As every schoolboy knows the answer is “to get to the other side.” Many, including this opinionated bien pensant, will understand the reason that the chicken does stuff is fundamentally a philosophical question. There is more to it than just getting across the road.
Why it even helps explain why East Lothian Council Transport Department does things the way it does. I checked the canonical texts over at philosophy.eserver.com, and substituted “ELC Transport Department” for the ubiquitous chicken. To save you time, I suggest that ELC Transport Department is – unlike our beautiful cock – an incongruous and weird mashup of Plato, Marx, Hume, Reagan and Thatcher, though I am sure my readers – all 3 of them will have alternative interpretations. I only wish they would ask Constable. Of course everyone in public service does things for the greater good, don’t they? I am the first to come to a public servant’s defence when their reputation is being trashed by lazy thinking media, mainly on the right. To my mind technocrats with proper checks and balances can make for better governance than politicians by a long stretch. I am less likely to come to a politician’s defence, who are mostly in it for self promotion and gain, even if without resorting to venality (there are of course notable exceptions.)
There is an inevitability about processes in the ‘res publica’ – once a course is set upon, then nothing is going to stop it and ELC Transport are no different. It is historically inevitable that those holes in the road will be filled at some point sometime this decade. And because everything these days takes a long time, the reasons and justifications are long lost or forgotten. But who cares which or how many holes were filled, somewhere near Broxmouth, we need not count them all. Everyone involved has either moved on to better things or simply lost the will to live (and to object.) And to parody Mrs T, this Council is no turning back.
This is also the sad and sorry tale of the Dunbar Traffic Regulation Order or TRO. As the document was finally published on 2nd June 2014, almost 10 years in the making, the justification seems to be quite disconnected from the original thinking, fails to account for new information, fails to learn from a decade of inertia and is now rather dislocated from current transport strategy and policy, even before you look at local needs.
There are bits of paper somewhere in the Council offices that justify these actions, we’ve republished some of them here to make them easier to find and access (check the menu items on the right hand side and our lovely slippy map of the 2014 order and comments on consultation drafts we obtained).
But how many of the changes have been actually agreed in the context of current budgetary strictures? How many of these justifications have been twisted and muddled by political meddling over the years, especially the cooncillors favourite sweetner – more parking? ELCTD’s approach to consultation seems on face value reasonable with extended timetables being accommodated as if time was no object, presumably so that everyone can get their views in, though I’ll bet few people actually do. In practice you can expect the majority of comments to be ignored.
Along with other famous historical local consultations (20s Plenty, Parsons Pool come to mind as bizarre [1. Why was it necessary to consult on a trial 20mph and why on earth were locals allowed to remove all vestige of green on their street – was that always the plan to make room for even more cars?]) makes it all sound more like administrative convenience trumps everything. If you are cynical, like me, such consultation is a sham and a travesty of local democracy – the officers clearly just going through the motions. Or could it be that local government has simply run out of steam and we are witnessing the inexorable decline into a zombie democracy. The fact that it is probably going to cost us loads more, wasn’t on the original plan, the plan assumptions are no longer valid seems immaterial and churlish to question. I just wonder when they will finally find the cash and time to fix the sets properly … or do we have to wait for the proverbial riot and then remove them entirely?
Reasons to cross the road
Plato: For the greater good. Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability. David Hume: Out of custom and habit. Ronald Reagan: I forget. Mrs Thatcher: This chicken's not for turning. Constable: To get a better view.