The members of the Lebanon Pedestrian and Bicyclist Advisory Committee were shocked and saddened to learn of the fatal crash at the intersection of Hanover Street Extension and Evans Drive in Lebanon on Nov. 7. We extend our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Matthew B. Biathrow.
Our committee’s mission is to make Lebanon safer for people walking and cycling, so this was our worst nightmare come true. While the incident is still under investigation, we should use this tragedy to re-dedicate ourselves to efforts to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety in Lebanon.
The Nov. 16 Valley News article on pedestrian safety (“Hanover Officials Offer Safety Tips to Lebanon”) mentioned several factors that need to be addressed to reduce pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and deaths, including education (for pedestrians, bicyclists and motor vehicle drivers), technical upgrades (signage, lighting, design and markings), and regulations (targeting higher-risk places like crosswalks and parking lots).
The Lebanon Pedestrian and Bicyclist Advisory Committee analyzes crash data to identify risk factors affecting pedestrians and bicyclists. Our data for the years 2006 to 2017 identified crosswalks as one of the places with the highest risk for pedestrians (31 percent of crashes). Pedestrians must be careful when crossing streets, even in crosswalks, wear light-colored or reflective clothing, and make sure the motor vehicle driver is stopping before crossing. Drivers need to slow down, be vigilant and be ready to stop when approaching crosswalks.
More information about road safety and the work of the committee is available at lebanonnh.gov. Under the Government tab, click on the Ped & Bike Advisory Committee link. All are welcome to share information with our committee through the contact form there.
Better yet, attend our monthly meetings, held on the first Tuesday of every month, at 7 p.m., at Lebanon City Hall, and contribute to improving pedestrian and bicyclist safety in Lebanon. Together, we can work toward our vision of zero pedestrian or bicyclist crashes.
Colin Smith
Lebanon
The writer is the chair of Lebanon Pedestrian and Bicyclist Advisory Committee.
Hanover is losing its soul. Watching the Dartmouth Bookstore shelves empty after 140 years is like watching a loved one slowly disappear from dementia. And as for the town itself? It has become like Prufrock’s “patient etherized upon a table,” dying amidst its “half-deserted streets.”
It is unimaginable that a community with a rich academic history, that is so well-resourced, would sit idly by while the center of its intellectual life expires, unless of course the intellectual climate is neither as rich nor deep as one would suppose, and those resources have become means unto themselves rather than means to a higher purpose.
If it be true that a town is a reflection of its culture, what then should we conclude of Hanover’s main street? The preponderance of financial services and boutique goods tells the would-be wanderer down that sleepy way all they need to know. I suspect the space that once held the intellectual center of town, where the zeitgeist of the nation could be found, will be subdivided (more profitable!) to become yet another catacomb of mindless Babbitry and soulless wealth.
Wandering the bookstore’s shelves was like inhabiting the shared consciousness of humankind; its psychology, expression and history, as well as its aspirations — cultural, artistic and scientific. And all you had to do was pull a book from the shelf, open it and read. Our children will no longer know this seminal experience. Our community is forever diminished. It will hurt recruiting of faculty and students. Discerning people recognize a place that has become intellectually barren. Hanover will no longer be a “destination.” Who makes a special trip to spend the day hanging out at a bank or browsing real estate?
We appear to have chased from town the very spirit that drew many here in the first place. And for what? No longer will Hanover be a place where people “come and go / Talking of Michelangelo,” but a counting house merely for the banalities of our lesser nature.
David W. Ricker
Orford
A few years back, in 2012, my two preteen daughters persuaded me to take them to the movie The Hunger Games. I am pleased that they did. This science-fiction thriller is based on an adaptation of the 2008 best-selling book by author Suzanne Collins. It takes place in a country called Panem, which was established after some unknown catastrophe. Its 12 poor districts are under the control of the wealthy Capitol, which exploits them for their resources and labor.
It is not difficult to find similarities between the Capitol of Panem and our own capitals of Montpelier and Washington, D.C.
The citizens of the districts in The Hunger Games have lost their rights to local self-determination. They have also been disarmed. They are useful only for offering resources to the ruling class.
The citizens of the towns in Vermont have also lost their rights. The rights to local self-determination — local democracy. Act 60 and Act 46 have ensured that.
Rural Vermonters are mined for their resources — tax dollars — as much as the rural citizens of Panem are mined for commodities.
The ruling elite, the beautiful people of the Capitol do not operate under the false pretense of caring about the people of Panem’s poor districts. The ruling elite in Montpelier cleverly disguise their real intentions toward the people of Vermont by constantly and loudly declaring how much the care about the peasant class. They claim to legislate for the “common good” and the “general welfare.”
This has been a hugely effective strategy for winning votes. How else could you convince a large majority of Vermonters to give up their rights to local control, their rights to both public and personal liberty, and their tax dollars, just to feed and entertain the beautiful people in Montpelier?
In the film, the young protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, inspires the people of the districts to rebel against the tyrannical rulers in Panem.
Where is Vermont’s Katniss Everdeen?
Stu Lindberg
Cavendish, Vt.