.  I came over and stroked his little head, but I didn't pick him up and kiss him because he just looked so peaceful and I didn't want to disturb him.  Dave  and I spent the evening child-proofing the house in anticipation of the foster license inspection the next day.  At some point, I heard Dante go out the dog door, but I wasn't concerned because he had been going in and out freely for quite some time and it hadn't been an issue.

The next morning, I woke up, got ready for work, and went out to my car.  As I approached the trunk of the car, where I planned to put my laptop, I saw Dante lying on the sidewalk.  My first thought was, "What  are you doing out here, you silly cat?"  Then I saw that there was something wrong with his leg and there was blood on his fur.  I was so scared and I ran back to the house, screaming for my husband.  Dave came running out and went to go see what happened.  I went inside the house, crying and crying.  Dave came back inside and put his arms around me, saying, "I'm so sorry, sweetheart, I'm so sorry."  Then I knew he was really dead.  The rest of the day was terrible.  I was in shock, I felt such a deep loss, and I felt guilty that I hadn't done more to protect him.  The feelings don't come through on the blog post I wrote that day, but I was heartbroken.

Over the next few weeks, I started to feel angry.  We live on a (somewhat) busy street and I started to notice that a lot of people drive by at really high speeds.  Every time someone would go zooming past, I would wonder if that was the person who killed my beloved pet.  I thought over and over that I should DO SOMETHING about it.

And now, almost two years later, I finally am doing something.  When the V's moved in, I knew that I could never let something like this happen to one of them.  Thankfully, we have a locked iron gate that stands between the V's and the front yard- for now.  What about the day when they figure out how to unlock the gate?  And what about all the other neighborhood kids (and there are a lot) who walk down my street to get to school?  It was a terrible tragedy when Dante died, but I would feel a much heavier burden if a child were to be hit by a car.

So I went to the city to find out how I can slow people down on my street.  I found out that because it is considered a "collector street," we aren't allowed to install speed bumps.  Emergency vehicles need to use the collector streets when the main artery streets are not accessible- and speed bumps would be an unacceptable obstacle for them.  But what I can do is have a traffic circle installed.  These are designed to slow vehicles down to the posted speed limit- and they have been proven to be effective at slowing traffic.  In order to have the circle installed, I have to get a petition signed by the residents of homes in close proximity to the circle.  I need 100% of the properties within 100 feet of the proposed circle (4 homes), and 70% of the homes within the boundary designated by the city (36 total).  My next door neighbor is passionate about slowing down the speeders too and she has been a hug help in getting signatures.  Through our efforts, we now have 35 of the required signatures.  We need ONE MORE!  The other issue- and it's a big one- is that one of the four required homes (we'll call this woman Laverne) refused to sign when my neighbor asked her.  Now quite frankly, I was a bit shocked to find that people existed who would be opposed to improving safety for children.

But there are.  Three people have told me no, and four have said no to my neighbor.  Top reasons include the following:

1.  Traffic circles are ugly and will lower our property values (I think this is just ridiculous)

2.  They don't think there is really a problem because the traffic study that was conducted shows the average speed is under the speed limit (34 mph in a 35 zone)  The problem with this is that an average is a completely meaningless number.  3500 cars pass through this area per day (these are stats from the traffic study) and over half are speeding over the posted speed limit.  That's about 1 per minute!  Over 150 per day are exceeding 45 mph.

3.  (This one is my favorite.)  They don't want to slow down.  Wow.  So my children's safety is less important than the ten seconds you will save on your way to work.  Why are you in such a damn hurry to get there anyway?

If there is only one word to describe me, it is this:  Tenacious.  So I'm going to go back and see Laverne, preferably with one or both kids in tow, to convince her to do the right thing for our neighborhood.  I've knocked on her door at least half a dozen times and she won't come out, but I'm not giving up.

When my circle is installed, I'll post a victory photo here for all to see and admire.  Wish me luck in this crusade of mine.