traffic snafu success

August 13 -- As reported to http://www.stuartfla.com/, a triangle-shaped lot at the southernmost end of Palm Beach Road separates traffic moving northward and southward through that neighborhood zone. A sidewalk, inexplicably, leads pedestrians to one tip of the triangle while exiting and entering vehicular traffic can whiz past in two different directions as the walker is poised without crosswalk protection at the very triangle point. The situation appears to place the pedestrian at the tip of an arrow near 18th Street, without eastward or westward crosswalks that would enable safe movement off the lot. Children frequent the area, which also addresses the Stuart Nursing and Restorative Care Center facility post-hurricanes.

The 1/30/2009 issue of the Hometown News tells us 'Youth summit returning to college', "Workforce Solutions ... a private, nonprofit corporation...will hold its eighth annual Treasure Coast Youth Summit on March 7 at Indian River [suddenly] State College. ...Their mission is...coordination of workforce development activities and services in the four-county area. ..." That local youths should be clamoring to 'fix' this pedestrian access area is implied.

Another Capri-Sun pouch (empty, natch) was seen lying in the grass of the berm alongside northbound traffic on Palm Beach Road, across from Stuart Nursing and Restorative Care Center at 14th Street (different from Palm City Nursing and Rehabilitation facility whose staff members are facing a wrongful death lawsuit with regard to the death of a WWII/Korean War vet who died soon after admittance). An aqua-blue drinking receptacle ('tumbler') also was seen to lie in the berm near by a medical-technology school.

Prior to these discoveries (news to almost no-one except me), the orange PVC-pipe broken to resemble a spear-tip alongside the Dixie Highway's eastside sidewalk was capped with two layers of PET beverage containers (one small and one large) fit over the now-pointed end with its interior wire. Someone's bicycle lay in the slough/ditch nearby the Martin County School District property where the school buses are housed and parked. Glass beer bottles found in the berm all along St. Lucie Boulevard, Old St. Lucie Road and Dixie Highway were placed in a trash receptable at the school district offices; loose newspapers that might be a fire hazard were placed in a discard receptacle at the Cumberland Farms store/gas station, corner of Dixie Highway and Old St. Lucie Road-become-Indian Street. A small dark-colored truck dripped fluid onto the Dixie Highway while all traffic lanes were stopped when a train blocked the street as extended and backed (twice!) into the Aviation Field warehouse zone.

Various small nuts and two small brown oranges fallen from trees were gathered from the sidewalk during the riverside hike, then carried and tossed into small slough and nearby creek flowing southward beneath Old St. Lucie Road toward the St. Lucie Inlet; a large mango was tossed football-style into a yard over some hedges that fronted a pair of canoes. A toadskin was removed from the roadway, that appeared to be smashed because retaining some mouth tissue, near creek and roadway turn-off leading to Sandsprit Park. Different from other walk/hikes, fleshy lizard bodies littered the St. Lucie sidewalks, most of those covered with tiny red ants.

Moving east from Palm Beach Road along 10th Street (officially East Stuart, FL), sidewalk-repair was engaged southside near a Catholic School; as a sort of contrast, a neighboring school features (year after year) a sort of looped collar at the end of a tether affixed to the chain-link fence beneath a sidewalk-side tree that resembles both a very short leash with collar and also a lynch-noose.

Before leaving Kcc that morning, I had taken one snail-in-shell found near the one of the farthest trash receptables, nearest the St. Lucie River, to the slough as a revival effort along with an already dried-out snail found on the sidewalk leading to the slough where its waters mingle with the river waters -- always a sort of sand bar beside the roadway beneath some property-line trees. Small calico mammal pelt removed to grassy yard from SLB roadway.

Ugh, a special supermarket deal to sell off their Hamburger Helper stock showed boxes of multi-cheese varieties, one labeled as 'Classic Cheeseburger'. Actually, the 'Hungarian goulash' version is the classic recipe which inspired the mass-marketing variations and contains no cheese. Truly, the new 'classic' cannot be casually eaten when physically depleted.