FUBAR Parking

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Consider the diagonal parking of the proposed 34th Street traffic "improvements." The diagonal parking is the row of slanted white lines in the middle of the image. Notice the traffic flow arrows pointing to the right. This requires drives to back in. While this is funky, it is not as funky as the "hide-and-seek" game to find the parking spaces.

If a driver coming from the east (downtown) wants to park in front or back of the businesses in the RVA "Dealey" triangle, they must drive west to find a turn-around. They could try the small residential streets (Carson, Bland) or drive Roanoke>Crutchfield>Dundee. In the former option, left-turns from the Semmes curve have had their share of rear-end car accidents including injuries and fatalities including triggered head-on crashes.

Consider how the rear of business parking is diagonal that requires a driver to back-in. This is a skill which is harder than parallel parking that will be a CO2-sinner as drivers practice "thread-the-needle" parking. (Personal note: Despite my loss of time, I always find it amusing watching drivers mis-practice parallel parking.)

How stupid is this diagonal parking orientation? Would it not be logical for the cars coming from the west to have diagonal stripes that allow them to pull head-in? The public workers and officials who approved this plan shouldn't be allowed to play in elementary school sandbox.

Recall the image of a truck parked on the sidewalk and how this section of Forest Hill Avenue is 5 lanes wide.

Clearly, there is enough space for easy perpendicular parking without Rubegoldberg traffic gymnastics.

This PHSSA climate cancer traffic project is an example of a problem solution starting with a false premise and being buried under one-after-another band-aid fixes. The premise is students crossing Semmes need a $800,000 project to safely enter Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts. Wrong.  Better premise:

  1. Bar student entry via east end doors and from crossing on 34th Street

  2. Use west end entries and existing 70 year-old Semmes/Dundee/Forest Hill pedestrian lights.

Of all the elements of this climate cancer, this FUBAR parking is the most absurd. It is an example of how adled minds are wasteshops of incompetent, corrupt BUP'ers.

FUBAR: Fundamentally Unbelievable Bullshat After Reviewing