You remember very recently we were talking about accidents on 6th Avenue. Well, one of our neighbors wrote to me yesterday to tell me there had been two of them on Friday (yesterday), very near his house, and one of them involved four vehicles.
In his e-mail to me, our neighbor specified that one car ran into the fence "catty corner" from him.
I was already aware of one of the accidents, because I saw the debris from it when I was coming home at noon Friday. (I'm now even more bionic than I was before, having visited CVS to get my coronavirus vaccine booster and a flu shot!)
So then, I told our neighbor that we certainly need much more enforcement on 6th Avenue, and that, by the way, it's catercorner, not catty corner. So he wrote back to say that where he grew up, they called that kind of relationship among buildings "kitty corner." (So what's with the "catty corner," which he then wrote was the "only truth?")
Imagine that: he's incorrect about English language usage, and he can't focus on the best solution to our 6th Avenue problem. If I didn't like this guy so much... But I did offer to settle the matters with him behind the bleachers after school. Now that I'm bionic and all.
I wonder if Mario Diaz and Luis Cabrera read this blog. Nothing else so far appears to have gotten their attention about the 6th Avenue traffic problem. Maybe I should invite them, too, to meet me behind the bleachers after school. The three of them against me is more or less an even match-up, if I can get Luis to put down his gun. It's not completely clear to me how bionic I am.
Sheesh? I always knew it as Catty Corner. Also, I was blissfully ignorant (for once) about the new accidents, they must have been to the south of me.
ReplyDeleteNope. The one I saw was in the same place as the one a couple of weeks or so ago. It was right in front of you. Blissfully ignorant indeed. I'm glad you missed these two. You've been warning us about that corner, and you're right.
DeleteFred
well, we were up in Fort Lauderdale today, so i'm very glad that I missed them. Interesting, that makes 4 in a couple of months in the same place. Maybe there is something to think about here? Probably no!
DeleteCater-corner is found in the Oxford English Dictionary. It comes from the base word cater, which from "quatre", the number four in French. Catty-corner (and other forms) is considered dialect (dependent upon where you live), and therefore can be spelled any way one prefers. I'm from Oregon and over there we say kitty-corner. Whichever way you prefer to say it, it's fine!
DeleteAsk any of the neighbors living in the vicinity of 6 Ave and 119th St. how many horrific accidents happen there with regularity including cars exploding overturn cars the records will show that it’s intersection that stands out for accidents above the rest. My family room in my former home on fifth Avenue was in the back of the house which was set way back and I could hear the accidents how many times I went running around the corner. A traffic study was done however nothing came of it I was shocked. The presence of police is practically nonexistent on 6 Ave now unlike years past. Where it wasn’t effective welcome into Biscayne Park!!
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
DeleteYou, BrambleWitch, my friend who wrote to me yesterday, and other people who live very near that intersection all tell the same story. It's bad enough that drivers are asleep at the wheel. It makes matters worse when BP management and police are also asleep at the wheel.
We need the "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs back, and we need the enforcement to back up the warning.
Fred
Haven’t you all seen our police out in force on 6th ave. Almost daily from 6:00am - at least 7:00am? Have you not noticed them sitting with radar guns either in the triangle park at 114 and 6th or in between the medians on 116 or 115? Come on now, let’s at least be fair and acknowledge there has been a great deal of visibility from our police force! You can’t be at the right place at the right time all the time!
DeleteHoGo,
DeleteAre most of the accidents between 6:00 AM and 7:00 AM? If they are, then officers with radar guns several blocks away don't appear to be the solution. If the officers are there (manning the radar guns), maybe they'd be more effective cruising.
Fred
HoGo,
DeleteJust to restate the point in a different way, the latest cluster, and many others, of the accidents is at the corner of 119th St. You know this, because this is where you live. If drivers who get into accidents are driving south, they don't even know about the speed trap five blocks ahead of them. They just get into accidents before they ever get to the speed trap. If drivers who get into accidents are driving north, they've already passed the speed trap, and they know CNM is a visible two blocks away. So they've stopped worrying about their speed. Assuming they're not also busily talking on their mobile phones, and no longer paying much attention to anything.
