Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Fixing a (W)hole


Apparently you can fight City Hall.

One of the main roads that runs next to our house is in ruins. It has been for the last two years.

Last summer I was afraid to take my bike down the road for fear of wiping out and breaking my teeth (which as you know is one of my biggest fear, if not the biggest fear).

With Ohio's non-action and non-cash to fix the 3-4 mile stretch that is in our jurisdiction, and with another heinous winter on the books, the road is actually way worse than before - if that was even possible.

There is now no way to avoid a pot hole without hitting another one. This is no exaggeration. Impossible, it is. The above image, which is not of our road (hey, it's like 27 degrees as the high - I wasn't going out there!), but a somewhat good representation, though it doesn't even do it justice to how bad it actually is, or will get once another thaw comes around.

If it were nice out, the road is definitely off limits for a bicycle.

So, I wrote a letter to City Hall. An email, actually. Since I'm the guy who heads up the neighborhood email group, I maybe wrote for the 88 other houses in the 'hood. I may have said I was representing us all. I may have sent it to the mayor, all city council members, elected officials and the manager of city services.

I did talk about property values. I did talk about safety. I did write and send it a month ago. I didn't get an answer. So, I emailed the email group and told them what I did and suggested they all write City Hall too. ...and they took me up on it.

This was two days ago. I now of a dozen or so who actually wrote. Maybe it is coincidence, maybe it isn't, but yesterday I got an email from the city manager telling that in the next month they would be doing 'cold patching' of the street and then in early summer completely re-do the entire road.

That almost makes me feel really bad about sending a letter yesterday to the Plain Dealer's "Road Rant" columnist complaining about the road and the lack of response from the city.

I said "almost".

I'd say, "I win" - but we all do.


Song by: the Beatles

3 comments:

Larry Ohio said...

Just get a hovercraft. That would solve everything. Or maybe a jetpack. That would be cool too. Can you land on your roof at work?

brian said...

Just thank the good Lord that you're dealing with Cleveland Heights and NOT Cleveland. They say NO residential street resurfacing this year. Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy summer!

rebecca said...

YOu are not a kook!

Good job, Citizen Blob!