Nightmare on Urban streets

Summer road construction is nearing its end. Thank heavens!

All summer I have been chief navigator as we have gone from place to place in this city where we have lived for so many years. Clutching the street map in both hands, I have "re-routed" us to familiar places. Sometimes we even have gotten lost, adding more suspense to what usually are routine trips.

I must say the finished sections are smooth - and a huge improvement, especially on freeways. Dollars well spent on aging infrastructure has meant jobs for many. Hopefully going well beyond filling potholes, re-paving worn roadways will save the suspensions of numerous cars. And even prevent accidents in which attention to potholes rivals the risks of texting while driving.

A month or so ago, I had a terrible nightmare. You know those orange barrels that keep drivers from entering work sections? It has seemed as though they have been reproducing like rabbits in Australia.

 In my dream, I imagined they had become so numerous that there was no place large enough to store them until next summer. Therefore, the highway department workers busied themselves all winter long by continually loading them onto trucks and moving them to other sites, thus rotating their orange presence in our harried lives.

I think the source of my dream was a news article explaining that the summer's road construction was so complex this year, that it was too complicated for workers to remove barrels from finished stretches until the whole freeway was completed. The result? Cars restricted to one lane while passing lovely roadways still barricaded by those blessed orange barrels!

My dream indeed was a nightmare!