Today’s feature: Jackassery in the public sector.
At issue: Daytime lane closures on our expressways.
Let me begin with a friendly, what the fuck? Allow me to continue with a second question: Are these people as unintelligent as they seem?
I think they are.
I think the silliness runs deep. I think it runs right through silly, and firmly into stupid.
Let me explain. Regrettably, I’m an expert in traffic. No worries, I’m an expert in other areas too, but today, it’s traffic. It’s what comes from staring at clogged roads from a helicopter for 10 years. If there is one conclusion that I’m qualified and comfortable in making, it’s that traffic flow will suck when any part of the pathway is blocked. Stay with me here, as this gets pretty complex. Delays are caused by volume and they are caused by obstructions. That is to say, by 9am on a typical weekday, expressway volume should drop enough for rush hour delays to vanish into the dense, smoggy air above them. This allows us lazy bastards who resist the 9-5 institution the pleasure and convenience of using the system delay free. Our only concern should be obstructions, i.e: the schmuck who runs out of fuel in the center lane, or the dizzy lady who hit the wall while updating her Facebook email MMS text account on Google+, LOL, FML. What should never be an obstruction is pictured above. You see these scientists here? They are changing light bulbs at 10:30a in the left lane on the inbound Eisenhower Expressway at Kedzie. A great big “so what” situation, until you consider the 6000 cars and 10 miles of crawling traffic behind them. Travel that was supposed to take 15 minutes, took 40. Again, seems like no big deal, in the grand scheme. But it is exactly the grand scheme that I argue IS a big deal. For years we’ve heard of ambitious new ideas to reduce the commute times in our region. Additional lanes, carpool lanes, double-decker lanes, cars sharing the railroad tracks with trains…whatever! All of these are billion dollar ideas to help reduce drive times by a few minutes everyday. Why? Those minutes are monumentally important. Reduce the travel time in just the 15 miles radius of the Loop and it’s a different ballgame. More productivity at work, more local tourism, higher retail sales, higher home values and potentially lower levels of pollution. It’s not a whimsical idea from an irritated State Senator who sat in traffic one day. It’s well studied and understood. Sitting idle on an expressway equals a low quality of life. It could also foul personal relationships. For instance, while taxiing the 6 year-old outbound to Elmhurst this morning, we both observed this mess of inbound traffic that I would soon be sitting in. I explained how I wasn’t at all impressed with what would be the next hour of my life. She noted that while the traffic was indeed poor, I would ultimately survive the experience. I was then not at all impressed with her belittling my concerns. I was able to move on, but a lessor person may have let such impassivity strain the father/daughter relationship. Big picture, people.
All of this because some idiot at IDOT allowed the light-bulb-boobs to park a cherry picker in a lane of expressway traffic in the middle of the day, as opposed to say, 2am. It takes a billion dollars to widen the expressway, but only 1 moron and a box of light bulbs to fuck it up. I say keep the billion, fire the moron and hire a graduate of school for a year. Let’s see how that goes.
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