City, not a nonprofit, responsible for safety
While I understand the idea behind "slow streets" in Fayetteville, I would like to point out that this initiative was started with little input from the people who actually live in the neighborhoods in which "slow streets" is being conducted. There were no surveys, no questionnaires, no neighborhood meetings concerning where and how "slow streets" would be implemented. It was just forced upon certain streets.
I understand the Wilson Park neighborhood loves it as it excludes people from driving through their neighborhood, however, no one has questioned the safety of the "slow streets" initiative. Safety is actually the responsibility of the city of Fayetteville itself, not the nonprofit BikeNWA. We, as taxpayers, pay yearly for fire and police and as such we expect some return on our investment.
"Slow streets" has come to South Washington Avenue, which has long been a drag strip for cars, but "slow streets" is ineffective and dangerous. It is dangerous because if there were an emergency that required the fire department and/or EMS to drive down the street, those large vehicles could not get through the "slow streets" barricades placed in the middle of the street, and we all know seconds matter in the case of an emergency.
I suggest that the city of Fayetteville install more four-way stop signs, have police vehicles sitting on streets and writing more speeding tickets (thus increasing revenue for the city of Fayetteville) and that they not let nonprofit organizations police and protect our streets and neighborhoods. The city is opening itself up to a lawsuit if an emergency happens on a "slow streets" street and a life is lost because of slower response times.
At the very least, the "slow streets" signs need to be placed to one side of the street to allow emergency vehicles through without obstructions or hindrance. The alternative to "slow streets" would be to permanently lower street speeds, set up speed traps and write tickets and let it be known that speeding is not tolerated on the neighborhood streets of Fayetteville.
Lisa Meeks
Fayetteville
Maybe 'virus' is really experiment in control
Do we have viruses? You bet, but a pandemic? If we actually had a pandemic it seems there would be sick people all over the place. Spending time out and about, other than all the colorful and sometimes clever masks, people look normal to me. They aren't hacking, coughing, sweating, or feebly dragging themselves along struggling to suck air into their virus-ravaged lungs.
I don't know anyone who is sick and no one I know knows of anyone who is deathly ill with the covid virus. I read the obituaries every day on my iPad and nearly all the people that they tell us die from this virus share being older, feeble and sick. They are all likely to pass from this life, virus or not. A dear friend of mine recently passed from cancer troubles at an advanced age. It wasn't a virus. He was, like me, old.
What if what we have here isn't a pandemic, but an experiment in control? If so, it is scary that it seems to be working on a lot of people. Could it be that people in power are showing us who is really in charge of every aspect of our lives in spite of our constitutional liberties, freedoms and right to self determination? Show me the virus clause in the U.S. Constitution.
It might not be too much of a stretch to assume that people might well be the victims of tyrants our forefathers warned us about when in 1796 George Washington wrote in his farewell address, "they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
Jeff Cook
Springdale