Gloria Ferris

This phrase has stuck in my head since I was in college.  My college roommate and I would always use it when we would start for the door of our dorm room at the same time.  We would laugh, and then one of us would defer. Shirley Jackson’s story “After you, My Dear Alphonse” deals with the serious issue of stereotyping others and deserved another read, but I’m not sure if I am dealing in stereotypes or if people are just plain “out for themselves”. 

Sunday afternoon Tim and I attended a wake in Lakewood for a good friend of ours.  We then headed down Detroit Avenue to attend Mass at St. John’s Catherdral.  We had an enjoyable ride taking in the changes and improvements along the way until we crossed the Detroit Superior Avenue Bridge and came to a dead stop.

It soon became apparent that no one in Cleveland adheres to the tenet of “After You, My Dear Alphonse” or even to the law of do not block intersections and crosswalks.  I always thought that if you saw that the traffic in front of you was not moving that you did not enter the intersection until you were sure that you would not be blocking that intersection; obviously, I have been very wrong all these years.  If someone did try to act in this manner, the horn blaring and the nudging from behind, soon made it apparent that no such behavior would be tolerated.  Of course, the result became gridlock from West 9th until East 9th.  It took us approximately 40 minutes to travel those short blocks because of the rudeness and disgregard that people had for others.  It was nothing short of incredible.

But, I have a solution.  It was obvious that traffic cops would have had a  decidedly calming effect and they would have gotten the traffic moving the way traffic should move with little effort.  Part of the reason that people acted in a totally selfish manner was because they could.  Now, I realize we are a cash-strapped city, but there is a simple way to pay for these traffic cops after games and other events downtown-charge the venue having the event.  Sunday’s event would be charged to the Browns organization.  If any other event was going on at the same time, that venue should share in the cost of the traffic cops.

I am reasonably sure that anyone leaving the Browns game was just as aggravated by the length of time that they sat idling in line to leave the city as I was at sitting in traffic trying to get to mass.  If we truly want to make Cleveland a tourist destination then we should make sure that there stay here is enjoyable from the moment they arrive until they leave our town.

There are other concerns to be considered as well.  We should be concerned with the pollution dumped into the air while SUVs and Hummers waited to get out of town.  If there was more of a police presence on the streets, people might be more willing to take public transit to the game leaving the streets and the congestion to out-of-towners who don’t have a choice. And what was the hurry to get out of town anyway?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 20th, 2006 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Cleveland, quality of life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.