I would
like to apologize to visitors to the Nashville area on behalf of most of
the residents. The government of our fair city seems to be totally
unfamiliar with the terms "Planning" and "Foresight". Since both
words have more than one syllable, that shouldn't be much of a surprise
to anyone though; apparently the only words they do seem to understand
are "Raise" and "Taxes". Regardless of the reasons, in their infinite
wisdom they have managed to get major roadway construction projects running
concurrently on all of the major interstate arteries into and out of Nashville.
There is no way you'll get into Nashville without hitting a construction
site. Somewhere or other, on I-24 or I-40 or I-65, north, south, east,
or west, you are going to get stuck in construction traffic.
I do have to give the
"Powers That Be" credit for foresight in one respect though. They
had enough foresight to realize that people might be able to slip around
the interstate gauntlets and get through on the side streets. To
combat this they also started construction projects on many of the major
side arteries as well. Murfreesboro Road, Briley Parkway, and Donelson
Pike, to name a few, also have reliable choke points to completely stop
traffic. Driving from one side of Nashville to the other, a chore
that used to take 30 minutes or so, now takes between one and three hours
depending on when you set out on your quest.
Not that the time of day
is going to help you much though. At 6:00 on a Saturday morning or
midnight during the week, you will still fall victim to their schemes.
Don't plan on seeing many people actually working at those hours, but they
still manage to place the barricades and lane routings so that the poor
unfortunates who do try to sneak through are hopelessly grid locked.
The only thing
that keeps us sane is the thought that some day it will all be over.
Of course, when it is finally done, things will probably be even worse
than before the construction. A project at Nolensville Road and Harding
Place that should have taken about six months wound up taking closer to
two years. Now that it is finally complete, people driving through
the intersection can't even tell what lane they are supposed to be in.
Lanes that appear to be straight suddenly angle off to the side, and what
you thought was your lane becomes the lane next to you. Try that
sometime when it's dark and raining!
Anyway, I just wanted
to apologize. We, the voting citizens, intend to resolve many of
these problems at the next election, but for now you'll have to deal with
them when you visit our city. If, while you are stuck in traffic
admiring the tourist attractions that we call construction sites, you hear
someone in the vehicle next to you commenting loudly on the ancestry of
everyone concerned with the project, it's probably just me. If not
me, it's probably just someone else who lives around here, has to deal
with this mess on a daily basis, is tired of sitting in traffic listening
to the governor spout off about implementing a state income tax to pay
for all this crap, and has just about had ENOUGH OF IT!
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