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Post by Really Red on Sept 13, 2017 17:27:11 GMT
I grew up inside the Beltway and traffic jams really don't bother me at all, so my intense anger at things going on in my city surprises me. I know my diet is making me a little short, but am I unreasonable to be mad at the following: Our whole downtown is a mess and has been for about 2 years now while they are replacing everything. There are two exits off the main street downtown. When do they close off one? At 5pm! If you're stuck in the lane (which I was), you were stuck until they opened it back up, about 20 mns later. There are two exits in our mall. One is the major exit and the other one takes me a bit out of my way. I drove to my normal exit and they have it closed. I'm okay with that, but there are NO signs until you get there, so I had to drive completely around and it's time consuming to get out with everyone using one. I am frustrated that there were ZERO notices until you got upon the exit. We had a big sinkhole on a major street. About 1/2 mile before that sinkhole there is an exit to the highway. They put the street into one late before the highway exit. It was insane. 95% of the people were getting off on the highway, since you couldn't use the major street. The other 5% were taking a tiny left later on. Traffic backed up for miles every day all the time! These incidents made me really mad. Not just an "Oh dear, it won't last forever," but "How stupid are these city engineers that they can't figure out better ways to handle these problems." I lived in DC for years as an adult and just don't remember getting mad like I feel towards these people who just stop traffic so they can get their work done. I go around problems all the time. Most of them don't make me mad, even if I have to wait, but I think when it's obvious what a better way would be, it just makes me crazy that they aren't thinking of that. Like the sinkhole situation, which was insane. You couldn't drive through the street, so why block off the exit that most of the people need to take? I just don't want to be a mad older person  |
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Post by #notLauren on Sept 13, 2017 18:43:22 GMT
Traffic situations, construction and how both are handled make me crazy too.
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Post by beaglemom on Sept 13, 2017 19:05:08 GMT
I hear you!!! Normally I don't have much to deal with on the day to day. But there is a fire just off the road that I take 99% of the time to get from my house to anywhere. So the road is closed. There are two other ways to get down the mountain, on a good day one adds 10 minutes the other 20. I took the 10 minute one this morning to take the kids to school. Two different sections have lights set up due to road repair and are one-way traffic - one way at a time. Annoying, but fine whatever. An hour later when I was heading back home there was another new block set up for one-way controls and another one in process of being set up. 15 minutes after I got home I got a call from my daughter's school that I had to run back down. Normally it takes 20 minutes. With the two new controls took me almost 40 minutes.
Fingers crossed the fire is contained asap and life can get back to normal!
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Nov 1, 2024 13:29:12 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 19:12:30 GMT
I hear you - you wonder what they do to deserve a title with "engineer" as part of it because nothing is being engineered to keep things efficient as possible.
Until people start putting the pressure on their city council representatives or the city manager, things related to local government seems to move at a snails pace. Some cities handle changes very well. Others do not. Be a squeaky wheel and encourage others to do the same.
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Post by melanell on Sept 13, 2017 19:13:04 GMT
Traffic makes me stressed, but not angry. It stresses me because I think drivers in general (well, at least in the US) tend to be in a rush and impatient, and I figure that if I'm stuck in traffic then I am stuck in between at least people who are growing more impatient, more hostile, and more reckless by the minute. And that makes me nervous. Even in regular traffic I regularly see people do things to avoid waiting even just a moment that are dangerous and/or against the law.
So an on-going traffic situation like you're describing would have me leaving the house as little as possible and trying to find back ways to drive no matter how much time they added to my drive.
For over a year I drove through a construction area to get to work that was awful, and finally I realized that even thought ht back way was twice as long, it took about the same amount of time as sitting in the traffic, so I started going that way and was so much happier. That was 16 or 17 years ago. But now I always look for back ways.
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breetheflea
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,456 
Location: PNW
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Post by breetheflea on Sept 13, 2017 19:14:33 GMT
They are building a subdivision near my house or clearing space for one... It's a one lane each way divided road. Last spring they had the entire road closed both ways but coming from the way I drive you missed the "road closed ahead" sign until you got to the physical barrier. Multiple people making u-turns, and my dd was late to school because I had to turn around and go a different, long way around. This went on for months, and what seems like one bulldozer pushing around one pile of dirt for two months. The road is open now, but still nothing there but a pile of dirt and I have no idea why the road needed to be closed off... I also hate 10 miles of cones blocking a lane of the freeway so they can fill a single pot hole... or those traffic signs telling you a road is closed...in Seattle which is almost 3 hours away, and everyone has to slow down to read it, I swear I can hear other drivers sounding out the words with my sonic hearing  |
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Deleted
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Nov 1, 2024 13:29:12 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 19:15:16 GMT
The Beltway scares me.
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scrappyesq
Pearl Clutcher
You have always been a part of the heist. You're only mad now because you don't like your cut.
Posts: 4,063
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Post by scrappyesq on Sept 13, 2017 19:18:27 GMT
There is construction at some point on each of the three possible routes I can take to work every day, so each morning is a game of six in one half a dozen in the other.
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Post by missbennet on Sept 13, 2017 19:24:58 GMT
None of that stuff would bother me, but I'm not a saint. Traffic and road construction just don't blip my radar, but I do get my panties in a twist over way pettier shit than that.  |
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Post by jeremysgirl on Sept 13, 2017 19:30:31 GMT
I hear you and validate you. Right now there are two routes for me to get to work. One is under construction. The second requires me to make a left turn onto a five lane road at the very same time parents are taking a left off the main road into the school parking lot. It's making me nuts. The other route is far quicker and easier but has been under construction for the past two months.
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PaperAngel
Prolific Pea
Posts: 7,920
Jun 27, 2014 23:04:06 GMT
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Post by PaperAngel on Sept 13, 2017 20:59:06 GMT
No; I accept these things are necessary inconveniences to maintain roads/create safe intersections/etc. for our community. Unlike the random driver/commuter, civil engineers are privy to & must consider various factors about the project, job site, traffic flow, workers' safety, etc. when blocking lanes, closing streets, redirecting traffic, etc.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Nov 1, 2024 13:29:12 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 21:19:47 GMT
The ten miles if cones are for safety. The woman who lived with my Bil lost her sister in a highway construction accident. A car hit her as she was flagging. It was the last ten minutes of her last day on the job.
Now for crazy stupid construction: one of the busiest streets in town, taken down from a 4 lane to a 2 lane with parking in both sides and bike lanes. BUT the bike lanes are unusable because at every crosswalk there a huge useless cement decorative pieces jutting out across the bike lines. So bikes have to swerve into traffic to get around them. STUPID.
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