Is Pink the new Gray?

I keep forgetting to talk about the bombshell the DNR pulled out of their pants last week. It seems they had a wild card up their pants and they whipped it out last week. THEY WILL PAY 100% TO DESTROY THE UDEY DAM.

Well, now Mayor Bob has a conundrum. In his campaign he said wanted to run Columbus more like a business. I have met Mayor Bob a few times and looked him in the eye and I actually like the guy. We have shaken hands twice and as we looked into each of his eyes I said to myself "I think you are doing a good job" and I believe he was saying to himself "Who are you again?"

But anyway.

Getting rid of the eyesore for free seems to me to be a no brainer. Let's see, repair an unneeded,ugly dam for "not more then $500,000", or, free the river to run and never have this conversation again for FREE. Hello???

So - now the DNR has another idea.

We all know that in 2016 the main road through Columbus will be torn up. YUP - Hwy 16 will be completely redone and it will be a mess. So, since the DNR has it's wreaking ball already warmed up they are proposing that to help the DOT with this major project they will, FOR FREE, level Columbus in order to free the highway.

That's right, level Columbus FOR FREE and they have put forward what New Columbus would look like with their, "Free The Highway" plan.


Well, obviously the Main Street Organization was appalled at this because it would wipe out, well, 100% (or more) of the Historic Downtown District.

So we (I) worked through the night and we (actually just me) came up with a better idea and will or will not put this forward to a random vote for a few choice residents of Columbus at the cost of $35,000.

I believe in my own mind that this is a brilliant idea and I have to think that Steve Sobiek the Columbus Energy Sustainability Czar will approve of this.

A ROUNDABOUT! This save so much gas it is silly!!

Some say it will take too much room but it just seems right. Sure, Sharrow Drug will lose it's candle section and the newspaper will lose it's front lobby and the Ebay store will . . . well . . .it will probably increase in value. But, it's yet another no brainer.

Also - if you have seen major road construction lately there is a lot of pink pavement. Madison has pink crosswalks, Sun Prairie has a pink center lane, Horicon is all pink.

So - in Columbus instead of a pink turning lane (we have no where to turn), we will have a pink U-Turn lane so if you see a parking space on the other side of the street, you enter the pink U-turn lane. What could be easier.


You will also note that I have utilized the center of the roundabout with a child friendly Play Ground or a Dog Park (or both).

Once this is all in place we will have the entire population of Columbus attend a roundabout seminar to explain exactly how a roundabout works as I hear people complain they do not understand roundabouts.

Here is what they would watch.


I can not see what possibly could go wrong with this entire plan.

And just so you know those yellow dots are not children or dogs being hit by the cars - those are turn signals.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Rod