Now I want you to know I am not against fixing infrastructure. I have said this before and I will keep saying it — the pipes under this city are older than several of my aunts and the drainage on Adams Street has been a situation I have personally witnessed with my own two eyes every time it rains more than a drizzle. So when I heard they were finally going in to repair the curb and gutter and whatever else is happening down there between 8th and 9th, I thought, good. Fine. It is about time. What I did NOT think was, wonderful, I cannot wait to find out about this by simply trying to drive somewhere on a Friday morning. Because that, as it turns out, is the notification system they have chosen. You encounter the closure. That is the announcement.
And I will tell you something — I wrote about this exact situation just last week when they did the same thing with the Barkes Road repair, and here we are again, one week later, doing the same thing again on Adams. I am not saying nobody put up signs. I am saying the signs and the advance notice are not the same thing, and the people who actually live here deserve to know before they have already committed to a route. When I was growing up, and I know some of you are tired of hearing this, but when I was growing up there was a woman named — well, I won't say — but she worked at the city and she personally called the neighbors on affected blocks before any project started. One phone call. That was all it took. I am not saying we need to return to 1987. I am saying someone knew how to do this and then at some point that person retired and apparently so did the habit.
Now separately, because I cannot let this go without mentioning it — the closure out at 72nd and Washington starting Monday is also going twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and I have already gotten three separate messages from people on the west side who did not know this was coming either. That intersection is not a side street. That is a real road that real people use to get to real places, and a full week of total closure — yes, I understand there is infrastructure work happening, yes, I understand these things take time — but you do know there is such a thing as a detour sign posted more than forty-eight hours in advance. You do know that. I simply want to confirm that someone, somewhere, knows that.
And while I am already here and the column inches are still going, I want to say something loosely related which is that the parking situation on the blocks adjacent to these closures is going to be a whole separate ordeal that nobody is talking about, and I am only bringing it up because this is the one month I am allowed to talk about parking and I want it on the record — when you close a road you also close the parking on that road, and the businesses nearby do not always get a heads up on that either, and that is a thing that has consequences for the people who actually live here and shop here and park here. I am just noting it. I am not finished forming my full thoughts on it.
That's all for this week. You know where to find me.