I should have written this when I first got to work while my blood was still boiling, but given that I was already 15 minutes late I figured spending my first bit of time in the office writing in my blog wasn't the best idea. It had to wait until lunch, and the content will most likely suffer.I know my commuting woes are not on the level as my friends who live in Dallas, Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, etc... but the cause of my frustration seems to be due to poor execution rather than just too many people on the road. When I first moved to Vegas almost six years ago, people complained of the traffic, but having just come from the SF bay area it was a dream for me. My commute was 24 miles and would take an average of 24 minutes from my starting up the truck to my sitting at my desk. Life was good.
Over the next couple years, more and more people moved to town. Since that little fact doubled the value of my house I am not complaining. But an expected result was an increase in traffic. What had once been a smooth commute with little or no backups on the freeway had come to me traveling in first gear for the length of my time on the freeway. It was bad. And... unfortunately... at the time there were no good alternate routes.
What's a guy to do? That's right. I moved to the other side of the Valley. From the southeast to the northwest. Even shaved a mile off the commute. Oh... and I am much closer to the freeway which also helps. Sure there is some construction on the freeway, but they have been working on it since I moved to Vegas, so it should be done soon... right? Wrong. I don't know what the DOT is thinking (or RTC... not sure who is at fault here), but it feels like they start 50 different road construction projects at once instead of focussing on finishing any of them in a timely manner. And when they do actually finish, the cones are left up and lane restrictions left in place for weeks after the work has actually been completed. Nothing irritates me more than sitting in stop and go traffic while staring at completed lanes on the freeway that ARE DONE! This has been the case for weeks.
It also feels like there is some guy observing which route I choose to travel to and from work and that is how they decide which road to rip up next. As soon as I find some decent alternate route to get from the office to the freeway (since Valley View has been torn up for ages), the cones go up and the things are reduced to one lane. Conciously I know I am not being stalked by the evil traffic monkey, but it sure feels like it.
This morning, what should be a 25 minute commute turned into a 50 minute commute. Every time I took a turn to get away from traffic, I ran into twice as much as before. It was very frustrating. But I will overcome. Tomorrow I leave 30 minutes early to see if that helps. Of course... that is probably what the rest of the Vegas Valley is planning to do... Sigh... only a few more weeks until the "scheduled" completion of the freeway construction. I am not holding my breath.
--C
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