There's now TMA at the corner of 8th street and State. There's 3 TMA people (morons) stationed there. The intersection is not even a 4 way intersection! there is never more than 2-3 cars at the traffic light!
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WHY ARE THERE TMA PEOPLE AT THIS CORNER. Or every other corner in the entire city of chicago!
Here is a letter I wrote to the Tribune almost a year ago. The recent reemergence of TMA on every street corner has make me pissed off enough again to create this blog. Please email me your stories and I will post them. whyTMA@gmail.com
It’s Time to Go Back to the Future, Chicago
The world is coming up on the 140th anniversary of a simple invention that has saved millions of lives and made our streets safe to drive on. Yet in Chicago, we seem to want to throw out this century and a half year old technology and regress to the days before its invention by employing incompetent people to do its job. The invention I am alluding to is the traffic light.
I moved to Chicago from New York just a year ago. Now in New York, like all other parts of the world, the traffic light has become an effective tool for traffic management. But apparently someone in Chicago didn’t think so though and has been doling out millions to humans to mimic this great little invention and reiterate the pre-school lesson of green means go, red means stop. I am talking about those fun loving Traffic Management Authority Aides. You know who they are. Typically they stand in the middle of the street hindering what would be smooth moving traffic. It is bad enough that the Traffic Management Authority figures are being paid to do EXACTLY the same thing as a traffic light, but what is even worse is their incompetence in doing so.
On my normal commute I run into three or four intersections with TMA personnel. Sometimes they enlighten you by saying it is ok to go when it is green. But most of the time they just stand in the middle of the intersection waving their fluorescent cone and almost causing accidents by signaling cars to take left turns when oncoming traffic has a green, or visa-versa.
It is not even there incompetence in these normal situations that irks me so much. Do not get me wrong, it does very much annoy me that I have seen two accidents caused by TMA personnel and that I have to make sure I am doubly vigilant when they are waving me on instead of a traffic light. But what is worse is when I see them standing on the side of the road, conversing with each other, when a traffic light is broken. Yes, the one time these people could be of any use whatsoever, they were taking a break, gossiping away while motorist were left to figure out how to handle the problem.
The final straw came just a few hours ago. On Sunday morning of the 17th, the Race to Empower Breast Cancer walk was taking place. Now I have absolutely no problem with the city closing roads for a worthy cause. But the problem came in when the city decided to use untrained TMA personnel, instead of police officers like New York City does on special occasions where it needs to close roads, at intersections. At the Roosevelt Exit going North on Lake Shore, three TMA personnel were stationed. Two were off in a corner waving cars to take a left at the Roosevelt exit. The third was stationed across the street, where the cars where turning to, telling them they couldn’t go that way. Huh? Three people at an intersection, two telling people they can turn, one telling them they cannot. Not only was the one telling them they cannot turn creating an extremely hazardous situation by making people take U-turns right into oncoming traffic on Lake Shore, she starting cursing at motorists for turning! “They told us to turn!” was the response out of driver’s mouths. Our TMA friend on a power trip could not have cared less about what her other TMA colleagues were telling drivers, or what kind of situation she was putting the motorists in. Why wasn’t the turning lane simply closed off if we weren’t allowed to make turns? Maybe one of those brilliant TMA intersection employees could have moved the thousands of cones lying around to block off the turning lane instead of cursing out motorists. Further up on at the Balbo exit, the same situation was happening. The turning lane was not closed off, so drivers were piling into the lanes trying to get off of Lake Shore. Not until you got up to the exit did anyone tell you could not turn. Then these cars had to move back into the right lanes causing miles of traffic delays. Again, why didn’t any of those TMA aides tell us earlier you couldn’t turn. Continuing our trek north, we get to the Jackson exit, where the same situation is happening again. This time though, a TMA supervisor in his jeep comes to the rescue. He quickly takes away the barriers and waves cars through so that they can turn left. He then turned his attention to the TMA intersection employees, scolding them for not allowing turns earlier. As I waited for my left turn I asked him what the problem was. Turns out, the call had come over the radio 25 minutes ago to allow motorists to start turning left, but the TMA intersection employees at Jackson didn’t hear the call because they were too busy talking to each other. Meanwhile, in a final show of ineptness, they started waving people on to take their left turns without realizing that oncoming traffic had a green light. This caused a near high speed accident, and a lot of yelling and screaming, between three oncoming cars and two cars turning left.
Lastly, these unnecessary jobs are actually dangerous. Two TMA Aides have been killed while working intersections. What is the point of putting these people out there? They are in danger themselves and creating dangerous situations for drivers!
Now this is just one motorist’s experience who does not even drive that often (the whole green environment thing has gotten me riding my bike most days). I can only imagine the collective stories of Chicagoans. I wonder how many hours of training these TMA personnel get and where they are even hired from. Are there even any qualifications to become a TMA intersection employee? From my experience, the answer is quite obviously no.
I say to Chicago, let’s go back to December 10th, 1868. That is when the first ever traffic light was installed outside the British House of Parliament in London. After all, we all know green means go and red means stop. Do we really need someone out sucking up tax payer money telling us so? How about you use that money for something useful, like say, books for Chicago Public Schools so that 10 years from now we don’t have to employ today’s illiterate children in unnecessary jobs? Well now that is a whole other matter unto itself.
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