When I heard that the town was going to put a roundabout where Route 23 meets Route 7, I said, “This is not good.” As is often the case, I was right. There was some seriously misplaced thinking going on and if you’ve been going around that circle, you know that I’m right. It’s clearly an accident waiting to happen. I said so when they announced the new rules, and, while I am not always right, in this case I was. As you carefully enter that circle and then carefully exit it, presumably without getting hit, you may find yourself asking why this so-called “improvement” was necessary. The thing is, if you give someone a hammer, that person will always be looking for something to use the hammer on. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve gotta say that I really never had a problem before the new “improved” circle was installed. In the old days, I came up to the light, waited for it to signal that it was safe to go, and when the right moment came, I went. Maybe because I am older now and have been following old rules for so long, I find this new way of doing things frustrating.
So why are there new rules? Maybe it’s because someone somewhere determined that we have to second guess all the things that have worked just fine for a long time. Just think about it—we have all driven up the Taconic on our way north and then east on Route 23 until we got to Route 7. Now the geniuses in charge of making new rules have determined that we will just have to get used to doing things differently, whether or not they make much sense. We are not experts with degrees in traffic engineering. Maybe the actual experts don’t get credit unless they come up with new rules, even if those rules are a pain in the rear end. We see this kind of thing all the time. For example, over the years we have watched the engineering people make classic mistakes like narrowing or widening streets which don’t need to be narrowed or widened. The problem is that we live in highly taxed Great Barrington and all that tax money has to go someplace. Hence, new rules.
There will always be people whom we call “bureaucrats.” Many of these are very good people. I remember when Roselle and I lived in Alford so many years ago, there were only one or two people who might fall under this designation. If you are following along with the bouncing ball, you know that the more the taxes, the larger the bureaucracy, the more numerous the rules, and the greater need to install roundabouts in places like where Route 7 meets Route 23. So, I apologize to anyone that I am infuriating with this kind of thinking. I don’t mean to cause you discomfort. I know that when you see three or four town workers standing around a newly dug hole in the ground, you never, ever think that this might be a job that could be done by far fewer personnel.
We all know that full employment of our population is desirable. Just look up Harry Truman and his thoughts on the matter. Do we really think that we should make jobs for people who will make rules and will tax us for things we really don’t need?
We should keep a small tape recorder and/or a pad and pencil next to us to make notes on where we see our tax dollars disappearing. Maybe we could prevail on Marcie Setlow, publisher of The Edge, to help us keep a running score on tax dollar expenditures. Don’t get me wrong—I have no problem paying our town workers for all their work and many of them do a great job.
