Sooo… bad enough that the Highland Rd. – Butterfield – I-88 intersection, which is a Double Diamond Interchange as designed by a traffic engineer with a drinking problem and a hatred for his fellow man even when it's "working as it should", is mostly closed. My ramp from work to I-88 so I can start the three-highway and one long surface run home is DEFINITELY closed.
Okay, fine. It's actually encouraging to see any maintenance happening on any of America's infrastructure whatsoever, and Lord knows that interchange fuckin' needed some love, so I'll deal with this in my usual graceful, patient manner.
Ahem.
Take the detour, which is hilariously out of the way because of Yorktown Mall and because suburbs. Head north on Highland away from the ramp that is my blessed escape route and then over onto 22nd to feed into I-88 one exit east of the usual at Meyers…
Now, the detour signage is pretty obscure, and people are fucking morons, so naturally traffic on 22nd as you get near the turnoff for the Highland South detour/I-88 EB ramp is majorly fucknutted.
Surprisingly, whatever piece of shit suburb we're in as 22nd comes up on Meyers decided, wisely, to deploy some traffic control to deal with this first day of construction hell. Smart move. The next decision they have to make after deciding to do this is: where? Where will our limited suburban po-po resources do the most good?
Would it be the major intersection between six lanes of Meyers Rd. and the four lanes of 22nd all trying to funnel traffic to and fro the immediate ramps to I-88, which, thanks to the construction, are now the only accessible ramps onto that major major highway for seven miles in either direction?
Or should those cops be posted up at the minor pissant t-intersection of 22nd and what is effectively some fuckin' church's private driveway a few blocks earlier in the detour from Meyers and 22nd?
Maaaaaaybe there's some vicious little podunk small-town mentality here that says "our cops should be used to benefit OUR citizens, not a bunch of commuters who just want to get the fuck out of our fair town as fast as they possibly can. Put the cops by the church so our blessed local worshippers can get onto 22nd without having to brave the absolute torrent of pissed-off, backed-up commuters that will block that intersection entirely until this project is over".
I can almost appreciate that kind of thinking. I'd be pissed, but I'd get it. I'm a Chicagoan and a midwesterner; we're provincial and suspicious of outsiders as fuck by nature, and "Fuck You, Got Mine" should be our city slogan.
HOWEVER.
Add in that the fucking traffic lights at Meyers and 22nd are unexpectedly dead due to a mistake by the construction crews responsible for all of this mess in the first place. So now you've got TEN lanes of traffic merging through a detoured intersection that's not at all designed for this fourth week of Lilith Fair-grade heavy flow in the first place, AND what little automated traffic control that exists there is on vacation… maaaaybe you'd move your two fuckin' Barney Fifes to this site to make sure that a major accident or road rage-inspired murder doesn't occur amongst the THOUSANDS of cars that are going to feed through this asshole of an intersection during the evening rush hour instead of sitting uselessly a few blocks away with their dicks in their hands waving the occasional dopey church-goer into traffic ahead of their turn?
Nah. We're gonna traffic control the FUCK outta that church driveway, my dudes. Everybody else can go to hell.
Incompetent motherfuckers…
shawn ritchie dot com 