This is from Sean Michael Wilson
A bit of good news to pass on, which shows we can help improve things here.
The situation: 3 or more years ago a new bridge was built over the Shirakawa river, as it joins the ‘scramble’ road crossing at Kokai Shoten Gai shopping arcade. That was good but for some mad reason they built it in a way that created a dangerous situation. The slope of the new bridge is steeper so that by the time young folk on their way to Kumamoto University or after school reach the bottom area they are going quite fast on their bicycles - right bang into the same place as people waiting to cross the road.
And as many of these people are old ladies out shopping they often wander across there without looking around them (you know they do!). A bad mixture - careless young folk going fast on bicycles and old ladies not looking out for danger. A very bad road design that seemed not to have taken the most basic aspects of civil engineering and human behaviour into account (dont they study that kind of stuff in week one of civil engineering courses? - ‘How not to create dangerous situations for your grandmother, part1’). They spent our tax money to CREATE a dangerous area that was not there before in the old bridge. Clever!
But, here is the good part: via a Japanese man I know who has a contact at the City Hall, i put in a complaint about this (quite a long time ago) and a suggestion as to how they could solve this problem easily and cheaply. I presume that various other people have also complained or that there may already have been some accidents there. So, recently the man (who perhaps prefers to be un-named) told me that the City Hall have listened and next month, in March, they intend to change the road design to make it safer.
Good news!
So, I’m waiting eagerly to see if they follow what my advice or re-design it in some other way. Either way its good as long as its safer for people using that area.
-Olivia-