It's the cars, stupid
Columbus drivers killed a child and went through three business fronts the same week the mayor claimed to care about alternative modes of transport.
A Ford F-150 hit a mother and her four-year-old daughter in Northeast Columbus on Halloween night as they walked across an intersection with pedestrian warning lights flashing while they trick-or-treated.
The child did not survive the injuries, and now her preschool class is mourning.
From Lu Ann Stoia of abc6onyourside.com:
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — Teachers at Better Choice Daycare and Learning Center said ironically they talked about Halloween safety in class Monday—the same day one of their students was killed while trick-or-treating.
Kelly Spence, the center director said Catherine Rodriguez, 4, was so excited about Halloween.
“It’s hard to know that she was just innocently doing something every child loves and her life was just taken away from her,” Spence said.
Anita Roman said she asked the children, ages 3 and 4, “Do we cross the street just anywhere? No, we cross at crosswalks or at the light. Do you cross by yourself? No, we cross with our mommy, daddy, or an adult."
Cars, not rainbow fentanyl, are the biggest threat to children on Halloween.
Columbus’ reliance on cars means you can do everything right and still get killed on the wrong end of a physics equation. The driver assaulted a woman and child, killed the child, and no media report says anything about an arrest. There is no better way to get away with murder than in a car.
A neighbor who now has to live with finding a child dead in the street saw the problem coming, also via abc6onyourside.com:
"There’s been a lot of issues at this crosswalk right here," he said. "I stop, but you see traffic keep going by. I’ve seen it multiple times. They won’t stop. But it’s a crosswalk. They need a light here. If there was a light here, maybe those kids would have been okay."
The city’s line is “There were no 311 requests about this intersection,” again outsourcing the government's responsibility onto its citizens. (I tried to download the new 311 app last week, and it said my very valid address wasn’t valid.)
Roughly 24 hours after a Ford F-150 killed a child, Mayor Suburbs gathered the stooges Tuesday night at Studio 35 in Clintonville, the local historic theater owned by Eric Brembeck, the small business tyrant that contracted a fossil fuel consultant to run opposition to the city installing a bike lane over his precious parking spots that don’t belong to him in the first place.
The location is a direct slap in the face to anyone who bikes in the city, which was a curious choice of venue for a press conference ostensibly about how much this city loves its bikers and pedestrians.
There was nothing imminent announced. More plans. More “audits.” More need for “respectful” feedback. As if they couldn’t just hire a squad of 10 bike freaks to tell them precisely what they need to do for a tenth of what these blood-sucking consultants charge for pretending like we’re talking about flying to the moon on a paper airplane.
It’s almost as if Columbus drivers got the memo about their supremacy. Because 24 hours after the Mayor scuttled back to his car for his ride back home in the suburbs, three drivers drove their personal vehicles into prominent local business fronts within 12 hours of each other.
From Daniel Griffin and Adam Conn of nbc4i.com:
The first crash was reported at approximately 6:26 p.m. when a car crashed into Galla Park Steak on the corner of North High Street and East First Avenue. Two people were taken to Grant Medical Center in stable condition.
The second crash was reported just after 9 p.m. at a strip mall on the 1000 block of Shady Lane Road. One person was taken to Mount Carmel East Hospital in stable condition.
The third crash occurred just after midnight Wednesday morning at S’wich Social, an ice cream sandwich shop on North 4th Street near the East 1st Avenue intersection. The business’ social media page stated no one was seriously injured and that the store will be closed indefinitely.
Given that a Tesla went through the Convention Center at over 70 mph in May, it’s incredible that nobody has been killed or seriously injured at this point.
But that day is undoubtedly coming because, unlike the Netherlands, we accept that cars crashing into buildings is part of the price of life in the big city. It’s not.
Somebody might watch this, agree with everything, and then say, “Well, we’re not Amsterdam!”
No. We’re not Amsterdam. Hell, we’re not even Indianapolis or Louisville at this point. I don’t think it would hurt us to have some goals around this raggedy city before more asshole drivers careen into business fronts and kill children in crosswalks.
But Amsterdam was not always Amsterdam. And if they had feckless leaders like ours, Amsterdam would look like your average American city:
The city said at the event that half of Columbus’ trips are within five miles. There’s no reason we couldn’t do an e-bike rebate program as Denver did—that was a smash hit in getting people out of cars, by the way.
But no, that would be something concrete. That would require anyone at City Hall to give a shit about any of this. Given that nothing major is changing after the week we just had, they won’t unless tragedy strikes them or a loved one. Mayor Suburbs and the city council are a lot like Republicans in that way.
We will continue to be what we are: A city with some beautiful, unconnected recreation trails and not much else when it comes to bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
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