respublica

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.

And not to be outdone Belleville tops Collinsville

First a Mattress on 55/70 in Collinsville, a first for that town's interstate, Belleville followed with 3 mattresses on 161.

Mattresses 85

Ladders 68

Mattresses are really winning this year.

A question without an answer

The Belleville News-Democrat has a story which begins with the question: "Do You Like the Food at MidAmerica Airport? It Could Be Changing."

I'd be willing to bet most of us have never stepped foot into MidAmerica Airport in Mascoutah, much less eaten anything there. While the idea of an airport flying to various cities across the country is a dream as an alternative to Lambert, it never really took off in a great way. It may be that partnering with Scott Air Force Base in flights and vying for cargo type flights has been the main reason it has stayed viable. I don't know.

Now airport officials are asking for bids from food vendors which should include the current vendor, Roy-el on the Fly. This food service sells very basic items, snacks, drinks, pizzas and sandwiches.

It is so easy to get to and from MidAmerica, easy parking and walk up into the terminal. It's just surprising this place hasn't been able to tempt regular airlines into coming which would ease Lambert. But it hasn't. However, last month 15,223 passengers boarded planes — a 32 percent increase from 2017 which is good. All the while airport officials look to increase cargo flights.

Maybe that's the real issue. Do they know who they are and what they want to be? Cargo or passenger travel?

Get ready for the bridge to get lifted

I have to remind myself not to be tempted to go into Illinois this coming Saturday as MoDOT will be picking up and moving the four eastbound lanes on the Poplar Street Bridge 9 feet to the south. The Post-Dispatch calls this an unusual maneuver and I'd have to agree.  If you've been on that bridge lately you'll have noticed it's just crammed with work of all kinds.

This means the access to eastbound Poplar will be shut off sometime Friday at Jefferson. MoDOT recommends going over the Musial Bridge which means taking surface streets well before that to get to Tucker along with hundreds of others. We'd like to be in Collinsville for Easter church, but who knows at this point.

Maybe there will come a time when drivers can cross from either direction without maneuvering through constant work. I dream of this.

Social media comments can be good

Local St. Louis news outlets posted a story last night on an accident on Route 15 in Belleville. It seems a tractor trailer was carrying a fork lift with its arms lifted on its flatbed. "The forklifts arms were raised facing upwards. The truck was driving under the bridge when the arms snagged the bridge and literally was thrown 75 yards."

The bridge over Route 15 was probably older and barely over the required 14 foot limit. But traveling with a fork lift with its arms pointed up is not a good idea in any event. Can you imagine being behind this when the fork lift flew 75 feet?

One comment to this story as it was posted on Facebook said this: "Now if you want to get to Belleville, take a left at the fork in the road."

Perfect.

Nasty Bridge work today

Yesterday in the late afternoon I drove back to campus from Collinsville and shortly after the 64/55-70 merge, just at the beginning of the east end of the Poplar, I suddenly realized the left lane was closed and blocked. I was in the left lane which I always try to be on the bridge because I end up in the center lane from the stadium on. I had to make a quick slide to the right away from that closed lane and fortunately there wasn't much traffic at that time. No warning about this closure at all.

Now this morning all the traffic reports were telling drivers coming from Illinois that there was a huge jam extending back east forever. Every report I heard or read repeated that there was no accident which may be causing this. I thought to myself that the sudden left lane closure on the bridge was the culprit and sure enough, finally, KMOX's Rodger Brand asked on his Twitter feed "is there a lane closure there?" So traffic reporters had no idea about this closure either.

One woman communicating with Lance Hilldebrand had a two hour commute from Illinois to Clayton. I just can't believe IDOT would have closed the westbound lane of the Poplar with no warning and actually, why did they have to mess with that side when they're working on the eastbound lanes. This was a terrible commute for Illinois people.

here is part of a twitter conversation between the Illinois drive, Lance Hilldebrand and Rodger Brand.

Meal delivery is now a big thing

All of a sudden many start up businesses are in the business of delivering local restaurant food to your door. It has long been done with pizzas, but now you can order delivery from almost any place in any town. It isn't the restaurants which do this, but a secondary delivery company.

For instance, in Clayton it's Door Dash (Delightful Delivery). There is an app which lists all the local restaurants in the area which have signed on. You order through the app and sometime later your food is there. This certainly beats settling for pizza every time you want delivery dinner. This is a service available in many places and we can get food from not only Clayton but any of the neighboring towns.

Collinsville now has To Go which makes available 30 Metro East places and more added each week.

And now it looks as though Uber is getting into the home food delivery service in St. Louis.

There must be a huge market for this type of business.

One more painful road closure

Some days I just shake my head in disbelief over decisions by local DOT's. This time it's IDOT which has decided to close 55/70 eastbound from the 64-55/70 interchange in East St. Louis all the way to 255 on the edge of Collinsville for the entire weekend. This is going to make it more difficult to get over there for church on Sunday. I've already begun pondering this. Do we take 64 and go way south in order to catch 255 back north to Collinsville? Or, get off in East St. Louis and meander East on a two lane, Collinsville Road?

Either way, it will be a pain. In the end I may have to just go to church somewhere else.

For other metro east drivers IDOT will close several miles of 270 westbound just to irritate another batch of Illinois drivers.