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Thursday, October 28, 2004
You can't name a horse a duck.... well you can,
but we are sure if a person "steps in it" they will know
which end of which animal... it came from.
In an ever increasing attempt to change the face
of Ocean City Highway to a more relaxed state of mind, proposals
by Nancy Howard Councilwoman to change the name of Ocean Highway
fell on deaf ears this week.
There are only two months out of the year where
the main avenue of transportation along the coast doesn't behave
and act as highway, July and August. And
even August is truncated by the early exit of summer workers and
tourists.
Ocean Highway can use improvements, that
is for sure. Continued public awareness, better enforcement
by the police of the bus bike lane, and "some" methods
of improved pedestrian / bicycle right of ways.
Enforcement by police for safer pedestrian
/ bicycle movement in
the bike bus right of way lane.
We
can guarantee that ever citizen in Ocean City can attest to the
abuse of vehicles using the bike bus lane to circumvent traffic
delays. Vehicles rushing down the prohibited bike
bus lane well over five streets to make a right hand turn,
or zip back into the legal lane should be a clear violation, which
it probably is but never enforced. A pedestrian
attempting to cross the road will look for an oncoming vehicle,
and make a judgment for a safe passage. If a vehicle
"drops into" the bus bike lane, and is not making an immediate
turn, the vehicle is NOT slowing down, but either speeding up, or
maintaining a constant rate. This leads to a timing
error in the decision to cross by the pedestrian, because
they were expecting the oncoming vehicle to slow down. Even
a person standing at an over crowded bus stop can inadvertently
step into the bike bus lane by mistake compounding the situation
along the road.
We have personally witnessed, on a fall afternoon,
coming home from work driving along Ocean Highway, a school bus
pass us at near 50 mph, in the bus lane, and zip in and out of the
vehicle right of way lane. Bus lane traffic is limited to
35 mph. Thus the school bus driver was making time
and staying legal by this back and forth maneuver where the vehicle
lane is 40 mph. The school bus was NOT stopping and
dropping off children during this action, and it did have children
in the bus destined for north OC. We watched and followed
to confirm. Monkey see, monkey do....
Solution: We
suggest a public awareness campaign with enforcement. Junior
police officers could assist with signs and communication devices
with regular full time Officers . The junior
police officer could point to the oncoming offending vehicle and
hold up the sign "GET OUT of the LANE, OR GET BUSTED."
Communicating to the regular squad Officer five streets
away something like, "Rodger dodger Copper, we got Bus Bike
Lane Monkey in Burgundy Mini Van busting down your way."
And then arrest the offender. The public WILL
get the idea.
Solution: Another
inexpensive public awareness option is to paint on the curbs
of
the road, spiffy comments....
"STEP BACK JACK -
or GET FLAT... or DEAD".
"STEP
INTO THE ROADWAY is the DEAD WAY...."
How inexpensive
could that be, to just paint the curbs at the bus stops or known
dangerous and highly trafficked areas. Of course,
if we let the town council dwiddle they will find have to get a
study that will cost us a few hundred thousand dollars and farm
out the painting to somebody that lives in Annapolis or Baltimore.
Solution:
Specific pedestrian and
bicycle right of ways on the ocean side of the road. This
would include a renovation of back street alleys, which should
be done anyway, because many of these alleys are not only
disgusting ugly, they are a health hazard with many leaking dumpsters
and trash spilling into the streets. Marking of the
right of way and public awareness would be included. This
would get people off the "highway" completely. Our
group often "mountain" bikes from North Ocean City down
to the Inlet and back. It is great fun... although sometimes
stinky and disgusting in the downtown alleys, it is easily
done and off the highway.
Solution:
Build pedestrian walkways over the road at Route 90,
the public parking area mid town, and other extremely dangerous
or extremely high traffic areas, unfortunately this "ain't
cheap" so we saved it for last.... and of course... monorails
:-)).
We hope the Town Council can come up with
some ideas, we elected them to do so, and not farm it out to a study
and waist the taxpayers another few hundred thousand dollars. Because
right now... the only thing we have heard from the Town Council
is to change the name of the highway to Lilly Lane, and put flower
pots on the telephone poles.
You can't call a horse a duck...... and you'll
know it for sure when you step in it.
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Ocean
City Maryland 
