There have been a project going on right in front of my house. Because Main Street is also a state highway, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has been involved. We have been aware of the project for about 18 months when they sent out a nice mailer explaining what was going to happen.

This town is sidewalk poor. I don’t believe that sidewalks were required until relatively recently. As a result walking through neighborhoods are a patchwork of sidewalk and no sidewalk which makes me mostly walk on the road out of convenience. What sidewalks we do have are the primary paths to school. My house is on that path.

For the twenty years living here, we have had a crossing guard morning and afternoon when school is in session. ODOT decided that they were going to add a flashing light signal. Probably a good idea considering we have had multiple pedestrians hit over the years.

Unbeknownst to me, the state decided to add the new crosswalk signal on the other corner of the intersection, not in front of my house. It is fine by me. I think that they decided to do that because they put the bus stop on my side yard. This keeps the congestion a little more segregated. I was surprised because there was no sidewalk on that side of the road all the way down. They had to create a whole new sidewalk on the other side of the street.

The project is almost done. They still have not powered up the signal yet, I am not sure why. But a couple of weeks ago, I watched a machine scrape off the existing striping (our crossing). Then they painted new striping at the new crosswalk. Despite that the new crossing looks pretty much ready to go, the school crossing guard is still is using the old, unmarked crossing.

Part of me wonders if there will continue to be a crossing guard once the signal is active. There is no crossing guard when Main Street crosses US 99 at the traffic light. I feel like it is just habit that the crossing guard is using the old crosswalk. This is one of three crossings that are almost complete.

I went to look up the definition of habit. The very first result was something called Habit Burger. I have never heard of them, but apparently it is a national chain. The Webster definition is “an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary”. We usually talk about habits in terms of good and bad ones but there could some that are neither.

I think that you know the difference between good and bad habits so I don’t need to get too involved in all of that. I remember that from the time I was in high school until about ten years ago, I used to eat cereal each weekday morning. When we decided to go gluten free for a little while, I stopped eating cereal. Now, my kids eat it incessantly but I might have a bowl once every couple of months. Hooray for me.

But the older I get, the harder habits are to break. As an example, my podcasting habit. I have been listening to some podcasts since 2008. I almost feel guilty if I am not prioritizing keeping up and I will even do things so that I can do something while listening. I am not an idiot nor do I think that is particularly harmful but it does drive my behaviors daily.

End Your Programming Routine: I didn’t know that the city had an eight foot easement on our lot. I lost four rose bushes while they tore up and installed the utility vault and transformer for the new lights (also on our land). I am going to be glad when this project is over, it has been a bit of an inconvenience with parking and other things while they have had the street blocked. Hopefully, it will make things safer, if people can break the habit of the old crosswalk.