With regard to St. Paulites' road manners, the City Council in 2001
sponsored a forum on pedestrian safety and traffic calming, featuring
international traffic calming expert and innovator David Engwicht
(www.lesstraffic.com). David, an Australian, has consulted with cities
around the world, including many in the U.S., Canada and England. After
spending a few days here, conducting neighborhood workshops, he said
that he had never been in a city where the people he met were generally
so nice and the drivers he confronted so angry and nasty.
WCCO-TV news covered a community workshop David held at the corner of
Snelling and Hague by the Dairy Queen. As he demonstrated how to cross
a busy intersection, drivers honked, sped up, flashed nasty hand
gestures, hollered at him from their cars, and made St. Paul feel like a
pretty hostile place. When it comes to our cars, we in St. Paul seem to
have a lot of pent-up frustration and impatience.
Jane Prince
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: A disquieting experience (Tim Erickson)
2. Re: Mayoral candidates (Andy Driscoll)
3. RE: A disquieting experience (Rick Mons)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:14:32 -0600
From: Tim Erickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [StPaul] A disquieting experience
To: "St. Paul Issues Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>Frankly, I was surprised at the lack of helpfulness ... and more so at
the
>anger and behavior as I was moving the car out of the way.
>
>Rick Mons
Rick (and all):
I'm very sorry to hear about your experience. A similar topic came up
once a few years ago and its interesting to hear the very different
responses that people have gotten at moments of crisis. I find it
very hard to generalize about St. Paulites willingness to help a
stranded motorist, because the responses vary so much from incident
to incident. I think, that the time of day, the location of the
accident, and even the weather can all factor into how people respond
to the sight of an accident.
I remember passing an accident near my home about a year ago. As I
passed, I noticed that drivers of the cars were both on their cell
phones, one of them looked a little emotionally distressed, but
physically fine. I followed the cars in front of me, as I maneuvered
my way around the accident site.
As I passed and slowly made my way away from the accident, it slowly
became clear to me that this accident must have happened only moments
before I arrived at the intersection. I also remembered, that other
than the drivers, no one else appeared to have stopped.
As I got further away from the accident I began to question whether I
should return to the site. I weighed the fact that both parties
appeared physically ok and that they both had already made calls for
support or help. It was a busy intersection and the weather was fine,
so help was available from passing motorists - if there was an
emergency. Given the conditions, I even questioned whether or not my
interference would be welcomed or simply another distraction. I
wasn't sure if I had anything to offer the situation.
In the end, I did not return to the site immediately. HOWEVER, for
the next two to three hours, I questioned my actions (rather lack of
action) and felt guilty. About 45 minutes later, as I returned home,
I drove by the site to see if there was any sign of the accident.
There was no sign of the accident, but this provided little comfort.
Anyway, I share this story as some indication of what might have been
going through some folks minds as they passed without helping. Of
course, this says nothing about those who actually went out of their
way to Honk or Curse, which is another issue altogether.
Best wishes,
Tim Erickson
Hamline Midway
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
=================================================
Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com
St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722
[EMAIL PROTECTED] iChat/AIM: stpaultim
=================================================
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 18:08:36 -0600
From: Andy Driscoll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [StPaul] Mayoral candidates
To: "St. Paul Discuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Ahh, yes, the same old tiresome arguments raise their ugly heads again.
Dennis never wavering in his defense of the insider baseball that has
lost
more elections for the DFL in the last 20 years than it has won and
little
more than heavy disappointment over the performance of those who did.
Shall we utter the litany of losers elected and non-elected that the
exclusive club has endorsed - state, city and elsewhere?
Nahhh. Let's not - unless it's absolutely necessary to make the point
that
criticism from inside the party about its archaic processes, its
exclusionary club-like atmosphere, its willingness to decapitate its own
strongest members if they dare encroach on preconceived commitments to
the
right of succession to office - elected and party.
Never, but never, critique the party and air its dirty laundry in public
if
you ever wish to curry support from the mob inside. The only way to beat
them is to pack the caucuses or join another party...or often just by
running against the endorsed candidate. You'll be quickly embraced if
you
win, quickly excommunicated if you don't.
Still the illusory view of DFL power in St. Paul. More often than not,
however, it's not a DFLer vs. a Republican - it's two DFLers going
head-to-head. Not pretty, but the maverick usually wins in that case.
Norm
and Randy are but the latest examples. Even I came close.
So now will come the usual suspects lining up to be the next mayor,
running
against pseudo-DFLer Kelly and splitting the party 10 ways with many of
the
candidates claiming they're "next in line." Kelly wins in that case.
But the insiders will extract promises not to take their case to a
primary
by coercion - warning that political careers are on the line if you dare
suggest the people and not a convention should choose the party's
representative in the General Election. They warnings will include empty
promises of support if you commit to dropping out if your opposition is
the
endorsee - and the support always goes elsewhere anyway.
Someone will challenge the endorsee - they always do these days - and
the
party, never wanting to reform itself to present voters with more than
one
preferred candidate, will probably suffer another loss. Any wonder why
Corky
Finney said, "uh-uh" to this? The only wrong statement he made was the
one
where he said the city has lately become too politically polarized - the
operative word being lately?
In my 60 years of politics in St. Paul, I've rarely seen it otherwise,
but
those were the days when Republicans share citizenship with DFLers. Not
all
the battles are internecine and unity all but impossible. It will be a
real
trip to see who emerges as the standard-bearers in the coming year. I
hope
it will be someone who can beat Randy Kelly.
Lord knows we deserve it.
Andy Driscoll
Crocus Hill/Ward 2
------
> From: "Mike Fratto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [StPaul] Mayoral candidates
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Ah Dennis, I have spent many an hour for many years doing the caucus
> thing to find out it was the insider who got his/her way. I have
> served on rules committees where insiders worked to get proposed
> rules that they didn't like defeated. I worked on platform
> committees where committee chairs decided which ones to push
> through.
>
> You are right, if you show up you can have input. But, its my
> experience that you have to show up year after year after year to
> get to a point where your input is accepted.
>
> Mike Fratto
> Payne Phalen
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 22:30:32 -0600
From: "Rick Mons" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: [StPaul] A disquieting experience
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Anne & Tim,
Thanks for your responses. I'll merge my response to one e-mail and not
fall outside the "two-post-per-day" limit (grin)
First, I don't want to suggest the behavior as being St Paul-centric but
simply an observation about us in general. I have typically found that
St
Paulites are a bit more friendly and willing to interact with strangers
than
"The City to the West." Maybe my expectations were higher
Second, I would agree that those drivers who weren't at the scene as the
accident occurred shouldn't be expected to stop and render aid. I do
think
that when you are an "immediate" witness to an accident, it's common
courtesy to check things out and offer help _unless_ doing so would
exacerbate the situation. I'll be generous and assume that's why people
didn't stop.
As you both note, it's probably symptomatic of busier times and less
patience with traffic conditions.
The only redeeming factor is that my car is a convertible and that
season
has pretty much come to an end for '04. This way I won't have to pay
for
storage (grin) ... I suspect the car will be totaled given its age and
the
anticipated costs to repair.
Rick Mons
Tanglewood neighborhood of Shoreview
------------------------------
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End of Stpaul Digest, Vol 11, Issue 14
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