There are times when getting out of the downtown parking garage I'm in is a major pain. Sometimes the cars are backed up the corkscrew ramp all the way to the top of the garage. Normally, it's no big deal. Today it was a real problem since I had to make it to a Heine Meine manager's rescheduling meeting before 6:15PM, and it was already 5:30. These garage-exiting delays have taken up to one hour.
Getting out of the garage could get so bad that sometimes frustrated drivers would drive down the building in the wrong directon. But since they've upgraded the entrance and exits gates, that doesn't work anymore. Today, we're all at the mercy of the automated system.
It took a half hour to make it out of the garage. That left fifteen minutes to make it to the Weber Road exit on Highway 55. Remembering back to those "line coach" recommendations at Florida amusement parks, I headed left instead of right. Everything was going great until I drove by the old ballpark site, headed toward the Old Cathedral, aiming to make a right turn on southbound 4th Street.
Which brings me to my near-name for this post: "It's Illinois' Fault". It's 6:00PM now. Every car around me has an Illinois plate and is trying to load onto the Poplar Street Bridge.
Light after light, the traffic sits. Then I notice a blocked off right turn lane, closed with those super-sized plastic MoDot-issue barrels. Other than the plastic barrels, the lane is completely passable, and there were no workers in sight.
I'm thinking, "good thing those barrels are so light". I arrived at the manager's meeting with about 5 minutes to spare...
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1 comment:
Rick you've inspired me. I'm going to push for more complicated parking garage exits so that it does take a long time to get out of them. Along with other delays hopefully we can make mass transit & bicycle communting more attractive to others.
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