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.