By Vincent F. Safuto staff writer
March 17, 2003
There's something about the open road, rolling free and with the cruise control on, until you see the ubiquitous barricades and the inevitable temporary lane stripes that let you know that you're entering a construction zone.
Drivers in Indian River County know that feeling of frustration all too well, as road projects turn five-minute jaunts to the store into long ordeals as lanes are blocked and traffic lights mock you as you try to inch your way toward your destination.
I sometimes think that county traffic officials spin a wheel bearing the name of important streets in our area, then decide to widen, repave or install sewer pipes. The best combination is to repave, then decide to rip it all up and widen, and then repave again while tossing in the pipes. Since such projects take so long, by the time the road is repaved and striped, it's time to rip it all up to widen it again.
We may have our 17th Street and State Road 60 messes, but if you're a connoisseur of road construction delays, then there's only one place to go: Palm Beach County.
While living in West Palm Beach and western Boynton Beach, I saw various stretches of Interstate 95 rebuilt several times and spent a good part of my life stuck in construction-related traffic jams.
In fact, a newspaper article in 1999 promised something like 10 more years of work before I-95 would be "finished," and my only comment was that you get seven years of bad luck for breaking a mirror, but more if you're on I-95.
One of the desperately needed projects was the Okeechobee Boulevard interchange upgrade, which had been planned since the 1980s. But once that was completed, the infamous and unneeded airport exit was begun, and may still be under construction long after the sun runs out of hydrogen fuel in 5 billion years.
Various widening projects on I-95 from stem to stern in Palm Beach County have guaranteed full employment in road building and kept the barricade renters working overtime, but for true road fun, the bridges over the intracoastal provide hours of delays.
For two years, I fought a losing battle with the bridge on PGA Boulevard. That bridge, dubbed the "Please Go Around" bridge, seemed to have a sensor that detected my car as the signal to open.
Another bridge, the one that extends Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach onto the island of Palm Beach, has had a long career of partial and full closures that have left almost two generations of drivers ripping their hair out.
On a recent trip to Palm Beach, I noticed that a new bridge is being built next to it. Of course, whenever any road construction is done, all adjoining roads must be affected, so getting across the bridge turned into a 45-minute ordeal.
I suppose the only way it'll all end is when the entire state is one giant highway, and even then they'll be ripping it up to install, no doubt, sewer pipes.
Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com)
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