It's hard to imagine what people are thinking sometimes. Dig -- as the great Prince once urged -- if you will the picture:
It's about 7:20 on a weekday morning on a busy road that feeds straight into Downtown -- let's call it Lisbon Avenue -- and note that at about 58th Street, another busy route -- let's call that Appleton Avenue/Highway 41 -- feeds into this so-called Lisbon Avenue.
As you might expect, this street is quite busy, especially at nodes like North Avenue, where there is an entrance to the 41 spur and Lisbon briefly narrows to a single lange, and at 35th Street. Along the way are crossing guards and a caravan of school buses attempting to make left turns onto busy Lisbon Avenue.
It's always backed up in the morning. It's a fact of life. But this morning, a few blocks west of 35th Street, the traffic seemed worse than ever. Thankfully, a lot of drivers detoured down residential side streets, alleviating the backup a bit.
When one driver -- let's call him me -- finally reached the intersection with 35th Street, he saw the cause of the backup. Sections of the intersection were blocked off with orange cones while city Dept. of Public Works employees painted new crosswalks. Yes, folks, on a busy thoroughfare in the heart of rush hour, these people were snarling already heavy traffic to PAINT CROSSWALKS.
Now, far be it from me to tell people how to do their jobs, but couldn't this be done at 6 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. or 2 p.m. just as easily? The crew could perhaps do less invasive work during rush hours. If they must paint crosswalks during rush hour, are there not some considerably less trafficked streets that could be done at peak times?
Maybe it is necessary, and I welcome any clarification that anyone might have. Please post it via the Talkbacks feature below.
OK, I've ranted and I'm over it. Now don't get me started on why people turning left seem to never turn into the left lane -- as they should -- but into the right lane, preventing right on red turns.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
