“It’s not easy being green.”
I think it was Kermit the Frog who delivered the famous line, back when he used to have a singing career. But today, in Renfrew, Ontario, those words have particular meaning. Ask anyone utilizing the intersection of O’Brien Road and Innovation Drive here in Renfrew, and they’ll tell you.
There’s a set of lights at this intersection, appropriate given the volume of traffic that passes by and through this spot. Traffic lights make sense of what would otherwise be mayhem, guiding motorists through a place often travelled.
O’Brien, at this point, runs in a north-east/south-west configuration, but it doesn’t matter much which of those two directions you happen to be going, since it’s damned near impossible to tell whether the light is green, white, or just not working properly.
That’s because the green lights don’t shine green. To be blunt, they don’t shine at all. In either direction.
Is it something I can help with? You know, get a couple of buddies together on a Saturday, a case of beer, and change the bulbs on the green lights? I’ve got some Christmas stuff I haven’t used, as green as all giddy-up. I’ll happily scale a ladder and screw them in so people using this intersection have some certainty as to the right of way.
Maybe we can hire students to hold up signs saying GREEN.
I know, a small-beer solution, which is concerning, because that’s the second beer-related reference I’ve made, and it’s Friday night, and am I giving myself away?
Regardless, I know it’s small-potatoes (better reference perhaps) but still, red is red and green is green, and it makes a difference. And if I, a local with razor-sharp vision can’t make sense of it, what are we to do about the half-blind fellow from Shawville trundling through town?
We proceed through intersections because the light is green, not because it’s not red.
We should do something.
