As someone who lives on 29th Street between Olive and M, I cannot disagree strenuously enough with your editorial calling for 28th and 29th to be turned into one-way streets. There is no doubt that traffic flow in the area results in damaged mirrors, but “solving this problem” – which I would argue, having suffered a couple of these incidents myself, is just an unfortunate reality of street parking in an urban area – in this manner will only exacerbate a bigger one.
My mirrors notwithstanding, I am far more concerned about the threat to life and limb posed by the reckless driving that routinely occurs on both 28th and 29th with cars traveling far in excess of the speed limit and barreling through stop signs without regard to the signs themselves or pedestrians that are in the crosswalks. It is simply a matter of time before we witness a terrible tragedy as things currently stand. Removing oncoming traffic as an obstacle to these wannabe Mario Andretti’s would take away the one thing that actually forces them to slow down.
The mirror problem is also a reckless driving problem and the way to address this issue is straightforward: actually enforce existing traffic regulations by issuing tickets to violators. The word would get out.
Matthew Perl
