Of course, the City Council in Paducah, KY, overall, is about as environmentally aware as a puff of natural gas escaping from a swamp. But, they'd do us all a favor if they would spend some money, not on some stupid wasteful project like giving a bunch of money to some corporation that has more money than Paducah ten times over, but on timing the stop lights in the city.

Most of the stop lights in Paducah are so badly timed that you can sit for many minutes at a light when no one is passing in other directions. One example is 6th and Broadway. The city acts like Broadway is this totally busy street and 6th has almost no one. There is a lot of traffic on 6th, and just about everytime people coming on 6th street get stopped by the light, they sit there for many minutes and wait for nothing. If the city really wanted to be avant guarde, cutting edge, it would time the lights, and make the city friendly for bicycles. I mean, there's few cities that are set up as well to become very bicycle friendly, but because the city leadership is so dense, it isn't bicycle friendly. Oh sure, it's bicycle usuable, but there's a big difference in a city being bicycle usuable and bicycle friendly. The sad part is that the city could so easily be a great bicycle city, and that could attract some very desirable types.

Unfortunately, the city leaders are too busy following pipe dreams of bringing all the spent nuclear fuel rods from our nuke power plants here for reprocessing, screwing their firefighters and police, or getting rid of the civil rights commission. Well, one can always hope for better. But as I sit at the lights and wait mindlessly for nothing while my $100/barrel oil burns mindless away, driving me to poverty, I do wonder why they can't do something more for the everyday person - like time the stoplights! I am absolutely sure that it could be done in a way that is cutting edge and puts Paducah on the map, not to mention saving money for citizens so they can spend it elsewhere. But, that may be too heavy of a concept for most of that city council.