Stop Chicken Little: The Truth about Traffic Calming  in Portland, Maine


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Medians: Vannah Avenue and Baxter Boulevard


             Vannah Avenue is a nice street with quite a bit of traffic at its East end, the confluence of Vannah, Woodfords Avenue, and Clifton Street. It finally got bad enough about 2004 to put in a signal light, and shortly after that a median!

              The median  is supposedly a "pedestrian refuge", but seeing that it gets hit all the time, I question the value of that. Its problem is that it sticks out into the turning area if you are heading outbound to I-295.  During the winter you can't see it at all.

              What bothers me is all the damage to the median. That means that there is damage done to any car that hits it, so there are people driving around with damage of one sort or another  to their underbody, suspensions, steering systems, etc. : Tens of thousands of dollars worth over the years.......for nothing. Not to mention that a damaged part might break someday and cause an accident. This is dangerous and stupid.

               In the pictures below, notice the scraping on top of the median. Every new scrape is new damage to somebody's car. Notice the skid marks around the median, and up the sides. As you can see in the 6th picture below, there just  is not enough room for almost any size car to maneuver around the median. Notice the damage to the tape on the stanchion - it's slowly torn off, as drivers run over it.

              
   Dec. 12, 2006     August 14, 2007    Nov. 11, 2008 
     
  April 29, 2009    Jan. 27, 2010    Feb. 27, 2007 
     
Feb.27,2007  This was new Feb. 27, 2007 Feb. 27,2007 They went right over the sign!
     
Nov. 11, 2008-  they tried a Safe-hit
 stanchion. Didn't last too long.
It got crushed ala Dartmouth Streets. Notice it faces in, so somebody on Baxter must have hit it.           Nov. 11, 2008 The big sign got nailed, again. Bent this time, replaced the next time.
                                          Nov. 11, 2008
     
July 21, 2009  Hit again.....This was the NEW sign July 21, 2009 Stanchion only got hit once      July 21, 2009
     
Oct. 20, 2009- the edge shows some beating While the pole is looking rough               Oct. 20, 2009 Jan.20,2010   Hit again in snow....the pole is safe though.
     
Jan. 1, 2008 This guy got the whole thing! Whoa! : New Years, I guess.... Feb 24, 2009... Hit again Feb. 15, 2007 Multiple hits.

          Enough of this - it's just hit, hit, hit. I have hundreds more examples of these, all depressingly the same.

           It makes one wonder what these things are really supposed to be doing.  Increasing safety is not it, for sure.

SO, Next to Dartmouth Street   

             to Woodfords Median

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