The Biggest Engineering Project in Human History

After three years, the road construction on Route 202 in Chester County is finally coming to an end late this summer! Yay! Just one more miserable winter, spring and summer of sitting in exhaust fumes while I choke on my own howling, useless rage! It’s very exciting that I only have to get through upwards of six months of watching a paved median strip, which is big enough to fit two lanes of traffic plus two shoulders, sit unused as work happens sporadically!

Apparently, widening the 2.5-mile stretch from four lanes to six has been one of the biggest engineering projects in human history, since it’s cost $63 million and has been happening since 2013 (that’s what PennDOT says but it really seems like it started earlier). Here is a partial list of events that have lasted as long (and in some cases wrapped up earlier) than the apparently monumental task of widening 13,200 GD feet of highway:

The Korean War (1950-1953)

Construction of the Empire State Building (1930-1931)

Vatican Council II (1962-1965)

Construction of World Trade Center 1 (1968-1970)

Construction of World Trade Center 2 (1969-1971)

The filming of Gone With the Wind (1939)

The Glorious Revolution (1688-1689)

Construction of the CN Tower (1973-1976)

Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)

The creation of the Mona Lisa (1503-1506)

The Dunkirk evacuation (1940)

Construction of the Eiffel Tower (1887-1889)

Apollo 11 (1969)

The Allied invasion of Normandy (1944)

But I guess I’ll just be patient, or at least celebrate the third anniversary of first starting to be patient as four lanes merge painfully into two like me trying to shove my thighs into skinny jeans. Oh, I guess I’ll be positive about the crippling traffic that turns a 25-mile interstate drive into an hour-long ordeal due to the fact that most of the shortsighted (over)development around 202 consists of cul-de-sacs and streets that go nowhere so there are no viable alternative roads. Perhaps I can pat myself on the head and say “You’ll get there!” with a condescending smirk. Or while traffic is backed up for miles, I can slap on a dimwitted smile, get out of my car on the median strip that sits unused and do a jig while singing a song with the chorus “It’s fine!”

Meanwhile the red of the brake lights ahead burns my eyes with its unholy glow and my dreams are filled with being crushed by huge stone sculptures of “202” falling on me.

I am going mad. Can you tell I’m going mad? I am definitely going mad.