Circles make traffic worse

Huzzah and congratulations to Phil Hands for his excellent cartoon regarding Madison's traffic circles in Sunday's Forum section. The only things missing are the traffic ruts across the circle, or a car stuck in the mud, wheels spinning after it failed to avoid the ridiculous barrier.

Cars that fail to stop at traffic signs on the side streets pull past the curbs and encroach on the main traffic, so the passage is narrowed and legal ongoing traffic is blocked. I hate to think what emergency vehicles would have to do to get through when such situations occur.

Then there are the drivers who cut in front of the circle rather than go around.

I wish the high-paid engineers who dreamed up these nightmares would have to drive some of these routes. They don't slow traffic; they cause accidents and near-accidents.

-- John H. Marvin, Madison

Regarding Thursday's front-page coverage of traffic calming devices, does the traffic circle at the intersection of Randall and Vilas avenues work, or is it a nuisance? Probably a bit of both.

Those of us who live near that intersection have watched traffic increase in volume and speed over the years. To maintain the integrity of the neighborhood, we petitioned to have a traffic calming device included in the Vilas Avenue reconstruction plans.

The city required that a certain percentage of residents living in the four blocks that intersect the circle approve its installation. We were successful; the circle has slowed traffic.

There is a problem with vehicles driving over the plantings. During the first winter, vehicles drove over juniper bushes planted along the edges. Each subsequent winter the destruction has been more severe.

This winter semitrailers, city plows and other drivers created deep ruts and destroyed a significant number of plantings.

In spite of this problem, slower traffic improves the quality of living on busy streets in Madison. As the article stated, typically the people who say they don't like them don't live there.

-- Carol and Robert Prugh and four other members of the Circle Committee, Madison

Think before blaming public servants

Shame on all who are quick to cast blame based on sound bites you hear on the radio or TV or the headline you see without reading and comprehending the rest of the story.

If you take the time to read the State Journal articles about this case, and think before forming an opinion, you might understand what the staff at the 911 dispatch center deals with.

The center receives about 174,000 calls a year -- an average of 476 a day. They received 115 hang-up calls, including 83 from cell phones, on the day of Brittany Zimmermann's death.

Is it realistic to expect the staff to be able to call back every hang-up while incoming calls for help must be addressed?

Which would you have them focus on in the heat of the moment -- the hang-up with no good information provided (60 percent come from cell phones that can't be traced immediately to a specific location), or the car accident, heart attack or other emergency needing immediate and identifiable help?

Shame on those who blame hard-working, well-trained people working in our community around the clock when we need them. Try sitting in their chairs, or riding with a police officer or fireman, or spend a day with another "public servant" and you might think twice when stories like this hit the news.

"Who are you to judge your neighbor?" (James 4:12).

-- Rick Zynda, Madison

Include local museum in library design

I congratulate Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, developer Terrence Wall, library director Barb Dimick, library board president Tripp Widder and other board members on moving ahead with a new library facility.

I have two suggestions:

Ask the public if a local historical museum should be included at the same time. This historical angle may help induce a major financial benefactor to step forward. Madison and Dane County have no historical museum to call our own.

Build on the museum theme throughout all of Downtown via a culture tax patterned after the successful Denver model. (Visit scfd.org for an example.)

-- Dennis de Nure, Madison

Vaccination study in op-ed questioned

Recently the Wisconsin State Journal has devoted lots of space to the handful of people who have come down with measles in Wisconsin, including an April 16 guest column by Dr. Thomas Schlenker titled, "The return of measles."

Schlenker claimed that several well-designed studies have been done that verify rates of autism are the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

As the parent of a vaccine-injured child labeled as autistic, I and thousands of other parents have been asking the Centers for Disease Control for years to do a study comparing autism rates in vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.

There is legislation pending to do just that. They refuse, claiming they could not find enough unvaccinated children.

As the Journal pointed out, there are almost a thousand families in Madison alone who have signed opt-out vaccine waivers.

If such a study really existed, wouldn't the CDC point this out?

-- Michael Wagnitz, Madison

Motherhood, and its cost, is up to mothers

UW-Eau Claire English professor Allyson Goldin Loomis' April 29 guest column, "For Mother's Day, write a check," was a model of the entitlement mentality that permeates our academies.

Wisconsin taxpayers alone already write checks via their taxes for more than $700 million a year to support single mothers and their offspring, according to a study released in April. Nationally the taxpayer cost is in the billions.

A woman of her education and standing could be a model for family planning instead of shucking for money to support maternity leave for the lower- and upper-income fortunate like herself.

Isn't this all about choice? Most men and women choose to have a child. One would hope no one is forcing Loomis into motherhood or dictating when to have a child. That choice -- and its cost -- is up to her, not society.

-- William Richardson, Madison

Wind turbine noise merits more study

The response of RENEW Wisconsin Executive Director Michael Vickerman to the wind turbine syndrome article is a classic head-in-the-sand argument. Just because science has not been able to prove that low-frequency sounds cause a specific set of symptoms does not mean a relationship does not exist.

It is arguments like this that have stymied research. Many important medical discoveries would never have been made with this type of thinking, including cholera, Agent Orange toxicity and Gulf War syndrome. Finding ways to prove the existence of relationships is what makes developed nations leaders in medicine, science and industry.

Vickerman seems to want us to accept his argument to further his business goals of placing wind turbines. What is wrong with considering the long-term effects of wind turbine noise and how we might safely provide this important type of energy with the least possible negative impact?

-- Susan Felstehausen, audiologist and registered nurse, Madison