Dear Action Line: I took my life in my own hands and crossed north Main, west to east, at 32nd Street this morning. I survived to the other side and noticed this push button for crossing on the southeast corner. The arrow is aiming east on 32nd (no crosswalk that way), and the push button could be interpreted as “push this and go to hell.” I tried contacting CDOT, but their contact form says “sorry, try again later.” – Puzzled Pedestrian
Dear Puzzled: It’s funny how unforeseen circumstances can turn simple things so complicated.
After trying to puzzle this out, and after contacting others, Action Line realized there are many ways to interpret this crossing sign and arrow. It took a while just to understand that this was the button to push to cross to the north.
Lisa Schwantes, local spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, thought the down arrow meant “Press here.” Action Line thought something similar. Anyway, here’s why this got so confusing and is now so hard to fix.
We’ll let Jen Allison, CDOT regional traffic and safety program manager, explain:
“The pedestrian crossing pedestal push-button sign was obliterated almost immediately after the project was finished,” she said. “It was struck by a rafting bus hauling a trailer full of rafts. The ped(estrian) push button was originally placed on the patterned concrete island.”
When on that “island,” basically a surface of red bricks, the push button and sign arrows could both point north and be easily understood. CDOT, not wanting to put the sign back in what was obviously a precarious place, now faced a quandary.
“Being good stewards of taxpayer dollars, the team reused what they could (the sign, and push-button component) and reinstalled the pedestal at its new ‘safer from raft buses’ location,” Allison said.
The sign arrow was now pointing east. But which direction should the push button point? Down – which could mean north or toward hell, whatever your perspective – or east?
“Down seemed better than the other options,” she said.
“I will reach out to our traffic sign operator and his team to see if the push button can be rotated to face the same way as the sign,” Allison said. “BUT we could then get a complaint that this is now telling peds to push the button and walk east down the sidewalk. Don’t know if we’ll ever win.”
Action Line thinks she’s right. And by the looks on your faces, some of you are still confused.
The above was a subject line to a short email received by Action Line. Reader Barb’s message: “Since you mentioned being persnickety, check it out!”
Action Line wrote last week that a “warrantee” could be voided if one wasn’t careful when clearing off solar panels. It should have been “warranty.”
A warrantee is not a piece of paper but a human – “the person to whom a warranty is made.” A warranty is “a usually written guarantee of the integrity of a product …” And don’t forget the double r’s.
Guarantee is a little confusing too, but a guarantee can be either a person or a thing. And, of course, it has only one r.
See? Action Line warned you last week: English is strange and unpredictable.
Reader Barb concluded: “Memento Vivere!!”
Tom Cochran was one of several readers who gave feedback on a recent Action Line item regarding exhaust from the local Burger King’s grills. Cochran pointed out there is growing evidence that emissions from kitchen exhausts could be a health hazard.
Apparently, more commercial kitchens around the world are installing pollution control units, and more communities are requiring these.
A study several years ago by the University of California at Riverside found that commercially cooked burgers harm air quality more than diesel trucks.
“An 18-wheeler diesel engine truck would have to drive 143 miles on the freeway to put out the same mass of particulates as a single charbroiled hamburger patty,” the study’s principal engineer, Bill Welch, was quoted.
Four years ago, a study by Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies found that restaurant exhaust systems spew a great deal of organic aerosol into the air. Oils and other organic matter is aerosolized and ventilated in the exhaust, according to the study.
Action Line will now leave the matter in the hands of the new La Plata County Board of Public Health to figure out what all this means and what to do about it.
Email questions and suggestions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. “Memento vivere” is Latin, basically an exhortation to “remember to live.” In other words, don’t spend all your time worrying about grammar.
