NO STUDY NEEDED FOR GRANDE CURVE

I have been a resident of Tyler for over nine years, all of which have been in close proximity to the section of Grande that the city council and City of Tyler traffic engineer Cameron Williams want studied because of the numerous crashes that have occurred there.

I have driven on this section many times at night and it very dark. Most of the accidents I have observed occur at night and result in cars driving through the fence on the north side of Grande protecting the apartments along Grande.

If members of the city council and traffic engineer Williams have driven this section at night they know this to be true. If this is the same council and engineer that ineffectively designed the lanes on westbound Grande at Old Jacksonville Highway, and had installed ineffective plastic reflective posts in the middle of this section then we can expect an equally ineffective solution to this current problem. The council and traffic engineer Williams should have applied Occam’s Razor, the principal which states, “The simplest solution to a problem is almost always the best.” That would have been spending the $95,000 on street lights for that section of Grande.

Anthony R. Scott

Tyler

TYLER ISD SCHOOL YEAR KICKOFF A RISKY DECISION

I was pleasantly surprised today when I went to Walmart to see that probably around half of the people there were wearing masks, way more than I’d seen since the pandemic started. I thought, “I’m glad more of us are taking this seriously so we can hopefully finally get through it faster.” That was short-lived after talking to my neighbor who teaches at Tyler ISD. Much to my dismay, I find out the district is holding a “convocation“ (Oxford Dictionary definition: a large formal assembly of people; I had to look that up to make sure it meant what I thought it meant, as it’s not part of my everyday vocabulary) this week, where all of the teachers and staff from every school will be meeting to kick off the year. Not only that, but they will all be bussed together from their schools to this assembly (with an attendance, I’m guessing, will be in the hundreds so how is social distancing even possible, there’s no mask mandate at the schools, and it appears attendance is not optional), and it is taking place the same day as Meet the Teacher night.

Who’s making these decisions? Do we really want to start the school year off by putting all of our teachers, students and their families at risk, a few days before students return?

Respectfully baffled,

Kevin Ramsey