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Tag: Tax Dollars Asleep

Why am I paying for this?

Public Facilities Maintenance: Lack Thereof

I have a deep and abiding cynicism about the wisdom of building Special Facilities for bicycles and pedestrians. We very much enjoy biking along the Dutchess County Rail Trail, but I fear the County’s initial enthusiasm and funding will quickly wear off, leaving us with another poorly maintained facility.

For example, the section of trail just south of Morgan Lake (a.k.a., Phase II) opened in July 2009, a mere four years ago. This view shows the North Grand Avenue at-grade crossing:

DCRT N Grand – overview

Shortly after the opening, the ADA-mandated vision-impaired tactile pavement strips at that crossing began to deteriorate and, by now, they’re just rubble-filled depressions across the trail on either side of the road.

The south strip:

DCRT N Grand – South ADA Strip

The north strip:

DCRT N Grand – north ADA strip

Evidently, the Official Personnel traversing the DCRT lack the responsibility / authority / initiative to apply a broom and sweep the pebbles out of the path, much less schedule a repair crew. I suppose I should haul a shovel along on one of our trips and privatize the upkeep; it’s been two years, so further waiting will be pointless.

It’s not as though there’s no Official Traffic, as witnessed by this well-worn informal entrance at the south end of that trail segment:

DCRT Overocker – vehicle tracks

There’s an Official Gate just to the left of the trail at that crossing, but, judging from the weeds, it’s evidently easier to stay in the car or truck than get out and unlock the barrier:

DCRT Overocker – vehicle gate

Perhaps pebbles now count as tactile paving.

2013-07-06
Traffic Signals: Green LED Failures

Traffic Signal – dead green LEDs – 2012

In our (admittedly limited) travels around New York State during the last half decade or so, I’ve seen many (as in, dozens of) traffic signals with this failure:

Apparently the topmost LED string burns out first, leaving the other two (?) strings intact. The earliest picture I have dates back to 2008, so this is a problem of long standing that’s probably wiped out any projected maintenance cost reduction for the entire purchase. The most recent failure I spotted, a few weeks after taking this picture, has a flickering upper string that means it’s not long for this world.

Somewhere up around Albany, I recently saw a green signal with only that string lit up and the other two (?) strings dead, but that’s the sole exception to the pattern.

Of late, NYS DOT has been installing a different green lamp with the LEDs in each string scattered over the entire surface and no diffuser. That means a failed string, of which I’ve already seen several examples in the area, darkens a few spots without being particularly obvious; a less common failure has a few flickering “pixels” that will eventually go dark. While that’s a net win, I wonder why only green lamps have this problem: we very rarely see red or amber lamps with any failed LEDs.

One red LED lamp down the road did fail spectacularly: the whole thing flashed, slowly and somewhat irregularly. Not a flicker, but a flash: long off and short on.

It’s hard to get pictures of failed traffic signals…

While I suppose I should report them, previous attempts to do so have only led to requests for the ID number of the traffic control box, which generally can’t be seen from the traffic lane. I am not stopping at an intersection, getting out, finding the box (perhaps crossing the intersection to get there), finding the ID number, and taking a picture for later reference; you know what happens to people who take pictures of infrastructure. You’d think the signals could phone home on their own, but they’re likely not connected.

2013-01-09
NYS DOT Repair Quality Control

The paving along Rt 376 just south of Raymond Avenue developed transverse ridges; evidently the old concrete roadway below the more recent asphalt cap is shifting. Bumps in the travel lane are not to be tolerated, so they milled off all the ridges. Problem solved!

Of course, the remaining asphalt isn’t thick enough to withstand any stress and promptly crumbles:

NYS DOT joint milling quality

Although the shoulder may appear to be wide enough for bicycle traffic, the debris strewn along it makes for a perilous journey: the larger chunks are bigger than my fist. Several of the milled joints along the unimproved section of Raymond and that stretch of 376 are disintegrating, so it’s not like they got just this one wrong.

Doesn’t bother the DOT one little bit, because their idea of a “shared use facility” is a sign with a picture of a bicycle, labeled Share The Road. As long as the travel lane seems mostly passable by automobiles, their job is done.

2012-09-05