Show support; install blue bulbs
Recently we had a very positive experience with our Signal Mountain Police and first responder. Since then, it has made me realize how fortunate we are and that we often take our men and women in blue for granted.
As a token tribute to their prompt, 24/7 service to us all, we installed blue bulbs in all our outdoor porch lights. If you can find it in your hearts, please join us in this small but visible tribute.
Christina Colonna
Signal Mountain
Protect bikers, for Pete’s sake
Who is Pete?
In his column Sept. 10, Jay Greeson wrote about plans for the M.L. King ramp: “We had to make sure the changes did not include some more bike lanes, for Pete’s sake.”
I think I know who Pete is. He is the guy who yelled at me from his big truck while I, on my bicycle, was waiting for a green light downtown. He yelled something like, “Get off the road, you idiot.” Of course, he had a right to feel superior. He was burning a lot more fuel and polluting a lot more air than I was. I was only combusting the equivalent of maybe half a French fry per mile and depriving a few lungfuls of oxygen before I exhaled them.
Pete is the guy from the suburbs who likes to come to town for a drink and a meal and maybe a concert but who is unwilling to adjust his driving habits and attitude to the city and therefore to the presence of human-powered transportation.
For Pete’s sake, I hope he learns to value our efforts to make Chattanooga cosmopolitan, civilized, and sustainable. Welcome to the city, Pete.
Finn Bille
More questions on ‘calmed’ streets
The Chattanooga Department of Transportation must be proactive in its attempt to “calm” the traffic on M.L. King Boulevard and Bailey Avenue.
If a driver enters the 2.5-mile stretch of road immediately behind a CARTA bus, will courtesy lanes be available for the bus to leave the single lane of traffic and enable the car driver to pass? Delivery trucks servicing businesses along the same stretch of the road would occupy the lane in front of the business; two delivery trucks on opposite sides of the street would reduce the number of lanes to the single passing lane. If construction barrels as featured in Dan Henry’s photo (CTFP A1, Sept. 13) are placed on the road for an extended period of time, will this require detouring the traffic to secondary streets? Are the residents on the side streets ready to accommodate increased traffic due to detours?
Bravo to the proposal for M.L. King and Bailey Avenue, but be careful what you ask for because you might get it.
Margaret Smith
Signal Mountain