The Bridge to Nowhere

I always thought that was a euphemism for wasteful government spending. Turns out, it's an actuality.  I have a bridge to nowhere right in my own town.  And, I must say, it is quite attractive complete with stonework and fancy wrought iron street lights.

For the past few months, we have put up with construction on a new "flyover".  If you don't know what a flyover is, basically it is an overpass that allows traffic to bypass stop lights and allows the traffic to smoothly continue on further down a street or highway and seamlessly merge in with the ongoing traffic.  Sounds like a dream concept.  Well, it may work in dreams but it doesn't actually work in real life.  At least, this particular flyover doesn't work at all, and probably not even in anyone's dreams. 

Maybe a little background is in order.  For years, we have put up with construction along a five mile stretch of Gerault Road that brings almost 100% of traffic from a major highway (Hwy. 2499) into our town.  It used to be a two lane farm road, but it is now a six lane divided thoroughfare.  Only in the last year have all six lanes been opened up to traffic.  Just as the six lanes were opened up, along comes more construction that closed down four of the six lanes and reduced us down to two lanes once more.  This was because they decided to tear up the median along with two of the lanes of traffic that had just been completed in the last year. 

This seems to be standard operating procedure for our town.  Build something, then tear it up a few months later so you can put in (choose one) (1) irrigation systems, (2) street lights, (3) landscaping, (4) sewer lines, (5) electrical lines, (6) fiber optics, etc, etc, etc.  It is quite frustrating to watch as they build a road, put in the curbs, put in the landscaping and then come back a few months later so they can tear it all up to put in the sprinkler system they didn't put in before the put in the landscaping.  And, then, after that, they will come back and tear it up so they can put in sidewalks that they didn't put in when they did the road.  In the past seventeen years, I have watched this same thing happen over and over again.  I have also watched just recently as they tore up the fairly new sidewalks so they could put in wider sidewalks.  I can't figure that one out yet.  But, that's what they did.  And, while they were doing that, they extended the curved parts of the street further out into the street which forces the traffic to swerve in and out like we are running a gymkhana.  I think they did all of this because they had money to spend on this particular stretch of road to widen it from four lanes to six lanes but the neighbors got all upset and so they "tabled" that project in favor of tearing up the existing sidewalks so they could put new ones in, which were not needed at all.  Oh, and all the landscaping that had just been put in was dug up and replaced before they came back and dug it up again to put in the sprinkler system.  See a pattern here??

Back to the current bridge to nowhere.  The publicity surrounding this new flyover told us that it would enhance traffic flow and make life so much easier for all of us to commute to work because we would not have to stop at the traffic light at the intersection where this flyover was going to be built.  They made it sound like heaven.  In fact, I really think I heard harps and angelic choirs in the background during all the hype over this new flyover.

Fast forward a year and the flyover is completed.  Now talk about wasting money.  This stupid thing has very expensive decorative stone work on every upright post and support column for the entire length of the bridge.  Each individual post in the railing has stonework applied to it.  The entire facade on all four sides of the overpass coming and going has the stonework.  Then, they added very elaborate scrollwork types of street lights the entire span of the bridge.  What is interesting about those street lights is that they are lovely when they are on.  They serve a very valuable purpose in helping you not go careening over the side of the very decorative railing.  Just 20 feet up the road from these street lights are regular street lights that are more utilitarian.  But, I don't know what they look like when they are on because they are never turned on.  They were put in place, but someone complained that it ruined the "night viewing sky" for them to be able to see the stars, so we get to travel a very dark stretch of road with no lights on it.

Now, this bridge is not very long and it is actually a very severe curve ending in an abrupt stop where it has to merge in with oncoming traffic on Hwy. 2499.  There is a space of about 30 feet that you are supposed to merge into a never ending line of cars that are all going at least 55-60 mph.  This is three lanes worth of non-stop cars that are zooming by at a very fast rate and have no intention of slowing down for you or anyone else.  This is the same bridge that bypasses a traffic light that stops all of this traffic on Hwy. 2499 so that people coming from Gerault Rd. could actually get out into the oncoming traffic and not get killed in the meantime.

Two days ago, there was an article in the newspaper and it was entitled "Flyover causes unease".  You think??  There have been many complaints from citizens saying that there is no way to merge into oncoming traffic from this bridge and that it was poorly thought out.  The town officials have admitted that there is a problem and they "hope that future funding opportunities will provide some options to resolve the issue."  They had the nerve to say that the town had a "vision" about using this flyover in connection with another project that would bypass two other traffic signals along Hwy. 2499 and allow traffic to completely bypass the highway and merge directly onto another highway further up.  The only problem is that the people who were doing the other project NEVER HAD ANY PLANS TO DO ANYTHING OF THE SORT.  But, our town went ahead with their idea anyway. 

So, there you have it.  We have a bridge to nowhere, dreamt up by a bunch of people who had a vision and no one else got on board their Magical Flying Machine and played their silly game.  I use the flyover on Sunday mornings when there is no traffic on Hwy. 2499.  But, every time I drive over it, it irritates the devil out of me to see all of that stonework, the fancy street lights and no place to merge into the oncoming traffic.  The only good thing that came out of it is that we finally got a decel right-hand turn lane going the opposite direction on Hwy. 2499 to allow cars to turn right onto Gerault Rd., the street with the bridge, and not have to try to come to a dead stop from going 60 mph so we could turn right and hope that the person behind us didn't ram right into the back of us.  You guessed it.  They didn't think about putting in this right hand turn lane until several years after they built Hwy. 2499.  Hindsight, you know.

Life is a series of small victories.  I'll take them where I can find them.