Medians : Dartmouth Street and Baxter Boulevard

 
         The Dartmouth median is interesting. As one goes around Back Bay with it on your left, heading intown, you make a sweeping turn to the left at the bottom of Dartmouth. The long median along the boulevard kind of forces you off to the right directly at the other median, and all the traffic at the bottom of  the street stopped at the sign.

          This smaller one has the ubiquitous  Safe-Hit stanchion mounted on the bay side of the median. It used to have two, but the City decided to economize I guess. They were and are getting ripped off and crushed regularly. It may as well be an arcade game, it gets replaced so often.  This constant replacement is expensive.

          The thing to remember is that these stanchions and bases are TOUGH. Safehit makes a great product . I talked to a company rep in about 2004, and he told me it would take 5-8,000 pounds of force to crush one of these things.

           I guess we'll start off with my most recent picture, have 2010 in review, then go back a few years! It's not pretty, but it's interesting.

                                                             Click on pictures for larger view

Feb. 5, 2011     Protected	Jan. 2, 2010  A typical view in winter	Jan. 27, 2010  Without snow
Jan. 21 2010 scarred up	March 10, 2010    Scars	May 30, 2010 The stanchion on its way out. It   takes a lot of force to destroy one of these. This was the second once since March!
July 30, 2010 Alas, poor stanchion we knew ye well.......	Oct. 21, 2010: Not looking much better 3    months later. Note the NEW installation    after July, already gone!	Nov. 23,2010 The newest stanchion on the  block : nailed already! There was a square one at this site for about 2 weeks prior  in Oct- November. It disappeared too.
Nov. 23, 2010: The sign also gets hit again. Portapotty might be needed for  median repair crews constantly on station ????	Dec. 20, 2006: Sign got nailed, and DPW is making it right! See inset - stub of pole.	Dec. 20, 2006 After they got the sign back up: broken metal, scarred asphalt
Sept. 14, 2007 Notice the base from the near pole, crushed.	Sept. 14, 2007 Pole base got smeared off its butyl rubber adhesive pad. Very difficult to do.	Nov. 11, 2008 The hits keep coming
June 26, 2009: Here they stuck one butyl sticky pad on top of another, but that didn't stop the tearing off of the post! Amazing.	Oct. 20, 2009 : Four months later, it's on its way out.	Nov. 20, 2009 :  Another dead soldier in the calming wars.......
Dec. 4, 2009 : Another new trooper....hit already	May 5, 2010  It's out of there. See photo 6 above. This one lasted just 3 weeks.

          This could go on and on, but like the Sham-wow guy says "I can't do this all day".  Suffice it to say that the medians are an expensive, DPW-time-wasting scheme that doesn't much for the Portland roads except waste money.

           It sure doesn't improve anybody's safety.

           Gotta call DPW - see if my statements are still "unfounded".



To Vannah Baxter Blvd. median

      Woodfords Median



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