The title is a play of words on a current and dangerous fad among our youths called the "Tide Pod Challenge" where someone is dared to consume the contents of a multicolored yin-yang container normally thrown in with your wash to make your clothes sparkly clean.  The contents are of course, a bit poisonous, and the challenge is marginally less dangerous than chugging Clorox.  You don't need to have a lot of common sense to be told not to take this challenge, but the pods do look oddly inviting, as if they are some sort of cream-filled candy.

As noted the title play-on-words has to do with the recently defeated idea of the Ludington Avenue Road Diet, a concept apparently without a parent, or at least anybody who admits to it.  It would reduce a mostly five lane state highway going through the middle of town down to three lanes, with no other stated benefit noted than widening the wide-enough lanes.  At Ludington's Monday night city council meeting on January 22, John Shay somewhat disappointedly relayed the following news to the public, summarized:

In October, it had not appeared the proposed three lane configuration would cause significant delays in traffic.  In January after staff changes at the Muskegon office of MDOT, they found the change was likely to cause significant delays on Ludington Avenue and an increase in accidents caused by drivers turning onto the avenue.

Prior to that meeting there was quite a few officials in the Ludington Planning Commission, Downtown Development Authority and city council who couldn't help but laud the supposed benefits of that experimental project, the most notable of these was Councilor Winczewski, LPC member Ray Madsen, and DDA member Steve Miller. 

The latter two had not only took part in the traffic study that the MDOT reviewed but also made it publicly known that they believed the proposed diet would be super for Ludington.  Madsen proclaiming that "the City should try this experiment to see if this is a good solution. It may be or it may not be, but... the City should at least try it" at a June 2017 council meeting.  Miller touted it at times while chatting with the morning crew on WMOM, and with others on social media and in person.  

Winczewski, Madsen, and Miller were like pod people from the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, believing the experiment would prove that the diet would not hamper traffic significantly, increase safety dramatically, and be loved by everybody eventually.  They were the foremost of the diet pods-- approach them off the road at your own risk.  

The observations I made myself as a traffic counter, the almost-universal (other than diet pod government officials) common sense opinion of the man-on-the-street, and now the final results of a traffic engineering study make me firm in my resolve that a Ludington Avenue Road Diet is a non-starter.  Reduced traffic flow, reduced vehicle safety, reduced safety for other modes of traffic, so many other negatives, how would one even think of making this a reality, barring somebody with an agenda to make Ludington a worse place.

But yet, with the science in, and just after John Shay sadly relating the last liturgy of the LARD, Councilor Katie "Moonbeam" Winczewski chimes in that she thought it was a great idea, that it would have improved pedestrian safety, and that if it had not worked out they could have changed it back.  She would undoubtedly see two tasty donuts in the picture below.

The diet pod challenge then is this, and let's write off good Councilor Moonbeam for a moment and concentrate on the other two public faces who tried to make this detergent look like a sweet treat to the rest of us.  

Ray Madsen, Steve Miller (and any other public endorser of this experiment during or before the traffic study's completion):  publicly accept the findings of the MDOT traffic study as an actual depiction of reality, do not erroneously tell us it will be safer for pedestrian and vehicle traffic, do not say it would not turn off visitors from the downtown, tell us why Councilor Winczewski's ramblings scares you too, and tell us that the city made the right choice in not considering this even as an experiment.

Views: 322

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

This further proves that idiots occupy spaces on the City Council and in authority in Ludington's Government. Simple common sense dictates that reducing 5 lanes to 3 can only cause traffic congestion and other problems. It seems that the trouble with Ludington is that stupid is in control.

I wanted to reply in a civilized way but the only thing that kept flashing thru my brain is how stupid can people be, especially when they have control over people's lives. So I looked on line for the definition of "stupid" and lo and behold the word and definition fit  like a glove. There is no other way to describe what these people do and the decisions they make. Maybe conniving, devious, corrupt or even ignorant can also be applied. If this wasn't so then there would be no need for the Ludington Torch because the people who are defined by these words have caused much dissension and distrust among the citizenry and spawned XLFD and his supporters.

RSS

© 2024   Created by XLFD.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service