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A New Sidewalk
20 June 2017
We were on one of our urban safaris the other day when we noticed a new sidewalk had been laid on the other side of the street. There are some fabulous views of downtown on that side of the street but they were inaccessible until now.
On the way back we made a point of taking the new sidewalk and snapping some of those shots we'd always just not quite been able to frame from the other side of the street.
New Sidewalk. Same old traffic sign.
That's when we looked up the hill and saw the Stop sign looking back down at us.
Pretty funny, we thought.
It's a vertical, clearly. And with a circular polarizer on the 35mm lens (which provided something of a normal focal length on our Nikon D300), what you're seeing is what we saw only a bit glamorized.
The thumbnail, however, prevents any appreciation of the yellow sign above the Stop sign. That advises:
ONCOMING TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP
Which, when you think about, should be no surprise. When has oncoming traffic ever stopped?
Still, the funny part in this scene is played by the Stop sign.
Stuck in the middle of the new sidewalk, it seemed directed more at the pedestrian traffic than the automobile traffic.
But you can understand its timidity at not being any closer to the gutter.
Stop signs get no respect. The one on the corner below our picture window back at the bunker is routinely disregarded.
True, it's hidden by a persimmon tree most months of the year (when the persimmon's branches are not bare, that is). But that's only part of the story.
Most drivers must figure no one's watching so why not. The road to the left is gated and the road to the right, just a few feet further up the hill, is generally unoccupied.
So they shoot through. Some of them slow down and roll through, but a very high percentage accelerate right by the Stop sign, driving well over 30 miles per hour.
In a school zone, mind you.
It's a one-way street but there's no guarantee about that either. Somehow the Uber drivers never notice that on their smartphone maps. So there's that danger, too.
In the 14 years we've stood guard here, we've never witnessed an accident. But it's just a matter of time.
Oncoming traffic, after all, does not stop.