The Third of July was a busy day. We had to get the pool vacuumed before guests arrived and then there were chores around the yard. And then we had a good summer cookout with burgers and potato salad, corn on the cob, sausage and peppers and watermelon. No wonder losing weight is such a slog!
And it was a good visit with reminiscences about summers up in Maine when my kids were young and other trips. And I had an interesting conversation with Princess Sack of Potatoes. She said something about how useful mothers were. So, I mentioned to her what fathers were useful for. I asked her if she ever got tired while out somewhere and her father carried her around like a sack of potatoes? Or what exactly would happen if the car got a flat tire far away from a tow truck? Or if suddenly traffic stopped on a crowded highway in the middle of summer and after an hour someone would have to get out and walk up the road to see how long the stoppage would be. And this caused a yelp from Princess Sack of Potatoes’ mother. She remembered that day very well after all these years. And she was still upset by it, remembering how certain she had been that I would never come back alive. We all got a big laugh out of that.
This was shortly after I had moved out of New York City but I was driving into Manhattan to attend a wedding in SoHo. It was a science fiction themed wedding with a blow-up Godzilla in attendance. We were on the FDR Drive when the traffic screeched to a halt and nothing happened for about forty minutes. So, since it was very hot that day and my car’s air conditioning was non-existent, I shut off the engine and started walking between lanes of traffic to see what was going on. And about a half mile up the road there were police, fire and emergency vehicles blocking the road in both directions. And along with several crashed cars there was a very fancy sports car that was upside down and wrapped around a light pole and some other parts of the highway infrastructure. The firemen were cutting away what was left of the frame to get at what was left of the driver. It looked pretty grim.
The good news for us was that our direction on the highway would be released as soon as the ambulances got their patients stowed away and headed to the hospital. The other side looked like it would be stuck for hours. So, after satisfying my morbid curiosity for a few minutes I headed back to my car with the news that we would be moving in less than another half hour. And my youngest daughter looked so relieved when I managed to return before the traffic had started to move. She was convinced that if I hadn’t gotten back before it started to move then of necessity I would be squashed like a bug in a cartoon.
It’s funny, up until today I hadn’t thought of that day in thirty-some-odd years. Funny what stuff just pops into your head.
I’m from Atlanta and know full well what total jams are about. After about 5 decades of experiencing an exponential rise in the frequency, I started getting panic attacks and had to get out of there and moved to a relatively low populated area in NW Florida. Now, the local population is rising dramatically. Same pattern as Atlanta underwent starting in the 50’s. I used to drive my go kart around I-285 (Perimeter Hwy) on the weekends when they were grading it. Now 285 is 5 lanes each way dead stopped shimmering white hot when it isn’t a 85+ MPH… Read more »
Tom, I almost never go into NYC anymore because the roads in a lot of places are literally falling apart. There is one section of the elevated BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) that goes from four lanes to one lane in each direction because the road rotted away completely. It’s like something out of Mad Max. But back when that incident occurred Giuliani had restored safety to the streets of Gotham for his terms in office. So it was interesting to walk down the FDR and see my fellow New Yorkers walking to the crash to figure out our options.
My knowledge from both a personal and professional level indicate that the Georgia DOT is well funded, efficient and competent. Lord only knows the crisis level if that were not the case. Pure traffic density is the issue. The density problem was significantly purposefully created by supposed “environmental” groups. The effects of the rapidly developing increasing traffic density has been easily extrapolated for decades. In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s a number of projects were proposed to head it off to a significant degree. But, each project was sued into non-existence in Federal court , one by one. Every… Read more »