Busy Saturday but had to write about this quick. When I read this story about a month ago I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever read. Metro rips out phantom planters flowers at Dupont Circle.
Until this…
All Whitehall Township Mayor Ed Hozza wanted to do was add a splash of color to his township’s main retail corridor when he personally placed 12 flower planters in the median strip….
….The boxes of cannas, roses, yellow day lilies and climbing vines planted in the southern portion of the strip created a potential traffic hazard, PennDOT spokesman Ron Young said. The department told Hozza he had until Friday to move his garden.
I often cite the Macarthur Rd. strip wasteland as the absolute opposite STROADiest example of what I hope our commercial corridors do not evolve into here in LMT. It’s a fear that if LMT Commissioners continue to approve strip project after strip project it’ll lead to Hamilton Corridor becoming MacArthur Rd.
In Whitehall, we have Whitehall Mayor Ed Hozza Jr. spending his own money in an attempt to de-STROADify and beautify his community. The benefits include traffic calming, proper scaling and creating a gateway. It’s smart growth road diet treatment 101.
The safety argument presenting by penndot is so weak. “Young said the planters were blocking what’s supposed to be a “mountable curb.” Why? So if a distracted driver veers into the center we have a head on collision instead of a dinged planter?
What’s more frustrating is I drove past the planters a couple weeks ago. I loved them. I almost stopped my car to pull over and take photos. Even made mental note to learn about how they got put out there. Then I read yesterday they are removed. I was going to post about them here on my blog as a nice example of “tactical urbanism“.
This represents why bloated bureaucracies that lack common sense are so problematic. The article mentions that people complained. That’s crazy. I’d be willing to bet this was angry curmudgeons who complained first about taxpayer money being spent before learning it was paid for by the Mayor.
Good read: Here is another take.
I plan on writing Mayor Hozza a thank you for his efforts to beautify the corridor. I definitely appreciated his efforts even if they ended up being temporary.
