Pedestrian Pushback

Few things upset me these days. Back in 2004, out of school and with my first career oriented job at a little luxury homebuilder called Toll Brothers, I had a lot of stress come out of the ordinary things I did in my life. My commute sucked, 45 minutes, I had no money and i had to keep filling up the gas tank every week. I had no idea what I was doing and I was insecure, so I had an irrational fear of getting called into the office to be told that my hiring was a mistake. Traffic sucked. Stressing about being late to work sucked. Gaining weight because my only lunch options were fast food places in Morrisville.

So fast forward to 2008. I'm happy at my job, I only live 10 minutes away by bike. I don't deal with traffic - actually the thought of being late because I got stuck in traffic feels like something I used to do but have now forgotten about, like watching Thundercats after school or eating Campbell's Soup. Yes, I get pissed when cars cut me off on the streets, but I feel like it's more like a challenge for me to bike faster.

But there is one thing these days that absolutely gets me angry every time - seeing red, thinking about writing my congressman, organizing a protest, shouting match kind of angry. I'm sick of construction sites in the city taking over the sidewalks. It's completely disrespectful to pedestrians, and quite often it's dangerous. The one I most often see is on 2nd street in Queen Village around the block from my house. Punks!

So I'm glad to see pushback like this. Seriously, it's time to make these kinds of conditions unacceptable in this city.