Here's something that I see all the time in Detroit that I cannot believe...

How is it that when some simple construction occurs on a sidewalk, that it is torn up and left for a period of time just as an area with no sidewalk, than sporadically worked on?

At Vernor & Chene they have been tearing up the sidewalk for a few weeks now in what may be a possible replacement of the traffic signals.  After a bit of work the holes were simply left either open, or in one case a tarp appeared to cover one (partially.)

Another on Cass & Canfield is installing one of those pretty Wayne State markers.  It's finally getting a sidewalk after sitting as an open pit for weeks, with merely a few orange barrels & some plastic netting blocking one part of the sidewalk from it (this wasn't there when it was an open pit)

What amazes me is how nobody looks at these and thinks "Wow.  Someone comes along and stumbles and that's a major lawsuit!"  Could it be perhaps that we are simply used to things being done in such fashion?

In New York it doesn't matter whether it is on Park Avenue or Lenox... If they redo the sidewalk they divert pedestrian traffic into the street with a barrier between the lanes for cars.  The construction area is cordoned off with a wall of plywood until the project is done.  Voila!  Safety!

It's not difficult to do things properly.  It can actually save money in the long run.

PS.  It would be nice to have had some standardization with all of the redone sidewalk ADA compliant ramps.  Take a look at an intersection sometime.  You'll probably see one corner with a completely flush semi-circle, another with a small curb in the middle, another with a large curb and the fourth being slightly different as well (maybe only one wide rumble strip where the others have two small ones.)  Not only does this look tacky (like someone wearing two different shoes,) but picture a vision impaired pedestrian getting to find out that the new ADA sidewalk ramp isn't quite the same as he expected.  Yet another lawsuit...

Just what the world needs...

Yes.  I realize there are approximately 32,487,596 blogs about Detroit out there, providing information on everything from what to order at the hottest new feeding troth to photos of people wearing white after Labor Day.

Here, I want to do nothing different than what anybody else does and just share a few observations I have made and feelings I have living back home in Detroit.  I may even compare a few things to what I experienced while living in New York for over a decade.  Ok, I probably will compare a lot of things to New York.  Detroit is not NYC, but it sure could learn a hell of a lot from a city that even with all of its flaws, tends to get things right more often than not.

Now let's see if anybody actually reads this...