You're Not IN Traffic - You ARE Traffic

 Truer words we never think apply to us, eh?

So our street has become a temporary thruway while the usual thruway street one up from us is undergoing some sort of tearing asunder to do with below ground infrastructure.

It may or may not have to do with a private property development. I almost don't want to know, I'm so done with the cost of private profit for the rest of us.

Anyway, it's really shocking to witness how entitled drivers are to public space. It's like the families outside their buildings, trying to enjoy a bit of summer, are invisible to them. They honk their horns impatiently at each other, yell obscenities out their windows, blast their dismal choice of hate radio muzak.

Oh, and suddenly veer out of the gas guzzler line to speed down the narrow space between it and the parked cars such that if anybody in them were to exit they'd be killed instantly.

Small blessings, I guess.

But Ottawa's such a mess of public transportation woes (private/public partnerships are bullshit from start to delayed and over-budget finish but so it goes in politics now - everybody's a bizz whizz) that when I alert our councilor to this mayhem it's likely to land on quite a stack of more pressing woes.

I'm afraid, though, that since drivers appear to leave their humanity behind on the curb when they enter their gas guzzling tank of choice and take over our public space like it's their private speedway, someone really is going to be killed. We already don't have sidewalks and a lot of the residents here are more recent arrivals with children who play outside. And a lot of us don't have cars so when we leave our residences it's to navigate our neighbourhood on foot.

It's so unconscionable, how people behave behind the wheel. Please think about others when you drive. Really, slow down, calm down, and be aware that you're taking up more than your fair share of public space when you add your vehicle to it.