Bloomington's anti-vehicle bias

Bloomington Herald-Times, June 23, 2012 (Comments)

To the editor:

The anti-vehicle bias of our city government has to stop. Two years ago, the city installed a completely unnecessary and wasteful traffic island in front of the business school at IU, which only serves to snarl traffic. The island is so poorly designed with a dangerous bump-out that it had skid marks and a chunk of concrete missing while it was under construction.

Then we get into the insanity of the traffic impeding devices (not traffic "calming" devices) on West Third. A politically favored neighborhood was given special treatment by city government to keep the taxpaying public off "their" road - but it is not "their" road at all. It is a public street, not a private driveway.

Now we have the summer of construction, which has been so poorly planned and executed that one has to wonder if it was intentionally designed to make driving so miserable that more people would bike or walk.

I understand these projects need to be done and that it will be better when they are done, but it is unnecessary and wasteful to do all of them at once. All that does is unnecessarily snarl traffic to the point of absurdity. Stop it!