I had several topics in mind for this week's column -- including Duluth City Councilor Sharla Gardner's ludicrous plan to keep adult bookstores and strip joints away from homes, schools, churches and parks -- but I just returned from a trip on Duluth's streets and must tell about that.
I've written before about the pitiful condition of city streets, so I'm glad some are being fixed (though driving on the ones still open reminds you that many others will still need work when the Year of the Orange Barrel is finally over), but it appears there was a lack of coordination or planning by some street-repair folks.
Since a new water line had to be put in on a block of Superior Street near 40th Avenue East, it likely appeared to make sense on a map to send cars that would normally go east on Superior Street down 36th Avenue East and then onto London Road. But if any street or highway engineer had made that trip in the real world, they likely wouldn't have approved it. Even without extra detour traffic during non-rush hour times, turning left onto London Road is very difficult; it's near impossible at high-traffic times.
Eastbound traffic on London Road itself has been bumper to bumper at times lately, apparently because of more cars using it and a decision to turn the traffic light at 40th Avenue East into a blinking red light for vehicles on the avenue and London Road. (That light was back to normal the day after my travails, and London Road traffic was moving better.) Try making a left turn at 36th across the westbound traffic and into the cars creeping east and you'll see what I mean.
Apparently some drivers unfamiliar with local streets had tried Greysolon Road to go east. A hand-lettered sign at its entrance warned motorists it's a dead end.
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The Superior Street blockage may be gone when this appears, but my memories (and I'm sure those of many others) will remain.
There are few alternatives available if you block off all lanes on Superior Street, but that, of course, raises the question of whether all had to be blocked at once. There's no good alternative to send cars up the hill, so London Road is about it. There's a barrier at 26th Avenue East to warn motorists against through-traffic east of that point, and that detour at least has a light at London Road to allow left turns. But not enough cars heed that warning. By the time enough drivers learn the bitter lesson about "left-turnitis" at 36th, the Superior Street blockade will be gone.
This is far from the only major problem with driving in Duluth this summer, just one that affects those of us who drive in the eastern part of the city.
There's another major headache for those who want to drive on Woodland Avenue. You don't have to have a long memory to recall when that street was under reconstruction, sending cars onto Wallace Avenue and other local streets. Well, they're back on Wallace again -- this time because of a short blockage on Woodland.
Once again, engineers should make sure streets are blocked in ways that benefit drivers -- not in ways that make it easy for road-construction crews.
Some of this work is likely being done with money from the federal economic stimulus package. Since lawmakers spent that money, Duluth should get its share and, as I said, our streets need lots of work.
But those who drive on I-35, London Road, Superior Street, Second Street and Woodland Avenue are paying dearly for this "progress." And I think I just named most of the streets that handle heavy traffic (or at least used to) in eastern Duluth.
I could have called the eminently reasonable John Bray of the Minnesota Department of Transportation for an explanation of why his agency made its contribution to this fiasco, but I'd rather just rant today.
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Besides, I think it's written somewhere in the Bill of Rights that old people have a constitutional right to be cranky. Why else would so many of us be like that?
Virgil Swing has been writing about Duluth for many years. Contact him at vswing2@chartermi.net .
