A joke around Minnesota is that there are only two seasons: Winter and road construction. That's not too far off from the truth. And as winter was at its worst three winters ago (last year's was bad, but in retrospect it probably was normal), road construction, always a summertime pain in the ass, has never been as bad as it is now.
For the first time that I can remember, the closest highway to where we live, 694, is undergoing a major repair job. Starting in June and lasting through November -- at least that's what the Minnesota Department of Transportation says -- the part of that highway I use the most will be under long and serious lane closures. It's been down to two lanes in the daytime and one at night for the majority of the summer, and it's a pain in the ass. Moreover, they have started to close down the on- and off-ramps to get to 694. I have no idea when they will open up, but because I work infrequently I don't regularly go through all these ramps so I can see the signs saying this ramp will be closed at such-and-such date. So these detours surprise me, and I have make a U-turn or go down miles and miles to connect to the highway.
This weekend it has gotten much worse. My job at the Fair will take me from 694 to 35W. There was some stuff on east side of 694, where it connects up with 35W, that is affected, but I didn't think the on-ramp to 35W would be closed. But it is, and so I have to whip through the entire cloverleaf in order to get to 35W South to get to my job starting tomorrow. Also, 65, one of the two main streets that lead to my house, is closed for the weekend, presumably because of major work in regards to building the new walkway bridge there right around where my high school is. That wouldn't have been a problem, except that I kind of wanted to go to Best Buy, attached to the mall closest to me, and today my parents said they wanted me to buy HDMI cables so Mother can see downloads on their big bedroom TV. I might buy them online instead, or I might have to suffer through the traffic.
If this weekend is bad, however, it might have been worse just two weekends ago. My sister's best friend snapped a photo of the Twin Cities app on her smartphone showing traffic and construction projects around the area and uploaded it onto her facebook. There were at least two dozen symbols of that red circle with a fat white dash in the middle, the worldwide symbol for "closed." It was absolutely insane how many projects were going on that weekend. I got the sense that MNDOT simply did not want people driving that weekend.
What gets me is the number of projects that affect me. The only places that I believe do not have construction projects going on right now are 47, which gets me to downtown and the U., 35W past 694, which will get me to downtown faster, and 610, where I can exercise without any hassles. Everywhere else and I am slowed down. So, if I have to go somewhere -- for example, I need to pick up a few alumni-related things from my friend Monday -- I have to plan and ahead and worry about where the next ramp closure is. Which reminds me of another thing that frustrates me: All of the websites that have information about closures and construction issues absolutely fail to help. None of these places gives me precise information about what stretch of highway is closed down, how many lanes a highway is narrowed to, and especially which ramps are closed and when. Wow, I'm getting angrier the more I think about this.
Oh yeah ... there's construction in front of our house, too. They are repaving our street right now. The flyer we got said it was going to happen Tuesday and Wednesday. But I saw nothing when I got home Tuesday, and right now the entire road is dirt. They were still moving around piles of dirt the past couple days, so much that I got stuck making a left onto our driveway. I got stuck and had to gun my engine for several minutes. Swear that my transmission's all shot because of that. If so, goddamn the city. ...
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