Tonight, I’m writing about a protest march that occurred on Monday, June 12, in the city of Erie, Pennsylvania, near where I live. It’s about a local issue which may not concern you personally, but the issue is emblematic of certain problems that plague us as a nation.
The East Side of Erie is the poor side of town, and the powers that be tend to neglect its needs, if not actively making things worse. Not surprisingly, many of the residents of the East Side are African American or recent immigrants. Recent highway construction has brought a thoroughfare called the Bayfront Connector through their neighborhood, and this high-speed road has made walking to school more dangerous for the local children. On May 28 of this year, an 8-year-old boy named Jazarion Paul was hit while he was attempting to cross the Bayfront Connector on his way home from school. He’s in a coma, in a hospital in Pittsburgh. And Jazarion is not the only child who has been injured or killed in this way. The main motivator for this march was to raise awareness for pedestrian safety, and for children in particular. More over the fold.
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The route of the march followed the route that most of the children from that neighborhood have to follow to get to school. Most of it follows along the Bayfront Connector, and through high-traffic intersections. At one point, the marchers had to cross an off-ramp with no crosswalk, and in places, there was no sidewalk. There was no question in my mind that this route simply was not safe for children to walk on their own.
However, there is an alternative. Parallel to the Bayfront Connector is a bridge called the McBride Viaduct, which crosses the train tracks. In need of maintenance, the viaduct was closed to traffic in 2010 to much consternation. In the meantime, the Bayfront Connector came on line and carries the traffic that used to travel across the McBride Viaduct, and then some. But in the time that the viaduct was closed to auto traffic, it became a pedestrian bridge. connecting to low-traffic streets. It’s a safe route that kids can take walking to and from school. The march returned to its starting point by taking the viaduct.
During the march, I heard four of the girls marching with us singing in harmony, and then realized they were not singing in English. They were immigrants from Africa (possibly refugees), and their singing was superlative.
You know what’s coming, don’t you? The city wants to tear down the viaduct. What East Siders are proposing is to refurbish the viaduct into a bridge for pedestrians and bikes. Refurbishment would cost less than $3 million. Tearing it down will cost $4.5 million. Saving the viaduct is less expensive and better for the lives of East Side residents and their children. As we were crossing the bridge, there were workmen present in the process of discussing how best to tear it down.
A number of groups have joined to try to change the minds of those in leadership. I hope our action on Monday may help that to happen.
Some links to sources for this story are here, here, and here.
On to the comments!
Top Comments, (June 15, 2017):
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From MikeTheLiberal:
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Gareth gives us a great Secret Service code name for Twitler, re: Special Counsel Mueller looking into money laundering by Trump &Co, as per Mark Sumner’s front page post on the subject.
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From Gwennedd:
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From belinda ridgewood:
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Top Mojo (June 14, 2017):
Top Photos (June 14, 2017):
Tonight’s picture quilt is courtesy of jotter!