Island
Living 49: Accident-Prone
by A. D.
Coleman |
|
My house stands
on Van Duzer Street between Targee Street and Court
Street. From the desk where I’m writing this,
I can look along Van Duzer toward its intersection
with Court Street on the right and Smith Terrace
on the left. Van Duzer bends sharply to the left
just as those two streets join it, making for an
extremely tricky and treacherous curve. Which means
that on any rainy day like today (May 22) -- indeed,
on even a day when heavy mist leaves the asphalt
slightly moist and slick -- I can sit here and wait
confidently for an accident to happen there.
No, I’m
not morbidly reliving my own car accident of last
summer. I don’t relish the erotics of automotive
catastrophe like the characters in J. G. Ballard’s
remarkable 1984 novel Crash (made into a
memorable film by David Cronenberg in 1996). Nor
do I consider myself psychic. This falls into the
category of safe bet; I’ve not only felt the
whump! of the impact dozens of times, even at this
distance, and heard the noise of it, but I’ve
learned to recognize the particular sound that brakes
and tires make here as control is lost, that peculiar
squeal announcing that disaster has become inevitable.
As karma would have it, that moment usually occurs
just as the doomed cars race past my front porch.
When I bought
this house, in late 1969, Van Duzer Street was a
two-way thoroughfare; and, given that cars could
come around that corner unexpectedly from either
direction, drivers took this stretch slowly and
carefully. Then, a few years later, to alleviate
the pressure of rush-hour traffic down on Bay Street,
the city’s Department of Transportation in
its wisdom turned one section of Van Duzer into
a one-way artery heading toward St. George and the
ferry terminal, with St. Paul’s Avenue as its
counterpart going the other way.
The accident
rate on this block went way up almost immediately.
What happens follows a predictable pattern. Drivers
heading toward St. George learn that there’s
no stoplight between the one on Targee at Broad
St. and the one at the corner of Van Duzer and Wright
St., a block past Court St. So they come roaring
up the incline that marks the juncture of Targee
and Van Duzer, in order to turn sharply right onto
Van Duzer. The D.O.T., recognizing this as a dangerous
situation, long ago positioned a blinking yellow
light there at the top of that rise, but neither
that nor a short metal guard rail has kept cars
from plowing regularly into the side of 506 Van
Duzer, right on the corner where Targee, Stone,
and Van Duzer intersect.
Even when drivers
successfully negotiate that corner, swing onto Van
Duzer and level off, they’re often going quite
fast (or at least have a heavy foot on the gas)
as a result of that short but steep uphill climb.
Yet they’re just a hundred yards from a corner
that -- according to warning signs posted right
outside my house -- they should take at 15 m.p.h.
maximum under good conditions. Predictably, when
they get to Court St. a few seconds later, they’re
not usually observing the suggested speed limit
for that turn. And so they often skid and crash.
They don’t
often collide with other cars. There’s not
a whole lot of pedestrian traffic at that corner,
so they rarely endanger people crossing the street
or walking around. (Though I refused to buy my son
a bike when he was ten -- for which, among other
sins, he’ll never forgive me -- because I knew
he’d ride it along this block even if I forbade
him to, and I couldn’t take the chance. He
had to wait a few years more for his wheels.) Occasionally
they jump the guard rail and smash into the fence
surrounding the garden apartments on that right-hand
corner. And once I saw a Chevy that had somehow
vaulted over some heavy protective metal posts and
embedded itself in the entranceway and living room
of 429 Van Duzer, where it remained for some days
as insurance companies sorted the matter out.
People did get
hurt in that one. But, in fact, these mishaps rarely
seem to injure even the cars’ own drivers.
Mostly these heedless and/or hapless types simply
careen into the upright metal posts and sheet-metal
guard rail that the D.O.T. has installed along that
part of the sidewalk. Vehicles hit this with such
frequency, and such force, that the sidewalk there
is permanently cracked, the heavy uprights are perpetually
tilted from multiple impacts, and it’s rare
that the guard rail goes a month without one of
these fender-benders driving it well into the pedestrian
area of the sidewalk, sometimes almost across it
and into the fence. Dependably, about once every
two months, a D.O.T. crew shows up, repositions
the upright stanchions to which the guard rail is
attached, replaces the dented rail sections with
new ones, and leaves.
Because these
accidents mainly do damage only to the drivers’
own cars, they’re not reported much; most people
get out of their vehicles, stare at hundreds of
dollars’ worth of body work, curse, and either
take off again if their ride still runs or call
the tow truck if it doesn’t. Hardly ever do
the police show up. So there’s little official
record of the actual number of accidents that happen
at this junction; the closest we have to a formal
account would be the D.O.T.’s ledger of replacement
orders for those guard rails.
This routine
has taken place for some thirty years now, month
after month, at the cost of who knows how much avoidable
private cost to drivers and how many tax-dollar-subsidized
work-hours and guard-rail replacement parts paid
for by the city. On the part of the D.O.T., it constitutes
what we used to call “made work” -- a
repetitive task established and unquestioned mainly
so that someone can be kept occupied and on the
payroll. Yet the problem could be alleviated, perhaps
even ended, by employing any of several relatively
simple expedients: grooving the asphalt before and
around that curve; installing a stop sign on the
corner of Van Duzer and Court St.; putting a flashing
yellow light there; or going all the way and setting
up a stop light there, coordinated with the ones
on Wright St. and Beach St. just ahead.
While this situation
once had a certain entertainment value, it’s
long since grown tedious and repetitive. So I’m
trying a little experiment. I’m publishing
this account of this phenomenon as an open letter
to the Department of Transportation. I’m asking
for a full disclosure of the costs of replacing
and/or repairing those upright posts and that guard
rail, including the time involved and the wages
paid for it, since the D.O.T. converted Van Duzer
Street to one-way usage back around 1970. I want
to see the work orders, to know who’s responsible
for deciding to do nothing to improve this. I want
a record of all the many dates on which repairs
have been made. And I want to see the D.O.T.’s
rationale for allowing this hazardous situation
to continue for close to thirty years.
After all, President
Dubya has declared this an era of accountability.
Surely the D.O.T. can’t consider itself exempt
from that.
•
On a more cheerful
note: As previously mentioned, I’ll premiere
the live-performance version of Spine, on
Friday, June 8th, at 7 p.m., in the garden of the
Tibetan Museum, 338 Lighthouse Hill. Admission is
free. Spine is a multimedia collaboration
with the Finnish photographer Nina Sederholm and
the Finnish composer Mikko Hassinen, incorporating
my poems and voice. This performance is sponsored
by the Council for the Arts and Humanities for Staten
Island. Come one, come all.
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©
Copyright 2001 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved.
By permission of the author and Image/World
Syndication Services,
P.O.B. 040078, Staten Island, New York 10304-0002
USA.
