Our Responsibility to be Defenders of the Night

April 2018  :  Francine Jackson

I’m sure by now that all of you have heard the quite obnoxious “instruction” sent out by every bus in Rhode Island’s transit authority system. Each time its front wheels begin a turning motion, everyone outside of it hears,”Caution: The bus is turning.” And, it appears that the buses don’t have to make a complete 90-degree turn for this to happen; even a slight change in the position of the front wheels will create this to resound all around the area. As a person who recently got a flat tire one morning in Providence’s Kennedy Plaza, by the time AAA was able to rescue me from this constant background noise, I was working on buying stock in Advil.

Apparently, the reason the buses are having to remind the public that these several-ton behemoths are doing this comes from an incident where a young girl walked into a bus while engrossed in her cell phone; however, she did not do this with a RIPTA bus, but with one of the other companies that stop in the center of the city. And, yet, for some reason, it was determined, as an apparent knee-jerk reaction, that this one isolated event should never occur with a state form of transportation, so each bus is now equipped with the equivalent of a teacher reminding all that a huge body is beginning to move in a direction different from that it is traveling.

It is sad that many decisions are based on such events, on one occurrence that seems to create a spectacular chain of events. Granted, the loss of life is a tragedy, but to change the entire way an apparently perfect functioning form of transportation must work, especially one not involved with the actual event, seems rather excessive. But, in looking around, how often does something like this really happen?

One way in which it doesn’t seem to is when an area formally dark and serene is suddenly overpowered by lighting. In towns, especially those in a region formally dark, a person moving in suddenly decides the neighborhood is too dark, and insists on adding lighting, often under the guise of “safety.” After all, it’s dark, and darkness breeds crime and unsafe conditions, right? This thinking has been refuted many times, and only creates an unnecessary brilliance where the darkness had previously been.

Unfortunately, it seems as if the Seagrave neighborhood is losing its dark. Big boxes and strip malls seem to want to be adding to their luster by announcing their presence as brightly as possible. This extra lighting, and more that surely will follow, could spell a potential disaster for our observatory.

As stewards of the night, it should be our responsibility to perform a “knee-jerk reaction” with respect to the future lighting that is happening within our skies. Whether it is an organization-wide effort, or a group of members coming together, it is time Skyscrapers, Inc., works to protect its sky, for without it, we would have observatory buildings housing telescopes that will be unable to impart the magic of deep-sky wonders.