Crazy commute

The morning commute since school started has predictably gotten worse. I was angry that what we were promised at the end of the last school year, to have 2 lanes available for westbound traffic by the start of this school year, is now not going to happen until October sometime. But even so the traffic was manageable. Then the county came up with a bright idea. They decided to change the start time for dump trucks. They used to not allow dump trucks out of the pit until 7am because they cause such a traffic mess. Well they changed the time to 6am, thinking that allowing them to come out earlier would lessen the crush of trucks coming out at 7am. Of course this did nothing except start the backup mess an hour earlier. The traffic transformed overnight from a pain in the ass into pure gridlock. My commutes into work have been 90 minutes plus every day since they made the change. Of course I immediately started an email campaign asking that they reverse the change immediately as it had the exact opposite affect they planned. I was so frustrated yesterday I fired off a letter to the editor, something I haven’t done in awhile. I just felt the need to put a big glaring spotlight on the mess. Here is what I sent:

I applaud county officials for trying to explore options to help alleviate the
traffic nightmare in the Estates. The latest effort involved allowing dump
trucks to leave the pit on Immokalee Road an hour earlier at 6am. The thought
was allowing them on the road earlier would lessen the impact of them all
coming out at once at the previous start time at 7am.

Instead this action has simply caused the morning delay to start earlier and
pile up to levels which I have never seen in my four years of living in the
area. Imagine leaving your home at 6:45 am and immediately facing a 2 mile
backlog. That is the current reality for NE estates residents.

I would hope that the decision is quickly reversed and postponed until 2 lanes
are available for westbound morning traffic sometime in October. Otherwise
residents in our area can wake up every morning with commutes approaching two hours to reach the Naples area facing us.

This will probably show up in paper tomorrow.

Today I tried a different route and ran into even more delays. It was commuter hell. Every intersection was backed up, the traffic is slowed by school buses, accidents and people just driving like idiots. You start to instantly hate all the other drivers on the road because they are all part of the misery you feel at that moment. I told Ali that we HAVE to get out the door earlier. Getting Ali to move quickly in the morning is not easy but we have to get out the door closer to 6:30.

On the snails pace drive in you get to see things you don’t normally see when you drive the speed limit. As we creeped by one school bus stop I saw a young kid riding around in circles on his bike which happened to have a full size confederate flag attached to the back somehow, just like the full size rednecks do in the back of their pickup trucks. His daddy must be proud.