(Schematic of the Rt 29- RT 17 Flyover interchange that will make everything better. In the meantime, it is making things worse. But I have high hopes and boundless optimism. Photo VDOT.)
I was pinned in traffic on Route 29 North. They started doing something at the junction between that major State Road South and Rt 17 coming north out of Fredericksburg. I was listening to Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom and President Barack Obama on a curious little press opportunity that went along with a prep session for the G-8 meeting in Northern Ireland coming up in a few weeks.
I gather that is a Big Deal- with the Central Banks of Europe, the US and Japan printing money are breakneck tempo, the Keynesians among us are confident that just a few more turns of the crank will do the trick. I don’t understand any of this well enough to judge. The bubble being created in housing is one from which I intend to profit- or at least limit my losses from the last time the housing market fell apart- and I am stuck with what is happening to my 401k in the stock market.
That one will pop soon enough, since they always do, and I am resigned to taking a beating at some point. Hey, I am lucky to have anything to worry about, right? It is interesting to have that sort of fatalism at this age. Sadder but wiser, I guess.
Anyway, I was headed north toward DC, so naturally the drivers were a little squirrely. The left lane was closed, approaching the junction of 29 and 17- the routes north from North Carolina and northwest from Fredericksburg that join for a while into Warrenton.
President Obama made a brief introductory set of remarks on the radio as I braked for the construction zone. I know now what is going on. For a couple years there has been some sort of site-prep going on- this must be one of those shovel-ready projects we heard so much about in the days of the Big Stimulus.
I was afraid that it was another major shopping plaza with Big Boxes that would screw up the commute to the farm, but as great swathes in the trees began to open up, I realized it was a massive interchange in the making, intended to eliminate the two-left turn lanes that begin just beyond Clark’s and adjacent to the Mickey Dee’s restaurant-gas station complex.
They started with road-work signage, temporary silt fencing, huge storm-drainage pipes, clearing and grubbing the site, and constructing service roads to get to the locations of the concrete pours.
The site preps and dynamite did not disrupt things as much as you would think. But now it is crunch time, and crunch us they are. One of the two northbound lanes is closed, which gave me plenty of time to listen to the curious press conference.
First, I was surprised at the fulsome praise the President gave to Dame Margaret Thatcher- I hadn’t realized anyone from official Washington had been in London for the funeral. And his remarks of praise for the special relationship between the two great English-speaking nations were inspirational.
Well, mostly English-speaking. For his part, the PM was low key but resolute. The commentators informed me that there would only be two questions permitted, one from an American correspondent and the other from a British journalist.
The orange cones appeared, eventually, narrowing the two lanes to one, and predictably the north-bound Type ‘A’ drivers wouldn’t just do the zipper merge, but barged ahead until their fenders raked the cones to gain advantage. I refrained from hand-gestures though I did point out to one aggressive motorist that he might have certain anti-social tendencies.
Creeping under the new overpass, the dimensions of the project became evident. In the words of VDOT, the construction will replace the current at-grade left-turn movements from Route 29 southbound onto Route 17 south with a grade-separated flyover interchange.
I wished I could fly right over this mess. It makes the commute to the farm a crap shoot.
They claim that the new interchange “will improve safety and traffic flow at this high-volume location. The current dual left-turn lanes on Route 29 south often overflow onto the southbound travel lanes during periods of peak volume. This condition creates a safety issue since southbound through traffic traveling at highway speed must stop until the left-turning traffic clears the travel lane.”
All I want them to do is get on with it. This is currently a drag.
That seemed to be the consensus between me and the President, since the sole American journalist who got to ask a question when the prepared remarks were done made it a three-part excursion into the murky Benghazi matter, the IRS scandal and, of course, the bloody Syria mess.
The President waxed indignant about the IRS scrutiny of right wing groups and their tax-exempt status. “Right on,” I thought, swerving off onto the verge to let an ambulance cut through the mess with its lights flashing. “They should not get away with that. I am sure they are going to get right to the bottom of this one.”
Once the first responders were past and we got back to regular vehicular infighting, the President took a different tack on the Benghazi thing. Long time ago, no cover up, all political, a non-event.
He and the PM agreed that the Syria thing was bad, and something needed to be done.
That was pretty much it. Two multi-part questions and we all get on with life. The brief press conference lasted me until I was abreast of the Sheetz gas and convenience plaza on the SE corner of the intersection, and then it was just a couple cycles of the light and I was on my way north again.
I imagine the White House was happy that the news about the collection of phone records on AP reporters didn’t break until after the press opportunity was over. That would really have snarled things, and frankly, I have enough gridlock and snarling in my life as it is.
I wonder sometimes why people run for second terms. They seem like they are more trouble than they are worth sometimes.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com