Like many small towns, Whitewater, Wisconsin has one main thoroughfare through town, past our college campus, connecting the east and west sides of the city. At the campus, there’s a street named Whiton that runs into Main. At the intersection of the two streets, many college students, faculty, and workers cross from campus to homes. It’s a busy intersection, and has been the site an accident at which a pedestrian was hit by a car.
One solution would be to install a traffic stoplight, and that will, eventually, happen. I write eventually because a pedestrian was hit in August 2008, and there have been nearby accidents since, but we still have no conventional traffic light, to stop traffic. There’s a flashing sign, but no conventional red light that would signal to stop traffic so that one could walk across the street more safely.
Just a moment ago, I wrote that this problem became apparent no later than August 2008, and if that date caught one’s notice, it should have. It’s a year and a half ago.
Predictably, local political leaders want to blame our governor, in Madison, for delaying signing off on an approval for a traffic light. It’s a shameful exercise in blame-shifting. See, Whitewater still waiting on Gov. Doyle to sign off on Main Street traffic light.
Got that? Of course you did – Whitewater would have a light by now, if only Gov. Doyle had been more attentive!
Traffic lights, and advocacy for them, is one of the most basic aspects of local authority — Gov. Doyle isn’t responsible for looking around town to identify traffic risks — our city manager, police chief, and common council are expected to address basic matters of public safety — and thereafter, promptly get the notice and approval of officials elsewhere.
In less time, by the way, than a year and a half. Far less, time.
After a year and a half, there’s now a public meeting scheduled about the lack of a traffic stoplight at the intersection. That meeting will take place on February 23rd, at 4:30 p.m.
In Whitewater, there’s a political preference for limelights over traffic lights. When Whitewater’s city manager, Kevin Brunner, wanted to invite state and local officials to the groundbreaking of our multi-million dollar, publicly-funded tech park, he got attendees, and had the event filmed. He had the video of that dedication prominently displayed on a page with other videos.
When Brunner wanted to showcase an event that he must have felt newsworthy, he got officials’ attention just fine, including film of some of them praising him!
But if a traffic light is a concern, it’s just back burner, last-minute, bottom-drawer by comparison with the thrill of something new and seemingly prestigious. Perhaps, to an ambitious, places-to-go, people-to-see, don’t-call-me-I’ll-call you bureaucrat, a traffic light seems like small potatoes. There’s no career-building potential, I’d guess.
And yet, I’d say that more good would come out of a traffic light than a thousand photo opportunities, self-serving statements to a lapdog press, or vainglorious but false declarations about vision, uniqueness, etc.
Small-town America is supposed to be simple, straightforward, and humble. In many towns, I am sure that it is; someday, in our town, it will be again. Until then, simple and basic obligations will be set aside and rationalized, in favor of the limelights illuminating big projects, schemes, and grand plans.