The expressways this week
I know, it’s been a while.I’ve been out of state/country from time to time.
To the idiot who stopped his new Lexus in the IPASS lane? No, there is NO PLACE for you to toss your change. You were in an IPASS only lane. You have NO BUSINESS being there, and frankly, no business on the road. My mom is 70 years old and can still drive; you, sir, cannot. Turn in your drivers licence, trade your lexus in for a Rascal, and get OFF THE ROAD!!!!
Now: you idiots who designed the new overpass at 80/94-294? I see what you’re doing, and i don’t like it. Do you realize how many people will be crowding to your newly redesigned right lane to go northbound on the Bishop Ford, while a few people wanting to go southbound will have to wait in an endless line of cars?
You are low grade morons. Turn in your pocket calculators and get a job at Wal-Mart. Practice saying “would you like a cart”? (Southern version, “You want a buggy?”)
I’m surprised that you are amazed at the level of stupidity on the highways, after years of dealing with the nimrods. Nah, it’s probably a moment where something you live with on a daily basis finally builds up to the point of an “aaaaaargh” moment, like when someone finally replaces that worn out blue & black donut washer to keep the freakin faucet from dripping.
But like you and I know, we cannot change the washer on this one, and our lives suffer from the choices of the mouth breathers, who both design and use these concrete ribbons of failure.
Want someone to do something in a capable and competent manner? Have the job done by the private sector, like they did for the halfway attractive, well built bridge flying over da Boulevard over by Lever Brothers for the casino, that they put up in about a month. The bridge in downtown Hammond over the RR tracks took 40 years to approve and build, and looks like hell.
Light rail motormen, passenger train conductors, and bus drivers all require training and a stint of apprenticeship before they’re trusted with the job of shuffling the unwashed masses to and fro, and can still be replaced if they royally mess up and kill or cripple someone.
But the average driver? The stupe that thinks it’s funny to fire bottle rockets at his buds at a July 4th party? Drives the highway. The fool working at the gas station who has to talk for 20 minutes to catch up on the latest adventures of the co-worker that she hasn’t seen in 23.5 hours while I wait to get change for the $20 that I had to prepay with? Drives the highway. The dope who takes forever to pick six goddang lotto numbers that aren’t going to win anyway while 20 people line up at the Kwiki Mart to pay for their newspapers and coffee in the morning? Drives the highway.
In the mid 90’s, I’m in Gary getting in the left turn lane on US 12/20 to get on I-65 when I look in the rear view mirror to check on the guy behind me before stopping at the light, and see that he’s using his 30 seconds of down time to put a lighter to the end of his glass pipe. White f’er (in case you’re wondering if I mention Gary to imply the user was black, he was not – that was my location where this happened) is getting a crack fix before he gets on an expressway. I once saw a guy practicing playing his flute, sheet music unfolded on the passenger seat next to him as he watched stop & go traffic with one eye as he polished his skills for the Symphony, on the Circle interchange in Chicago.
Road design. In Germany, they build roads based on their projected lifespan, and you get highways with no potholes that go through winters like ours do, yet don’t chunk away at the crack of spring. And no trash. And they got trolleys, trains, and buses driven by craftsmen (no one here understands that word anymore) that give you the chance to safely, cleanly, efficiently get anywhere if you just don’t want to drive today. Or ever.
Here you have to get into your personal pod with all the idiots in your way and sit in permagridlock. God help you if you want to bicycle on our shoulderless roads. When they laid out Gary, Hammond, and Whiting, they designed them to handle getting people hither and dither, broad sidewalks, transit designed into the roadbed, etc. Look at the old b/w photos, you see more people crammed into a tigher space that you have in any of our suburbs, yet, no one is standing still in gridlock like they do at the Southlake Mall area on weekends. Nowadays, planning? Hell, build whatever big box wherever you want to, and if the 30 year homeowner can’t back out of the driveway anymore, or can’t walk to the store because there’s no more sidewalks, to heck with them.
Dang, mike, where you live? I needs to buy you a beer. Write mhardig-at-aol-dot-com
buggy is deep south. that i know of. it’s cart in texas.