Do people listen?

         It was entertaining to see the city council in session.  A lot of stuff gets put on an agenda and gets run through in a matter of a few minutes.  It's kinda like a bike club meeting only more so.  There was a lot of stuff being done and it gave me time to look over the building.  Really, one of the neater things in this town is the Art Deco architecture and the city hall interior is a great example of it.

 Whenever I walk into the foyer, I imagine Lauren Bacall posing at the top of a staircase in a white satin dress holding a foot long cigarette holder (no, that's not a roll of quarters in my pocket).  But I digress,
 we were talking about biking and I just had to think of something to get me through the rest of the agenda.
         The plans to reconstruct a dangerous corner had been put on hold for the engineers to review.  They made a very halting, cautiously confused and intimidated presentation to the council.  They may have realized they made a mistake when, 4 years ago, they concocted this design without any consideration for non-motorized traffic.    Well, they hemmed and hawed their way through a weak and apologetic explanation for their failure.  It was fun to watch them squirm.   They had committed an obvious faux paux and they just wanted out.  We, the all powerful bike lobby, were lined up behind waiting to whip them with greasy chains or, worse yet, pounce on every grammatical error and begrime their very existence.

      Actually the council pretty much raked 'em over the coals and 12 of us got up in our turns to put in 4 minutes of our own comments. The resolution was passed to accept the grant and continue the work with the understanding that one lane would be designated as shared use

 using current sharrow designations and updated signage.

      It was a productive meeting and the following day there was some sloppy criticism responding to the press report, but despite a couple of dumb comments, the response has been positive.  

 People listen, occasionally.