The other morning coming home I decide to hop on a short stretch of highway that is one lane where you enter to get onto the highway going south or keep straight to interchange to another highway to go west. Once you round the exit ramp leading to the other highway you can get onto that highway headed west or stay in the lane you are in to exit off into my neighborhood. The problem, and it's been a problem for a long time, is that if anything goes wrong on what is commonly known as dead man's curve in my neighborhood, which is the highway you can get onto once you do the interchange, everyone tries to get off the exit that goes into my neighborhood. It's not uncommon at all for accidents to occur along that stretch of highway, or semi's flipping onto their side and at least one or two of them a year run completely off the highway. This particular morning I don't know what the problem was that led to the back up, most times if the exit ramp is backed up it's not quite as bad as whatever happened up further into the curves the highway takes. I guess it all depends on the time of day and how crowded the highway is, like rush hours would see a lot more cars trying to get off. Which was probably the case the morning I decided to do a jot over into my neighborhood quicker than driving the side streets to get home. But as you can see it was a complete mistake and this was one of the worse back ups I had seen as it started before I even got to the interchange. You mix that with the cars trying to get out of the back up once you get onto that west bound traffic and it's a recipe waiting for a disaster some day, they won't have one accident to worry about but two. The increasing occurrence of these back ups is due to one thing....a bike lane the city decide to run alongside the highway with a designated parking area on the other side of the bike lane.
Yup, that's me illegally driving in the bike lane. Why on earth would I have wanted to wait in that long line of cars any further. Each one has to stop at that four way stop and either turn left where there's another four way stop on the other side of the overpass or go straight. I could easily get ten car lengths ahead of myself just by taking the bike lane they are all to afraid of getting caught driving in. Of course this takes me, I'd guess three additional blocks to get home but I'll get home faster than waiting through two four way stops and a traffic light that are backed up. It's not like, at least that I've ever seen, an actual person on a bike in the bike lane. So everyone must risk their life or a ticket for a phantom bike rider. They are or have been putting these in all over the city for several years now. You wouldn't believe the amount of people who'll wait three, four, five car lengths back instead of even considering driving in a bike lane.
Out by where I take my grand kids to school it's pretty desolate along their road. You are more apt to see deer in the bike lane than an actual bicyclist but more mornings than not there's a car or two in that lane of traffic with their blinkers on to turn left as I stroll up alongside past them going about my business to take them to school. There was a couple times this school year one particular super liberal climate enthusiast seen me coming and would pull a bit over so I couldn't pass him. He must have thought I needed to wait my turn as he was busily protecting the bike lane that was helping save the planet.
They recently came on my street to put in new lead free pipes to homes. I didn't need a lead free pipe because my pipes didn't have lead. They sent everyone a letter and you called to make an appointment for them to come out and test your pipes. My pipes didn't contain any lead but whatever I got new pipes anyway, meanwhile back in Flint... . In doing so they cut two feet off the width of our street and put in what they called rain gardens on the corners that also bumped out to define parking areas. The explanation given was to give the rain more places to go...but I don't recall rain being the main concern of global warming. In a global warming claimed situation you don't narrow the street, bump out the corners so cars have to wait behind other cars if they simply rather turn than go straight. Now most people would say it's just one, two, maybe three cars at best or maybe no cars at all but overall that's not true if you consider how many streets they are doing this to and the thousands of cars that adds up to in any given day that sit idling spewing carbon off into the atmosphere. That defining of the parking spaces?...that didn't even last six months before someone took out my kids truck one night. Than to add insult to injury they come along to plant trees to absorb all that extra carbon they just added into the atmosphere. This is what you call insanity at it's finest. Of course I told them what they could do with their tree they had planned for me so they took it and squeezed it between two trees across the street from my house, I guess that was payback for being out there arguing to much common sense.