respublica

A Sad time for an old newspaper

We were mistakenly delivered the Belleville News Democrat newspaper this morning and frankly, it was sad. That paper used to be something of a "go to" paper for many in the Metro East for local news and sports. We used to get a kick out of the letters to the editor and the "sound off" page which shared reader's frustrations anonymously each Monday.

The reporters sent to any number of communities to write up city goings on and we got to know those whose beat was Collinsville. High school sports were given a lot of page time. Today I did not see any local by-lines, most stories were wire stories from the Associated Press. These stories could be read anywhere and had no relation to local readers.

I find this a loss to grieve over. It was also sad when the Collinsville Herald/Journal went out of business. These papers kept us up date on what was happening in our towns and the main news options now are Facebook postings or word of mouth. I wish it weren't so.

Back to the tally

Late yesterday afternoon a mattress hit the road on 143 near Edwardsville.

Mattresses 131

Ladders 127

A New Week, another mattress

Already this morning a mattress fell onto 161 near Frank Scott Highway in Belleville.

Mattresses 113

Ladders 111

More Poplar work on the way

From IDOT, two eastbound lanes will be closed for two weeks in July for roadwork.

The Illinois Department of Transportation announced Monday that the eastbound exit ramp from Interstate 55/64 to southbound Illinois 3 will be closed as workers repair the surface of the ramp. The work begins early morning on July 15 and will last until July 29. A marked detour utilizing Barack Obama Avenue will be in place during the closure period.

To keep traffic flowing into Illinois, one lane will be closed on the Poplar Street Bridge along with two exit ramps. Missouri roadways will be impacted as well. In Missouri, the Marion Street entrance ramp to I-55 northbound and the right lane of I-55 northbound approaching the bridge will be closed. Three lanes of interstate traffic will remain open on the bridge and through the Illinois 3 and Tudor Avenue ramp areas.

They say to expect extensive delays, especially during evening rush hours.

Hot time, summer in the city, sitting on the bridge. Again.

Read more here: https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article232410317.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article232410317.html#storylink=cpy

Two road things this morning

There is a shovel in one of the lanes of 255 near Collinsville road and another ladder hit the highway on 270. The normal tallies take into account only mattresses and ladders since they are the most common items to fall. But it's often interesting to hear about other things which could be just as detrimental to your vehicle if you run into them.

Mattresses 54

Ladders 49

More ice, more accidents

How many winter messes will we have to endure this year? Woke up this morning with yet another icy glaze covering sidewalks and streets. The local news is all about the many many accidents on St. Louis interstates. There are even areas where they've closed portions of the highways totally. What bugs me is this was forecast yesterday and especially last night. Here is a link to KMOV's prediction last night. The other stations did the same and yet St. Louis interstates are so bad they've made another morning rush a nightmare.

So here comes MoDOT spokesman Bob Becker holding a press conference and lecturing us on what we already know. He did this a couple of Sundays ago when we had a bad ice storm and accidents were everywhere. He's done it for each winter event we've had, after the weather hit. But if news channels as well as us, know it was coming, what was MoDOT doing?

FOX2 in St. Louis has reporters out on the interstate overpasses giving traffic reports. In Missouri it's all about accidents and slippery surfaces. In the Metro East, the reporter had no accidents to report for drivers on their way into Missouri. "Be aware of the possibility of slick spots" he said, but traffic was moving fine all across the Metro East.

So what is the difference? Again, it just has to be how each of the state DOT's treat the roads and when. Illinois is just so much better at getting ahead of these things than Missouri. It's maddening that MoDOT can't do what IDOT does. Mr. Becker! Go over to IDOT headquarters and find out how they do things to get ahead of things.

Final countdown

We're nearing the end of this year's tally of fallen mattresses and ladders. Yesterday a ladder fell on 55/70 just east of Collinsville and what makes this interesting is the horrible mess that occurred on 55/70 right at Collinsville. Two tractor Trailers collided, one of which was pulling an open bed filled with scrap metal. That truck flipped onto it's side, spilling all that iron onto the road. This jammed up traffic for miles as drivers were diverted onto surface streets. This lasted for hours. Dale was heading back to the seminary after this happened he was able to get onto Old Collinsville Road and get to 111 before getting back on 55/70.

Mattresses 136

Ladders 111

Now a recliner

A recliner fell onto the center lane of 255 on the Illinois side this morning. I can't imagine how this could happen and how awful it must have been to be driving along and suddenly come across it. And, who's job is it to go into traffic and move the thing.

The final election day

Americans seem to have been voting in this year's election for months. Ok, maybe not months, but at least for weeks we've read or heard about early voting in various parts of the country. So today, the official Election Day for 2018, we'll just consider it the last day of the election. 

The Belleville News Democrat is publicizing how they will go about giving us results from Illinois and Metro East. One thing I've always appreciated about the Metro East elections, especially Madison County, was how quickly returns come in and are posted online. This is not true for Missouri or St. Louis county, it takes forever on election nights to get any information. It's all in how returns are tabulated and returned that makes the difference in how quickly you'll have the information. Metro East counties do it better.

I'm sure the Post Dispatch has reporters who will be  working the election and returns as well, my problem is I can't tell because as soon as I click the P-D website, a black screen falls over the page to stop any reading of any story. Now we do subscribe to the paper but we are on vacation and I am using a different computer so I can't get to my normal sign in. But seriously, it's very frustrating to not be able to read a current story on election returns because of a pay wall.

Best to just go to the county and state election sites for returns.

Also, St. Louis city and County election officials will keep us all waiting til very late for their returns.

The news people finally noticed the traffic mess

For the past two days we finally got some reporting on the nightmare the Poplar/King/Musial traffic is each day due to construction and lane closures. It will be even worse this weekend as IDOT plans to shut off all westbound access to the bridges.

The comments online to these stories relate how exasperating it has become sitting in traffic and not moving more than a foot at a time. A couple of times this week I had to go over to Illinois but was fortunate I was going against the morning rush into downtown, but what I saw was more than awful. The jams covered all the accesses to the only way into the city and backed up forever. And, yesterday I have never seen so many tractor trailers in that mess in all my life. Every third vehicle was a semi. I don't know if there was a big truck rally somewhere in Missouri, but wow, it was unreal. Right during rush hour.

Anyway, the comments to these stories can be funny, true, but funny.

"Trump doesn't need a wall, he just needs IDOT/MoDot to manage the border."

"I just got back from the year 2050, they're still working on the Poplar Street Bridge."

TV news reporters give advice on alternate routes so this is the common response: "Every alternative route is backed up you clowns."

And, the advice to take Metro Link will only work if the trains go to where they work or have to be. "I can't even get to my normal METRO parking lot at the Casino Queen. Can't get thru Sauget on Route 3 without sitting forever. ESTL is all backed up by people trying to skip through their downtown to get up onto 64. Plus the additional traffic onto the Eads bridge. It's a complete gridlock itself. Then you have those that have been in traffic for so long, they completely ignore traffic laws directly in front of the East St. Louis Police dept."

And finally the advice to leave earlier. This is even more cruel. They say if the traffic is bad a 6 get through there by 5. That means a work day is much much longer.

Hey MoDOT and IDOT, it's a good thing there's nothing going on in St. Louis this weekend. Only the Cardinals, Balloon Glow, and others.

Frankly the Poplar is taking a really long time and the westbound lanes change configuration by the week. But it's almost a crime that IDOT made the decision to close off the KIng Bridge right now. Spokesmen for these two DOTS can get on tv and pontificate over how important the reasons are for all this, but it's nonsense and it looks like Illinois commuters are in full throated revolt.

Good for them.