05/13/08 - RTM NOTES - Traffic Lights Taken Out Of The Buget For The Second Year In A Row (Updated)

Try walking around down town Greenwich while blindfolded.

Hearing cars go by, you finally discover this pole, on which you feel the large street-crossing button. You press it and hear the buzzer on the other side of the street, indicating it was safe to cross, but you are unsure of exactly what direction to walk in, so you stayed put.

How do blind people do it???

Now imagine being blind and crossing Greenwich Avenue without a traffic light to assist you.

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The Representative Town Meeting last night debated the merits of installing traffic lights on Greenwich Avenue.

For the second time the RTM has voted down adding traffic lights on Greenwich Avenue. The vote was 124 to 51 to remove the item from the final budget that was passed last night. There were two abstentions.

Many RTM used the Town's dislike for former First Selectman Jim Lash to convinced a divided RTM to eventually vote down spending $1.5 million to erect traffic signals on Greenwich Avenue at Havemeyer Place, Elm Street and Lewis Street.

It was pointed out that this year funds would be eligible to reimburse the Town through a transportation grant.

First Selectman Peter Tesei made an appeal for handicapped citizens who have trouble navigating Greenwich Avenue after the police officers leave at 5pm each day. He spoke of citizens who guide dogs and are confined to wheel chairs who are personally asking him to make Greenwich Avenue safer for them on Nights and weekends.

It was noted that new handicapped restrooms were currently being installed on the first floor of Town Hall.

James G. Boutelle of Transportation Association Of Greenwich (Tag) spoke of other obsticles that the handicaped of Greenwich must over come. FoJames G. Boutelle example, persons in wheel chairs can't use the Metro North Train Station in Greenwich in the evenings.

However, the prospect of putting up lights on Greenwich Avenue has once again proved to be a divisive issue in the budget.

Personally, I voted against the $1.5 million as a cost cutting reasons and not for aesthetic reasons, but as I started to write this story I began to think that I had made a mistake in voting against the safety signals.

I and other RTM members did not to fully consider the needs of some of the weakest members of Greenwich Society.

Mr. Tesei spoke of a 40 something year old man who had to walk with a seeing eye dog and had trouble navigating unregulated Greenwich Avenue intersections.

In fact, visually handicapped and wheel chair bound individuals seem to avoid Greenwich Avenue. When was the last time that you saw a person with a seeing eye dog in the Greenwich Avenue Strabucks.

Maybe, Blind persons don't like starbucks coffee or maybe they don't feel safe crossing that intersection next to the post office.

On Monday, RTM members should have been asked to walk across the intersection next to the Post Office at 5:30 pm. The surviving RTM members could have then cast their votes about the traffic lights latter that night.

It is strange that the Town of Greenwich requires starbucks to have wheel chair accessible restrooms, yet we don't protect wheel chair bound persons in the intersection in front of starbucks.

If First Selectman Tesei had invited some wheel chair bound Greenwich citizens to speak before the RTM, then I definately would have voted to give them safety devices and traffic protection on Greenwich Avenue.

I guess wheel chair bound citizens find it difficult to get to the Central Middle School on Indian Rock Lane.

First Selectman Tesei is not a stupid man he probably knew that traffic lights would get voted down again, but he decided to stand up for those who could not stand up on their own.

Mr. Tesei did the right thing to speak up for the needs of the handicapped of Greenwich and more RTM members and citizens should have joined his effort to protect these individuals.

Looking back, I wish I had supported Mr. Tesei's plea to help protect those less fortunate than myself.

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