Several times during the last few weeks, the city of Sedona has used uniformed police officers to close off the southbound lanes exiting both the State Route 179 and Ranger Road roundabouts from State Route 89, preventing vehicles from heading south at any point along the state highway from Uptown in the westbound direction. Instead, drivers who want to head south are pulling into the left turn lane and making U-turns to cause more trouble or saying “forget it” and heading to Page Springs Road or Cottonwood.

This ad hoc travel change represents an abject failure by city management and our city leadership to deal effectively with traffic problems affecting Sedona.

For years, we have pushed, cajoled, agitated, urged, tempted, maneuvered, enticed, coaxed, begged, pressed, pleaded, leaned on, solicited, goaded, implored, beseeched, entreated and inveigled various city coun­cils to do something about the traffic problems on State Route 89A from Airport Road to the roundabouts until I nearly ran out of words in my thesaurus.

We have called on council members to speak with state lawmakers, the U.S. Forest Service, private prop­erty owners or anyone who would listen to recreate an alternate route between Uptown and West Sedona.

Yes, “recreate.” In our famed November 2015 Comprehensive List of Traffic Solutions, we included no fewer than five alternate routes connecting Uptown and West Sedona, including options to connect the eastern side of Sedona to the west near Chavez Crossing and Red Rock Crossing — pioneers called these creek fords “crossings” for a reason.

Three routes are current hiking trails that used to be dirt roads connecting West Sedona to the east side of the city before they fell into disuse during Sedona’s big development phase in the 1980s and 1990s, so that current residents since 2000 have no memory of what they used to be.

With permission from the USFS, Yavapai County, Coconino County and the state of Arizona, and with funding from the counties, the Arizona Department of Transportation or federal sources, any of these alter­nate routes could be rebuilt and upgraded to a scenic bypass that many locals and some tourists could use to avoid the “Y” roundabout to go between their homes, businesses and schools in Uptown and West Sedona.

We drafted that map when I had been editor for a mere two years. Now I’ve been editor for 10 years and the city has taken no steps toward an alternate route.

Every single vehicle in the city that needs to get from one side of town to the other must all use the exact same four lanes for a quarter mile from Les Springs Drive to Ranger Road.

City leaders forcing their uniformed police officers to act as traffic cones is a waste of resources, their training and city funds. Why spend tens of thousands of dollars recruiting police officers, hiring them, training them on how to investigate crimes, know the U.S. and Arizona State constitutions, Arizona Revised Statutes, police procedures, how to handle a weapon, when to use or not use lethal force and the protections enshrined in the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments if the same officers are going to spend most of the weekend working as living traffic cones?

Police officers should be investigating crimes, pulling over active violators of traffic laws and issuing cita­tions and interviewing witnesses, victims and suspects to better protect our community. Police should only be closing lanes to traffic when there is an active safety hazard — such as the propane truck fire last week, or a head-on collision or rollover along State Route 179.

It would make more sense to have Sedona Department of Public Works vehicles in the lanes, considering that Public Works actually builds roads, or is supposed to.

Or better yet, have members of Sedona City Council park city vehicles in the lanes so they can know firsthand how much of a hassle it is to have a taxpayer-funded public road closed off due to their unacceptable inaction. While blocking the traffic lanes and getting honked at, they can make phone calls to Arizona state legislators — yes, even the ones from the other political party, egads! — county supervisors and USFS supervisors to convince them why some change is needed to widen State Route 179 to four lanes, build alternate routes connecting West Sedona to Uptown or construct a bypass from Schnebly Hill Road to Oak Creek Canyon and over Oak Creek between Red Rock Loop Road and the Village of Oak Creek.

Sedona residents want our uniformed police officers doing “police-y” things, not covering for council’s ineffectiveness and inaction. Closing off whole lanes of traffic to make flow marginally better for a few hours isn’t wise — it’s a billboard for our ineffective political leadership on the local level.