Alan Greenblatt is a GOVERNING correspondent.
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Two Towns, One Street, One Way, Both Ways
This story is about a week old but it's too amusing not to pass on. In fact, I first heard about it on NPR's jokey news quiz, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me."
It seems that the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret has a conservative government and sits next door to a socialist suburb called Clichy-la-Garenne. These kinds of neighbors, of course, are prone to bickering.
Their big problem is the amount of traffic that pass through their towns traveling to and from Paris.
After deciding that the D909 route brought too much congestion to his town, Levallois mayor Patrick Balkany declared his portion of it a one-way street, speeding traffic into neighbouring Clichy.
Balkany's Clichy counterpart, Gilles Catoire, was not amused, and promptly issued a decree of his own, declaring his section of the D909 one-way as well, only this time in the opposite direction.
Chaos naturally ensued, and on Tuesday both local and national police were deployed to direct traffic away from the gridlock on the towns' borders and onto narrow suburban routes unsuited to high volumes of commuter traffic.
The central government has since stepped in and ruined the fun this little feud had caused.
Written and compiled by staff writers and editors, GOVERNING View is an on-the-ground, and sometimes behind-the-scenes, look at the topics we're covering in print and online. From notes on what's up in statehouses, county courthouses and city halls, to encounters with people, places and things, GOVERNING View is a window into the side of state and local government you don't always see.
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