Article Contributed on: 7/3/2008 10:01:25 AM
I, along with hundreds or thousands of others, am a resident of the Pinnacle at Mountain Gate apartments at Mineral and Platte Canyon. On Platte Canyon there is an entrance for northbound traffic and an exit for northbound traffic but southbound traffic is obligated to use Mineral Avenue for entrance and exit. I have been here for 8-1/2 years and have only broken the exit law onto Platte Canyon once (with enough guilt to prevent a repeat performance). However, I witness fellow residents do it every day. The reason they do, and the reason that I'm tempted daily, is that I'm delayed and at peril every day that I don't.
In order to travel southbound on Platte Canyon (a daily occurrence) I have to traverse without a traffic light across three lanes of eastbound Mineral traffic and into three lanes westbound at rush hour without a traffic signal. It's always a race after numerous minutes of waiting for a minimal opening. I've seen accidents, skids, and horn-honking regularly. Lives, including my own, are jeopardized daily simply because Pinnacle traffic is not allowed to exit southbound on the western border of our massive campus. Also, Mineral's already heavy traffic load is increased and endangered unnecessarily by those who have no reason to even be on Mineral.
How to address the problem and how to have the correct authorities review the concerns, as well as the impressive number of people who consistently take the entrance-exit issue illegally into their own hands, are unknown to me. First and foremost, we'd like to be able to enter and exit onto/from southbound Platte Canyon. Secondarily, as long as the law abiding risk takers are chancing life and death daily, it'd be nice to see some enforcement on those that couldn't care less about existing restrictions.
How do we go about making strides in the current, foolish, bureaucratic condition? Of course, my ideal would be for a media outlet to ask the right questions of the right folks governmental agencies but I won't hold my breath for that.