Thursday, April 05, 2007

STL Rising: Downtown Shortcuts!

Last night, we were driving into downtown via northbound I-55 to Memorial Drive. Meanwhile, ballpark traffic in the lefthand lanes of Memorial Drive was backed up all the way to the Poplar Street Bridge. Oddly enough, the righthand lanes were wide open.

We kept to the right, and made it all the way to the stoplight next to the Old Cathedral. Gridlocked traffic in the left lanes, waiting to make a left turn on Market past the Drury Inn, was waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Given the length of the line of cars waiting to turn on Market, drivers were probably waiting 20-30 minutes or more to make this turn.

It's a breeze to avoid this delay; remember, we have a grid street system! One block further north, south, east or west and you probably can steer clear of all sorts of traffic jams.

We circumvented the traffic by travelling one block out of our way, and had the car parked and were in our seats at the ballgame while some of the cars we had passed ten minutes earlier were probably still lined up on Memorial Drive.

Take a different turn! There are lots of ways to get from Point A to Point B!

2 comments:

Michael R. Allen said...

If the downtown streets were all two-way, this would be even easier.

Anonymous said...

It's amazing that (most likely suburbanite) people haven't figured this out. They only know one way and must feel they'd get lost if they were on block over. People sort of herd like cattle when they see cars starting to que up in a lane into downtown, figuring the other drivers know the only route. I've seen this in other cities as well