What do you think moving cruisers with lights constantly flashing would do along that road, maybe from 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM, if that's when all the accidents are happening?
Fred
Was an effective welcomr!! Sorry for siri!
ReplyDeleteFred as a former commissioner you should know better. We are a Village of 0.6 Square miles and most days we have 2 officers on duty. Those two officers have to patrol the entire Village. There are issues on 6th Avenue as well as many other areas in our Village. When I moved here 5 years ago there was little to no enforcement and that's being generous! We have come a long way and continue to make positive strides. Its not all doom and gloom my friend. It isn't perfect but its better and we hope to make it even better than that!
ReplyDeleteArt,
DeleteI just wrote a reply to this, and it disappeared. What I said was that as a former Commissioner who's lived here more than three times as long as five years, I can give you some perspective. First, almost all speeding tickets in the Village have always been written on 6th Avenue. So someone was patrolling. Second, we've always been small and always been commensurately short-staffed, but we got this job done. Third, we have been known for decades as the "Don't Even Think About Speeding" Village, so we were effective.
I applaud your ambition to make things better. I hope that posts like this one, and the comments beneath them, give you some insight as to what areas need improvement, so you and the Commission can address this with the manager.
Fred
Art, I have lived near this corner for 28 years so maybe you should look at the records from the less recent past. When we had the attitude of "don't even think about speeding" this street was a very minor problem. We probably had less officers then, it was the intention of CARING about the safety of the residents. It isn't perfect but it also isn't better.
ReplyDeleteAnd there was less traffic. Less people living in and moving into Miami
DeleteHoGo,
DeleteThis was the point I tried to make in a blog post a couple of weeks ago. People didn't suddenly start flocking to S Florida in the past few years. A lot of people have wanted to be here for a long time. And that large and growing group includes you. I was born here, and I've lived here off and on for my whole life. That's my choice (except for the being born here part), like living here now was your choice. You further chose to do something a sizeable number of people would not have chosen to do, or would have chosen not to do: live on 6th Avenue. And the reason you're complaining about the choice you made is the reason many people would not have made that choice. Do you think they're smarter than you are, and that they very clearly envisioned and understood what you totally overlooked or otherwise failed to realize?
We can't turn back those clocks now, and manipulate to have "less traffic [and] less people" in a metropolitan area like this. On 6th Avenue. We need to re-establish proper control of 6th Avenue, which is a state road about which we don't make any rules. The speed limit is 30, and the number of lanes is four, and there are medians, because that's the way the state wants it. And it's their road. And we chose to live in a municipality through which it runs, and you chose to live right on 6th Avenue. We can't install STOP signs or traffic lights unless the state agrees to that. Which they haven't. The one thing we can do, which we have normally done, and which we should do again, is patrol it, to be sure the rules are followed. And the fact of our patrolling it is conspicuous to drivers, so it will get their attention, and lead them to be more likely to follow the rules, and drive safely. And that's what we should do.
Fred
PS: I live on 119th St, which is a two lane road, with wider medians than there are on 6th Avenue. And STOP signs at every intersection. And there are people who wouldn't live on 119th St, either. Too busy for them. I probably mentioned this (at least once) before, but the woman who used to own the house in which I live visited me one day not very long after I moved in. It was still very nostalgic for her, even though she'd sold it to someone else, and they'd sold it to me. She showed me a photograph of her house (my house) with a car crashed into the front of the house. On little old sleepy two-lane 119th St. It was probably after that that she planted an oak tree in front of the house. (It came down in the '05 hurricanes, and I replaced it with a poinciana.)
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ReplyDeleteHere is what I wrote in 2017
ReplyDeleteTraffic Citations. Here are a few things I have found out so far.
1. only a very small portion of a citation goes to the City or Village issuing the citation the rest goes to County.
