I live off of a two lane road in an ever-expanding community in Metro Detroit. My house was built in 1964, one of the last in a community built around a small all-sports lake. Most of the homes were built in the forties as second homes for the upper class in the city as weekend getaways.
A new leg of a major freeway is under construction that dumps onto said two lane road. The heaviest traffic flows south in the morning and north at rush hour. Yea, rush hour. What a joke.
Anyway, for the past few weeks it takes me forty-five minutes to an hour to get home. So what’s the big deal, you ask? I LIVE SIX GODDAMNED MILES FROM WORK! Traffic typically backs up two or three miles south of the entrance to my subdivision and it takes a half hour or more for the home stretch.
On top of all of this, they’ve built a Home Depot/Target/Staples/AppleBees/20 screen theater complex on the same road about a half mile north of my sub so that rush hour is a never ending crush. Brilliant.
Don’t they pay civil engineers and city planners to circumvent situations such as these? Or are they doing this to get a good laugh at MY EXPENSE?!?
Wait a sec… you suddenly have shops, restaurants and a theater right down the road, within walking distance, and you’re mad?
Seriously, though…you only live six miles from work, are there no alternate routes? Side streets? There can’t be only one way to get there, can there?
As for the new business area, suck it up. We should all be so lucky. I live in a friggin’ state capitol and I haven’t seen anyone walk since God was in diapers. I’d love to be able to go places without having to drive. I’d love to not have to own a car at all.
Simmer down. Why waste the energy to get angry? They’re not gonna tear it down, after all.
“…all the prettiest girls live in Des Moines…”
–Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Urban sprawl is something that faces all cities. Some handle it well, others do not, and others cannot because of logistics.
Don’t know where Detroit fits into this equation, but some pointed questions to local officials might offer you some answers, though probably not any kind of solution…
You think you have problems? I live in Montreal. To get to work I have to go through the “Decarie Interchange”. That’s its official name.
However most people insert a few words before the “Decarie Interchange” part. The most polite thing I’ve heard it called is “that unfortunate Decarie Interchange”.
Basically it’s a place where 3 highways and 2 major roads meet and it has traffic lights! The problem is that it’s shaped like a K. Also there are railroad tracks on one side of it. This means that there’s no easy way to get around it in the direction I’m going. All the small streets are blocked by the railroad tracks or by a highway which leads to the interchange.
Did I mention that in the last few years many companies have moved north, away from downtown, to avoid traffic. They have settled around highway 40. Highway 40 goes through that interchange. So now, the place with the worst traffic in Montreal is about… 10 km away from downtown.
Yep. Furious. But that’s why I moved out here, to get a little elbow room. My biggest beef is that they build the new subs and strip malls using the existing infrastucture. These are old farm roads, for the most part. Not designed to support the constant heavy pounding that they’re getting.
Well, gee, I never thought of that! Actually, yes, there is only one way. With the area’s multitude of lakes, sometimes you only have one route, unless you want to go ten miles out of your way.
Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was the fucking Pit. Cripe.
Hey, now…I’m not flaming you, Sly. You and I are just on opposite sides of the fence. I hate living in the suburbs and I hate not being able to walk places. You have every right to complain, of course. How do your neighbors feel about the situation? Moving is kind of drastic, but perhaps with the new road and the new shopping center, your house might be worth a few dollars more. If you get to a point where you absolutely cannot stand it anymore, it might be something to consider, anyway.
“…all the prettiest girls live in Des Moines…”
–Jack Kerouac, On the Road
School! You were lucky to have a school! We used to have to read the empty cigarrette packets we picked up for fuel as we walked 100 miles in hailstorms for no reason al all except to get out of our shoebox . . .
I feel your pain. Between my office and gym the City of Mesa, geniuses that they are, is widening the streets on not one, but three parallel (E-W) major streets, and the street perpendicular (N-S) to these streets. The epicenter of this mess is the intersection where my gym is. So much for alternative routes. So, a four-mile trip now takes about 25-30 minutes. Fortunately, I have an alternative. The fitness center I have my membership at has another location nearby. Unfortunately, their layout isn’t as good and their equipment is a lot older and in worse shape than at the location I frequent.
“Well, walk it off! And next time, stretch before you ovulate.” – Al Bundy
Ok, Chris, no hard feelings. Sometimes I feel like Michael Douglas’ character in Falling Down.
Now, what did I do with that bazooka?
Strainger: I use to have that same problem with my gym but they expanded their hours to 5am - 10pm. These days, I get up at five twice a week, take my stuff with me, and, after I’m done running and a swim, I take a shower and head off to work at 6:30.
When all else fails, tunnel under. You could save yourself time and energy. Plus, you could make sure to put a manhole in the kitchen of Applebee’s so you could grab a snack on your six mile underground hike to work. It would probably be faster than driving in rush hour, plus you would have a whole new perspective of Dee-troit.
“One evening I pulled Beauty down on my knees.
I found her embittered and I cursed her.”
–Excerpt from Une Saison en Enfer
–A. Rimbaud
Well, in the nearby town of Salinas, where they built the new Applebee’s, Walmart, Chuck E. Cheese, etc, they repaved an old farm road. It’s actually quite nice. This area is on the outside edge of the city, and there is another way into the city (Actually there are several ways, going north is one, south is another, west is the other), so shoppers can go one way, and people who live in Salinas can go an alternate route. It’s actually easier to get to places now (IMHO) that they repaved the road there (Changed the stops, everything).
In my home town, they newest shopping area was built within the city, not on the outskirts. Fortunately there are a lot of empty lots within the city, so they didn’t have to build one on the outskirts. Traffic hasn’t changed either.
I live just a few miles from work and there IS only on way to get there. The Cherry Creek Resevoir halts all roads between where I live and where I (and thousands of others) need to be at 8 am. Take the bus? Ha. I would need to drive four miles to a Park’n’Ride to ride a bus three miles, then walk another mile to work. I don’t mind the megamovie complex at Arapahoe and Parker, but can we please have a GOOD resto in South Aurora? They built Applebee’s, Chile’s, and the most horrifying structure of all time: a combination Pizza Hut/KFC/Taco Bell.
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. That’s my name too.
Wait, no it isn’t.
{and the most horrifying structure of all
time: a combination Pizza Hut/KFC/Taco Bell.}
Horrifying? I would LOVE to have a Kentaco Hut around here. The closest KFC is 40 minutes away. I LOVE KFC. The other 2 I could take or leave. We’ve got some good TexMex around here, and I’m in NY - so I can get REAL pizza when I want it.
Oh, and in response to the OP. I can sympathize. I live off a little farm road, too. The towns on either side of me are really booming - people and businesses moving in like crazy. Everyone on the face of the planet cuts through my road to avoid having to hit the inevitable traffic snarls in the center of those towns. I’ve almost been killed crossing the street to go to my car. You see, unlike yours, the county I live in is really concerned about the welfare of the residents - they saw the traffic pattern problem and jumped right on it - they installed a STOP sign. Only no one stops at it. I live right on the corner, and I don’t really want a traffic light flashing in my windows all day and night, so I’m thinking - barricades!
Oh, yes, and add me to the list of people who have only one route to work. (Unless I drive cross-country across the farms and people’s backyards - not an easy task in a Geo Metro). And, there is no local public transportation, just the buses and trains into NYC.
I realize that it can’t be an easy task to be a city planner. And, I realize that no one could predict that towns that were nothing but farms for a million years would spring into life all at once. But, come on guys, if you took your heads out of your assess while you were taking graft from the builders, maybe you’d realize the roads need to be widened BEFORE the houses and stores are built.