Years ago, I remember reading a Dave Barry column that was centered around the various stages of road construction. The first stage entailed closing down the road and making everyone's life impossibly inconvenient. "In the second stage", he continued, "nothing happens. This stage may last for several years."
This old column came to mind recently as I was navigating my own commute to Lewis & Clark. This past summer, some signs went up saying that the street which anchors my normal route to work would be closed from July 13 to October 13. Why? I couldn't find any information (finally, just a few days ago, I found this). But no matter -- the detour wasn't too extensive, and of course, most of the work would be done over the summer when I wasn't going into the office that frequently.
July, August, and September go by. I drive past the work site, and I never once see anybody doing anything. There's just a lonely sign announcing a road closure and a promise that the route will reopen on October 13.
Finally, October 13 rolls around. I drive past the work site to see if the closure has ended, and I see two things: (1) People finally doing something that looks like work (at the very least, some construction vehicles and folks in orange vests; and (2) a sign saying that now the road is closed through November 1.
As far as I can tell, for three months from the time the road was closed until the time it was scheduled to be reopened, nothing happened. Work didn't actually start until after it was scheduled to have finished.
No comments:
Post a Comment