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04-13-10, 08:18 PM
I live in the suburbs of Boston.
There's a small town (in a cluster of small towns) near me that has a random single parking space on the shoulder of a road that I feel is unnecessary and unsafe- the space is placed on the road right in front of two small parking lots, and if a car is parked there, it blocks the shoulder of the road directly after a busy intersection, forcing bike traffic into car traffic.
I'd like to see it removed. Remove the line that bulges out around the parking space, remove the lines that box out a parking space within that bulge, and paint a new line that matches up with the rest of the shoulder/gutter line (there are no bike lanes in this town). A NO PARKING sign would be nice, as people park on the shoulder often, and the lack of lines for a parking space or the purpose for its removal may not even be noticed. Simple enough, right?
I assume a simple operation like this costs thousands of dollars in government money, however, and I'm one tiny voice, but it would be nice to establish a dialogue with the proper person in government, and I don't know who that person would be. Also, some pointers on what kind of language or logic to use when discussing the situation would be helpful (again, I'd like to be more than one tiny voice asking for lots of money to be spent on something somewhat trivial).
Obviously, contacting some sort of local cycling advocacy group to see what they suggest is on my agenda as well, but the biggest town that is most likely to have such a group is 10 miles away from the town in which I'd like to see the change made.
(PS- in case any A&S regulars have that kind of memory: I've been changing most of my left turns into box turns, and I'm shopping for a new helmet. Thanks :) )
There's a small town (in a cluster of small towns) near me that has a random single parking space on the shoulder of a road that I feel is unnecessary and unsafe- the space is placed on the road right in front of two small parking lots, and if a car is parked there, it blocks the shoulder of the road directly after a busy intersection, forcing bike traffic into car traffic.
I'd like to see it removed. Remove the line that bulges out around the parking space, remove the lines that box out a parking space within that bulge, and paint a new line that matches up with the rest of the shoulder/gutter line (there are no bike lanes in this town). A NO PARKING sign would be nice, as people park on the shoulder often, and the lack of lines for a parking space or the purpose for its removal may not even be noticed. Simple enough, right?
I assume a simple operation like this costs thousands of dollars in government money, however, and I'm one tiny voice, but it would be nice to establish a dialogue with the proper person in government, and I don't know who that person would be. Also, some pointers on what kind of language or logic to use when discussing the situation would be helpful (again, I'd like to be more than one tiny voice asking for lots of money to be spent on something somewhat trivial).
Obviously, contacting some sort of local cycling advocacy group to see what they suggest is on my agenda as well, but the biggest town that is most likely to have such a group is 10 miles away from the town in which I'd like to see the change made.
(PS- in case any A&S regulars have that kind of memory: I've been changing most of my left turns into box turns, and I'm shopping for a new helmet. Thanks :) )