Traffic Jam

Cambridge Traffic Director Robert E. Rudolph took another beating from the City Council last Monday, but he should be getting used to them by now. They're getting to be almost a weekly affair.

"I have said nothing for a year," Councillor Andrew T. Trodden told him, "but, honestly, I don't think you have done anything except paint this place up like a three ring circus." Rudolph again confirmed (it had never been a secret) that he had bought 4000 gallons of paint in 1964 and had already decorated Cambridge's streets with 2500 gallons.

Trodden's attack epitemized the Council's growing dissatisfaction over Rudolph's performance. Until recently, most councillors had been favorable or benevolently neutral towards Rudolph, who arrived from Baltimore three years ago. But there were few friendly inquiries last Monday.

What the councillors are really interested in is the installation of traffic signals along the upper part of Massachusetts Avenue and, after that, at dangerous intersections in other parts of the City. About the lights, Rudolph could only say what he had said before: he was expediting the problem as quickly as "humanly" possible, but he couldn't give any exact date for the installation of the lights on Mass Ave.

But the City Councillors insisted on knowing why Rudolph couldn't proceed faster on the installation of traffic signals. As Rudolph explained them his difficulties are twofold. First, he is overburdened with routine work. For example, he said, just several weeks ago, one of his new traffic patterns in Brattle Square had angered a local businessman so much that the Director had to make a special study of the Brattle area. And, then, he continued, during every snow-storm he is faced with the minor crisis of clearing Cambridge's streets and getting traffic moving. These excuses seemed weak.

Rudolph then explained--more plausibly--that some of the personnel in his office are inexperienced and can offer little aid on more complicated traffic problems. "I have to keep people in the office working. I can't just let them sit," he reasoned. So, often he has to go out with the "people in the office" and show them how to paint traffic patterns on Cambridge's streets. The City Councillors didn't seem to think that was the best way for Rudolph, whose salary rises to $13,000 next year, to use his time.

But the second reason that Rudolph isn't moving faster seemed to be even more crucial: he needed an assistant, someone who could help him handle the complicated problems of planning an electronically-controlled traffic system. He had been looking for such a man for months, and his luck had been minimal. The market is tight. Right now, he has a man who would take a permanent job, but would not come to Cambridge on a provisional basis and risk his job later being taken away in a competitive Civil Service exam.

Rudolph said he had put in a request for a Civil Service exam and would advertise as soon as he got the Civil Service's O.K. Councillor Trodden summarized that it would be July 4 before Rudolph had his assistant. "I'd be happy to have him by July 4," Rudolph confessed, but Trodden told him the Council wouldn't. Then, reminding the traffic director that the City Budget had included $8000 since last January for the assistant, Trodden said, "You've had money in the budget for a year and done nothing about it. That's why our whole traffic problem is bogged down."

Indeed, Rudolph's problems seems to be that he can't get things done. Last June, he instituted a much-publicized anti-jaywalking ordinance. Shortly thereafter, he had to explain to the press that the law couldn't go into effect. The Police Department didn't have any jay-walking tickets and didn't plan to get any. Perhaps Rudolph should have taken Chief of Police Daniel J. Brennan in on plans for the new law.

Many of Rudolph's problems are very real. But the sign of a good administrator is to cut through red tape--and when he cannot--to convince the elected officials to whom he is responsible that he is doing everything humanly possible to get things moving.

Rudolph has not convinced the Council. He may be a traffic expert, but if doesn't acquire a little more political expertise he'll never get a chance to show anyone in Cambridge. The Council will not guillotine him immediately, but a warning from Trodden seemed to carry some not too subtle implications for the future: "You were hired because we needed you--now, you produce."