🎶Jeff Avenue bump-out 🎶

Woe to the speeding jagoffs trying to shave seconds off their trip downtown by shooting the Pizza Bones gap, because change is in the air and on the pavement here in Church Hill. I’m talking about…

[extremely Bruce Springsteen voice] 

🎶 The Jeff, Jeff Avenue bump-out!
Jeff Avenue bump-out!
Jeff Avenue bump-out!
Jeff Avenue bump-out! 🎶

[repeats ad nauseam; crowd begins to disperse]

Wait! Don’t leave! Phase II of the Jefferson Avenue improvement project is very much underway, and it’s something worth singing about.

You know how drivers coming westbound on the street used to be able to sorta cheat over to the right side of the lane to drive more or less straight through the the traffic circle at 24th Street, rather than slowing down to go around it? That made the intersection dicey for pedestrians and cyclists on that side of the street, and also kinda terrifying if you were on the outermost table at Pizza Bones.

Last year, a driver with faulty brakes lost control of his vehicle (which, arguably, he was never in control of in the first place, given the faulty brakes) and plowed into the Jefferson Avenue Community Garden, causing $2,000 worth of damage and underscoring just how desperately this road needed to be redesigned for the community’s safety and enjoyment.

As it happens, a redesign has been in the works for years, and just a few weeks ago, crews finally broke ground on Phase II—the portion of the $5.2-million project that covers the southbound stretch between Spotty Dog and Union Market. Which brings us to the bump-out.

I mean, just look at this beauty:

For the uninitiated, that curvy thang you’re ogling above is an example of what the urban-planning community calls “traffic calming.” The basic premise of this doctrine is that drivers can’t be trusted to follow the rules of the road, so you have to make them. Begging reckless assholes to slow down with signs that say “SLOW DOWN” (like the ones the city have placed around Church Hill) is not a winning strategy, because if all it took was signs, we wouldn’t have reckless assholes in the first place. Instead, you use hardscape features to force drivers to reduce their speed and drive more alertly.

In the case of the 24th Street circle, the northbound side of Jefferson Avenue had a bump-out that forced drivers to slow down and slalom around the bend, but the westbound side did not. Drivers were able to drive recklessly, so many of them did. Now that this bump-out has gone in, they’ll be much less able to, because the road bottlenecks them into the circle.

An added benefit is that the bump-out, combined with the corresponding one they’re building on the northwestern corner of 24th Street, drastically shortens what used to be a long sidewalk on which pedestrians were vulnerable to inattentive drivers exiting the circle onto that street. And because what used to be asphalt is replaced with soil planters, we get more green space and stormwater mitigation. Win, win, win.

📥 We've gotta lotta new Lookouts!

Well, that was quick! The Lookout’s email list topped 100 sign-ups earlier this week, less than seven days after publishing its first edition. A lesser editor/publisher might make a “0 to 100 real quick” joke here, but not me. As the lede item in this very email makes clear, The Lookout isn’t above hackneyed lyrical references, but there’s a line, and decade-old Drake songs are on the other side of it.

Anyway! Thanks so much to all of you who have signed up for this (mis?)adventure in neighborhood blogging. How’d you find The Lookout? Do you follow me on Bluesky? Did you spot one of the posters (see above) with the big honkin’ QR code that I stapled up around the neighborhood? Some other way entirely? Do tell.

Don’t forget to forward your friends, neighbors, and bitter rivals from the community garden this email and encourage them to subscribe. Or, if you’ve been forwarded this email, go ahead and smash the button below to make it happen:

For the curious, check out more details on the project here, including coverage guidelines. Feel free to me anytime at [email protected]. Unless you want to complain about something The Lookout has published, in which case feel free not to email me ever.

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

📸 A Very CHill Photo

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.