2. if someone fights or decides to take the ticket to court or hires one of these ticket clinics (which most folks do) the officer needs to go to court so their is a cost associated with that like O/T etc.
So long story short this is not a significant revenue stream so that for me is no longer the argument. This is a matter of safety and quality of life. I want to see anyone and everyone that breaks a traffic law in this Village cited whether they pay or not we will once again establish a reputation of being strict on traffic laws which we seem to have lost. One thing folks hate is being inconvenienced so let's do a lot of that! Lastly traffic stops also lead to other things such as open warrants, illegal activity, drugs arrests etc. etc. so it's also a way of curtailing crime.
Still waiting to see actual stats from Village.
Art,
DeleteYou successfully defeated your own argument. It doesn't matter if we get a small amount of money for writing tickets, or if we get no money from it. "One thing folks hate is being inconvenienced, so let's do a lot of that." And it's not about passive-aggressive mischief-making on our part. We need to give drivers a reason to pay attention to their speed, and what they're doing. As I said before, even a little safety chat accomplishes that goal.
Fred
Here is the data I posted on NextDoor in 2017
ReplyDeleteCitation Data for the Village. Several weeks ago I asked for hard data on moving violation citations issued in the Village. I have heard from many residents that we are not seeing the same level of enforcement as in the past. The following information goes back to 2013. These are the number of citations given per year. Now you have hard data on what's obviously a decline in the enforcement efforts in the Village
2013 - 5,310 Citations issued, average 15 citations daily
2014 - 1,939 Citations issued, average 5 citations daily
2015 - 988 Citations issued, average of 3 citations daily
2016 - 585 Citations issued, average of 2 citations daily
2017 - As of 2/20 - 98 Citations issued, average 2 per day
Good, Art,
DeleteSo you and BrambleWitch and I agree. As an elected representative of Village residents, please address this with the manager.
Fred
I cannot speak to what was because I wasn't here at the time. I can only speak about what has happened since we moved here 5 years ago and compared to then it has certainly gotten better IMO. I hear a lot about the legend of "Don't Even Think About Speeding" and that sounds like it was a great campaign. No one wants there to be more enforcement than me. When we first moved here and noticed the LACK of enforcement I made a public records request and was shocked to learn that we were averaging 2 citations per day. I put that on NextDoor and brought awareness to the community. I am all for more enforcement but I also realize that our officers cannot be in one place at all times...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the data Art. I too realize that the officers cannot be in one place at all times. What I DO think is that (like during the olden days) the schedule for policing the streets should be erratic. Never the same place at the same time on the same day. Vary the streets and the times so that drivers would never be sure if they would get ticketed or not. Not a very hard concept.
DeleteSo Art, what I don't understand is: if you are putting up the stats which show a pretty large decline in the number of citations, why are you stating that it is better?
And yes Howard, I do understand that there are more people driving and moving into the area. I still believe that there should be some sort of effort to help control the dangerous speeding.
The data I provided was from 2013-2017 I can request the current data but I'm certain its a lot more than 2 citations per day.
ReplyDeleteAs far as "never the same place at the same time" I don't know for sure if that is currently happening today but I would venture to say that it is.
Art and BrambleWitch,
DeleteI feel confident that Luis Cabrera knows a lot about the most effective ways of deploying the police to control traffic and keep order, and he probably doesn't need our intuitions about it.
Art, you have me, BrambleWitch, HoGo, and the person who wrote to me yesterday, not to mention other Village residents, all telling you the same thing: there's an accident problem on 6th Avenue. I think if you use that information in your communications with Mario (does he really not know this?), or in your discussions in Commission meetings, you'll be effective in getting Mario's attention, and pointing him in a direction that is important to everyone on or near 6th Avenue, all Village residents, and everyone who drives on 6th Avenue. We have a problem. Please solve it, as we used to solve it.
Fred
Ditto Fred, thanks for that last paragraph. That is all.
Delete