Expect Lengthy Delays

Closing I-495 indefinitely is a disaster for people traveling the I-95 corridor, particularly people in Delaware. I feel bad for people like my husband who have no option but to take the interstates to work and now have to sit in traffic that is even more crippling than it was before. I feel bad for everyone whose drive just got a lot worse and I know people have it worse than me. I’m not directly affected by the closure (at least as far as my route to work) but I have to say this closure just adds to the total madness that is commuting.

My commute is an hour each way and is really starting to get to me even further in recent months. The distance is one thing but the constant road construction does not help. I resent all the time I have to spend in a car. I’m far beyond “not letting it get to me.” I can’t chuckle and shake my head and say “Whaddya gonna do” because spending so much time in a car for so many years is continuing to chip away at my quality of life. I’m so sick of driving that I barely want to leave the house on the weekend. I’ll tough it out and continue to do it, because I have no choice, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to vent about it once in awhile.

The closure might not have been so bad for people if every other road were already not under construction and every time you consider using an alternate route, you realize that the alternate route also has its own detour. As I said, I’m not taking 95 or 495 to work but the endless detours start pretty much outside my front door.

Route 100 has been under some type of mystery construction for some time. Crews have been digging for — I don’t know: gold? — on and off and the fun part is you don’t know when construction will be happening so you could chance taking the road and get stuck. Kirkwood Highway/Lincoln and Union Streets have been down to one lane for six months, which backs up traffic into Wilmington and Elsmere. In Greenville, Route 52 is under constant work and the latest was repaving last week with the sign that made my blood pressure spike: “Expect lengthy delays.” Route 52 is the Cadillac of roads. It’s been under construction on and off for years and it’s just a plain old two-lane road; no bridges or anything to maintain. I really think it’s because the rich residents insist on having a road that is immaculate enough to eat off. Closer to work, 202 has also been under construction for years. I hope they finish widening it to three lanes sometime before I retire so I can have a better commute. Even a little back road near work is under construction so I can’t avoid it.

The worst has to be Route 141, which has been under some form of construction in the eight years that we’ve lived in the area. The lanes have been cattle chutes for years now and yet I never see anyone actually doing anything at any time of day or night. It’s really frustrating when you can’t see any visible improvements on the road and it’s just “work.” Just a mystery. If a road project takes longer than the Allied invasion of Normandy, you’re doing it wrong.

At least nobody fell into the Christina River off a collapsing 495, but I’m sure none of the people in horrifying gridlock on 95 are sitting in their cars celebrating that. Intellectually, I know it’s true when people say we need to invest more in our infrastructure but at the same time, what the hell have we been doing the past five years as every road in America has been lined with orange cones? When will it be over?

I am certainly not an expert at road construction but I am wondering if there is non-essential work happening when efforts could be better spent on shoring up shaky bridges. Do we really need roads repaved so often? I know it’s better for my car to drive on a smoother road but I care much more about my mental state than my car and if avoiding lane closures would help that state, then just leave the road bumpy for awhile. A lot of work on roads is invisible and I would appreciate that work more if someone would explain exactly when happened while I was sitting in traffic for six hours and how it benefited drivers. You get tired of hearing, “Everyone’s going to have to be patient” when you’ve already been patient for years.  

As I said, many people have worse commutes than me and I feel for the people affected by the 495 situation, which there is literally and figuratively no way around. I just needed to vent a little steam about driving, the activity I hate the most in the world.