Detours from hell

[LadyBarbossa]

Last night, we had to pick up my nephew at the Jacksonville International Airport. Now, I really hate going to Jax when I'm in a good mood, in the daylight. But I know my way there and I didn't want Mom driving because she has no sense of direction and gets lost very easily. The flight didn't land until nearly midnight and I'd worked all day, and it was the first of the month. We were supposed to merge onto 295 from I-10 via exit 356, but ooops! A huge section of Eastbound I-10 was completely closed that night. The detour took us through the WORST possible part of town with the signs and cones willy nilly all over the place and not exactly clear. I don' t know about any of you, but being in an area full of abandoned railroad stations and closed down, graffitied buildings in Jacksonville is not where I want to be at midnight on any day of the week. It caused us to be over 40 minutes late picking him up (At least we didn't have to pay parking, anyways), not to mention we had to backtrack on 10 West because the detour brought us out at 358. FFS!

[powerboy]

Oh I hate them, I once had one that took me an hour out of the way.

[blas87]

I feel for you. Right now, the main drag of town is completely torn up, and only 1 way in both directions (this, from 6 lanes down to 2....HORRIBLE!). I mean, the road is literally torn up and mangled.

I try to avoid that area, but there are places I can't, like where I go to pay rent (I always do it in person).

I found a short cut of sorts, where I'd only have to go across an intersection of the mess, then last night, as I was venturing bravely to McDonalds, I saw that they tore THAT street up now, so there is no longer that shortcut. You HAVE to take the damn one lane road.

Fuckers.

[protege]

We have some interesting fuck-ups involving detours here. For example, getting to Homestead, PA, from where I live...is a pain in the ass. For the past year, they've had several of the roads leading to that area torn up for one reason or another. Not helping, is that most of the roads you'd use to *detour* around the construction...were also torn up. For those of you curious, I'm referring to the clusterfuck of Routes 837 and 885 (the bridge of which is *still* torn up) which were torn up for bridge replacement last year. Meaning, that if you wanted to get in or out of Homestead (to get on the parkway, or to hit Kennywood, or even downtown Pittsburgh...via Hazelwood), you'd find yourself sitting in traffic. Keep in mind that the area I'm referring to isn't all that large--probably less than 5 square miles. Anyway, when they decided to rip up 885, the Rankin Bridge (off 837) was being replaced as well. Also nearby (and torn up!) is Glass Run Rd. All this construction, is proving to be a serious hassle to get home. I just wish they'd finish one project, before starting another.

[LadyBarbossa]

To top it off, it seems like there's never anyone doing any work. While I'll agree that nighttime hours would be ideal for doing roadwork since there are less drivers out on the road, I had better NOT be zig-zagging terrified out of my wits through the slums of Jacksonville and see all the workers clustered together holding coffees and watching videos on their phones. It seems like if they'd actually work while they're there, these things wouldn't take damn near as long.

[blas87]

Someone must have forgotten to tell you that a construction worker's middle name is "Smoke break", as well as city workers when it comes to plowing the streets. Oh, we did one neighborhood, smoke time. Oh, we did another road, coffee time. Wow, another block, time to hit up McDonalds.

[LadyBarbossa]

More like "Whew, we put up the signs letting everyone know we're here. Time for lunch."

[AdminAssistant]

We ran into so much construction on our 'vacation' last week it was ridiculous. And then Fiance goes back to work today, and gets stuck for an hour in a traffic jam because KDOT decided to shut down two lanes of a major interstate for no discernible reason.