Park Kevin Cormack!

Slow Road To Nowhere!

The stretch of road between the soccer-field and tram-tracks used to be dotted with several large clusters of various bushes - giving not only the road itself but the whole area bright-changing color and texture. Breaking-up the flat uniformity of field and road.

Late last fall, all bushes were dug-up unceremoniously; wounds were left open, seeping and dark during winter - to more recently be tended: closed as in paved over. Without these bushes the area now is monochromatically and spatially dull.

Reason given for the removal - not volunteered! - was that people are speeding along there (to where?), and children could get hurt when suddenly running across the road from behind these bushes.

Which would - if accepting this scenario - raise the basic question why nobody had been concerned with their safety all these years. Not even their soccer-moms!

Definitely NOT accepting it: following is a dismantling of this story, and therein another example emerging of how City Hall - here specifically Kevin Cormack, City Manager - is only superficially interested in the Nelson public - as individuals or a whole - but very much so in catering to special-interest groups.

Follow me - safely!

Deconstructing City Reasoning!

1. Signage
1a.
Coming from the mall-access road there is a 20km/h (way fast here!) sign - much hidden by trees and eventually visible only from a distance of about 10 meters.
1b.
Why wasn't the sign placed - say just on the far side of the sand-pit - a long time ago: there clearly visible to drivers at any time of the year and from greater distance? 
1c.
Why wasn't the speed-limit lowered to 5km/h - a long time ago?
1d.
Why hasn't there been an elsewhere commonly used high-contrast black-on-yellow sign, alerting drivers to children at play - since a long time ago - together with the 5km/h sign? A current low-contrast (smallish light blue lettering on white) Kiwanis - NOT City! - sign is easily ignored.

2. Speeding And View-Obstruction
I am on that road twice a day, including on weekends, really the only time there MAY BE any kind of traffic to speak of: the OCCASIONAL soccer-crowd. Over years - I have never observed any speeding, and I have never heard of any accidents because of it along there.
Also, walkers - in the absence of a side-walk and this not being a through-artery - usually walk along the center of the open road-space - instead of meandering along the soccer-side around cars. How stupid would that be! So drivers - by force (and on the look-out for the most convenient place to park) - drive slowly, as not to run-down walkers: clearly visible and slow and in cars' way!

 
2a.
Seeing that parking until moments ago was perpendicular to the soccer-side of the road, and many vehicles - particularly campers, vans, pick-ups - are just as high and stick out just as far as those bushes: there was no difference between children possibly impulsively darting out from behind bushes and between motor-vehicles. ANY motor-vehicles along the whole stretch!
So - following Mr. Cormack's reasoning: there shouldn't be any parking here at all!
2b.
Law of averages - an accident probably would be caused by a local or out-of-town soccer-mom/dad. Why then haven't traffic-behavior regulations - ages ago - been clearly and forcefully built into permission-to-use of the facility? Like eh soccer-mom you could run over another soccer-mom's child or another soccer-mom could run over yours! I mean: is that cool?
2c.
Now individual spaces have been marked-off all along - but on an angle AWAY from the direction of cars about to park. And when it's busy.... You want accidents? Yeah! Perpendicular was the most hassle-free - coming or going - but NO MORE! 
2d.
Why haven't regulations stipulated - a long time ago - that teams must have an adult present along the road-side, solely responsible for keeping team-members off the road? 
(Maybe helping with new parking-weirdness, too - when not busy saving lives!)

The REAL Kicker! 

Very clearly - if children's safety REALLY were the issue - many/all of these steps should/could/would have been taken eons ago to ensure it. Using the vulnerable-children thing (how about puppies?) as pretext for cutting down greenery - previously enjoyed by all - to make room for more parking to convenience an occasional, totally self-serving, lazy special-interest group - is tacky!

And exactly what happened. Local soccer-moms - in whatever Nelson-Sports affiliation - are a well-entrenched force to be reckoned with for who-knows-what reason by some at City Hall: and they insisted on more parking-spaces right here, right now! Coming from the same mindscape as - when shopping - having to park as close as possible to the Walmart entrance. So between them and the obliging city manager this story - a flabby assault on anyone's intelligence - was cooked-up. What's next here: personalized parking-slots? Courtesy of?

There are no parking-spaces designated to the handicapped. And rightly so: don't soccer - don't figure!

Same soccer-moms vigorously objected to the skate-park in the turn-about! With bottle-neck-traffic talk. Horse-puckie! Less parking for us right here?     
NO WAY! NO SKATE-PARK HERE YOU DON'T!

Costs: Goodwill And Dollars!

Those who just may be wondering where frivolous decisions such as this and money for them - more and more frequently unapproved by Council - are generated. In the city manager's office, with his generous funding through ever increasing taxes/water-rates/etc.
   
All - as ever - exuding the unmistakable unbearable stench of baby-vomit!








Some images: Daniel Bombardier, Hart Kim