Sandra Marshall of East Hampton has some resolutions she’d like to see people who live or work in Hartford practice. My comments follow her list, which was published in today’s Courant.

1. Act clean and green. Pick up your trash and even someone else’s mess if necessary, because a clean city is a welcoming place to visit and work.

2. Drive respectfully. Speeding is not user- or visitor-friendly to drivers or pedestrians.

3. Turn down the volume. Not everyone shares the same taste in music, and noise pollution distracts from the beauty of the city.

4. Congregate in places meant for gathering and conversation. The street is not the place to stop and catch up on news with friends or complete transactions. (Visitors might think something unsavory is going down.)

5. Walk and cross streets in walkways and crosswalks. No driver wants to live in fear of hitting people who pop out from between parked vehicles, especially if they lead with a baby stroller.

For me, these few little resolutions would definitely make Hartford more tourist- and user-friendly. Oh, yes, affordable parking wouldn’t hurt, either.

This is a good start. I’d like to suggest expanding this list to deal with the origins of several of these problems–our car dependent culture.

Why not resolve to make more sensible bus routes, so that the huge chunk of residents who don’t own cars can get around faster and not have to congregate so long at the bus stops? Why not invite more commuters to carpool or vanpool so the problem is reduced?

Here’s a few suggestions of my own, which I’m going to add to later today when I have more time:

-Drivers should obey traffic signals and signs, such as no-turn-on-red. Pedestrians often get frustrated waiting for cross signals only to get nearly plowed over my idiots who insist on not waiting 30 seconds for the pedestrian signals to stop. Ahem!

-Reduce the amount of trash by reducing the number of Dunkin Donuts and other fast food. At the very least, Dunkin Donuts should require patrons to bring their own reusable mugs, to eliminate the use-once-and-toss cups that are more common than cigarette butts in the city

-Businesses should create rooftop garden areas. This would give employees and others a place to “congregate” and not block the flow of traffic.

-Turn the insurance companies into parking garages and eliminate on-street parking. This frees up space for bike lanes and would get rid of much of the gridlock.

-The City Place food court should do some reconstruction so that instead of being walled in, there are lots of windows, making the area more visible from the sidewalks. Efforts should be made to open the city more to get a sense of community.

-Install toll booths on major arteries to collect from private vehicles, like Wethersfield, Farmington, Asylum, Franklin, and New Britian Avenue. This, like many of my other ideas, might not sound practical, but this can help the city get revenue from those who insist on continuing to not use public transportation. It could be like a reverse diamond-lane idea– a tax on those who don’t carpool.

-regularly set up spotchecks, especially downtown, to deter people from deciding to drive while intoxicated. I seem to read something once a month now about accidents caused by people driving the wrong way onto highways. How does this happen? My guess is the sweet cocktail of being unfamiliar with the area combined with alcohol or other substances that impair.

-mandate roads and sidewalks be adequately cleared of ice and snow in a timely manner…not just before a major concert or game is planned to happen downtown.