Something funny from yesterday, funny to me at least. I called 311 to report a crosswalk signal that is locked on “DON’T WALK”. It’s been that way for about a week. Calling 311 in my experience has almost always been a waste of time but yesterday’s experience seemed promising. I was connected to a live person within 30 seconds and talking to another person at the DOT within another 30 seconds. I think the whole call lasted 3 or 4 minutes, at the end of which the dispatcher said there would be someone coming to investigate within 2 hours.
Wouldn’t you know it, about 2 hours later I happened to be walking past the same spot. I thought it would be funny if a crosswalk signal repair person just happened to show up while I happened to be there. And you what? That is exactly what happened. A dude driving a van with a crane on top pulled up and I asked him if he was there to fix the light. He said he was. I said I was the person who called it in, thinking at first he himself might find this as humorous as did I. But then I realized that in his role he probably encounters the 311 complainants relatively frequently, while I don’t think I’ve ever seen the results of my 311 calls in action. It was kinda cool to see first hand how my little phone call put some wheels in motion.
Unfortunately it didn’t get the problem fixed. When I asked the dude if he was there to fix the lights he responded saying he was there to “look at” them. Then he offered a comprehensive explanation of what the problem probably was, with something about the cables that connect the crosswalk signal going up over the subway tracks (this was at 31st Street and 35th Avenue, under the el train). He further implied that someone might have set the signal this way intentionally to help offset some other type of problem. I didn’t really catch what he was saying but he seemed to know what he was doing. Today, though, the light is still locked on “DON’T WALK”, which I guess is better than being stuck on “WALK” but still, it’s become a bit of a double-take, especially for older folks or people whose wits are not all about them.
