Elm Street mess - where are the cops?

Sometimes municipal governments can be so clueless. The city of Waltham did all of this advance preparation for digging up Elm Street near the Car Wash -- ranging from calling thousands of homes with recorded messages, to posting detour signs -- but when the actual construction begins, they can't even assign a few cops to direct traffic at crucial intersections.

This morning at 11 am there were two enourmous traffic jams on Newton Street, and also at Pine Street, where people were forced to detour. But the only cop I saw was at the work site on Elm Street -- and he was probably the off-duty "detail" guy, getting $64/hour or whatever to stand around.

There should have been someone at Moody and Pine, and Newton and Main, to speed up the traffic at those pinch points. Instead there were none. The result: A mess, an inconvenience, and a public safety hazard -- try getting a fire engine through that tangle!