Several people including small children have had some close calls and one man went up on a car’s hood in the crosswalk at Ninth and Minnesota streets in downtown St. Paul. It is a busy intersection serving Citygate Condominiums, MPR and Union Gospel Mission.

Many preschool children cross here on their way to our Child Development Center. Northbound drivers idling at Eighth and Minnesota look past the Ninth Street crosswalk, trying to time the light at the top of the hill, and street parking obscures everyone’s view.

Last year an employee of the Mission was struck and flipped over the hood of a car. This would have been fatal to a preschooler.

Before someone is seriously injured or killed, the City of Saint Paul should take action on this dangerous intersection by installing an inexpensive rapid flashing beacon or other signal that would alert drivers to pedestrians. Lives depend on it.

Chuck Semrow, Mahtomedi

The writers is vice president of Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities

Lurching leftward

Amy Klobuchar’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination ended Monday. After setbacks in Nevada and South Carolina, with Super Tuesday looming, she could no longer rationalize being in the race.

Our senator campaigned more than a year and involved herself in 10 debates; she should be credited for exceeding expectations.

Let’s also acknowledge that in a massive field, where candidates seem in an endless leftward lurch, perhaps a results-driven pragmatist who won’t embrace socialism never had a chance.

Klobuchar is still an ardent liberal. She holds positions that until recently were considered the definition of liberalism; now those beliefs are apparently insufficient. Even Barack Obama said many Democrats’ current plans are “not rooted in reality.”

Klobuchar has never received a rating lower than 85 percent from Americans for Democratic Action. She’s only centrist compared to extremists who would’ve been laughed off stage a decade ago.

Democrat voters surely know chances are slim an insufferable demagogue like Bernie Sanders can defeat Donald Trump, and the socialist also likely hurts down ballot in places like Arizona, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.

Regardless, it’s time for Klobuchar to return attention to the job Minnesotans re-hired her for only 16 months ago.

AJ Kaufman, St. Cloud