My father has been in the highway construction business since the early 80’s. Several times in my life I found myself working summers in my dad’s shop. At one point in the more recent past I even spent a good amount of time running his business with him and getting a much more intimate view of the highway contracting business. I even became a certified Traffic Supervisor thanks to classes from ATSSA. I know, I am pretty awesome. In a nutshell, ATSSA formed several years ago as a result of the big industry leaders deciding there was a need to implement a more standard guide for all things highway contracting. They organization has become recognized as the go-to for SOP on work-zone safety. Combined with these regulations the Federal government also offers a host of rules to maintain safe work zones for both construction workers and the traveling public. Everything from the width of the paint markings on the roads, to the materials used to place those markings, to the height and size of signs, the Federal government is all over it. However, making things more complex, cities and counties are both allowed to create their own variations of these rules. For example, center line markings (the yellow lines) on Tippecanoe county roads are 5 inches wide, while within city limits, the same markings match the federal guidelines and are 4 inches wide. It’s an arbitrary example, but you get the point.
I say all of that to say this, for all the rules and regulations that I know exist, it’s very clear that no one is enforcing any of them. It’s pretty clear what happened, the city had planned all these projects over the past several years, but budget freezes put the brakes on a lot of them. Then, naturally, when the money was freed up, all the projects were given the green light again. Naturally to accommodate the students and the general public, they must complete every project this summer while the population is down. The problem is that while these projects where all frozen, the new projects didn’t stop rolling in. So now we end up with the mess we are all dealing with today, road construction on nearly every possible route connecting West Lafayette to Lafayette. Further compounding the problem some of these jobs are state funded, some city, and some county, meaning there isn’t one person in charge. In fact, I am pretty confident that no one is in charge, actually. If you have made any attempts this summer to travel from West Lafayette into Lafayette or visa versa, you have no doubt run into one of the 7,000 constructions sites currently ruining everyone’s day and increasing commute times. I used to joke about the vast differences in cultures between West Lafayette and Lafayette and how, if West Lafayette could, they would tear down the roads connecting the two cities once and for all. For the first time ever, I think there may be a conspiracy going on right now to accomplish just that. And if that is true, then it’s only a matter of time before Purdue lifts into the sky creating the first cloud city where all these “townies” won’t be such a bother to all the super, awesome students. I digress, back to the horribly inconvenient road construction.
It’s pretty clear what happened, the city had planned all these projects over the past several years, but budget freezes put the brakes on a lot of them. Then, naturally, when the money was freed up, all the projects were given the green light again. The problem is that while these projects where all frozen, the new projects didn’t stop rolling in. So now we end up with the mess we are all dealing with today, road construction on nearly every possible route connecting West Lafayette to Lafayette. Granted a few of these projects are State jobs, not city jobs, but I’m sure the problem was linked. None of that is really important as the projects are clearly underway and no amount of pointing out the stupidity of trying to accomplish all of them at once will change anything.
The fact is, there are large safety problems with the majority of these construction sites. For example, notice that the 52 hill construction does not require you to change speed as you travel through it. Yes, that means that you could take that construction at 55mph, and fly off the road, or into a cement barrier. Over on Northwestern there are signs that are too close to the edge of the road and that are not elevated high enough from the pavement. The idea is that you don’t want traffic to feel like it needs to avoid the sign when they pass it, but clearly that is not a concern. Let’s not forget the lack of legible or helpful signs directing traffic what in the hell it is supposed to do with regard to Yeager road between Northwestern and Hwy 52. Don’t get me started on the random work that takes place regularly on Salisbury, just north of Hwy 52. I’m not sure why they keep digging holes, but it has nearly killed me several times, not to mention cost me quite a bit of time thanks to flat tires. They dig a hole right in the bike lane and just set a small barricade or cone in front of it. At 7:30 in the morning when you are riding down that lane with 50 speeding cars already driving too close to you, your options are, ride into the barricade, the curb, or hope there is not traffic in the lane next to you. Then they remove the barricade but don’t quite fill in the hole so it is even with the pavement again, so you ride through the bike lane and suddenly drop into a 3 inch hole that, upon exiting, blows your tires out. When the projects on Salisbury were in high gear, my brother backed out of his driveway into a large hole they left open and had to fight with a contractor to get them to pay for the damages to his car. He was without transportation for a week.
Most recently they have switched the State street bridges down to 1 lane. These zones have been some of the largest culprits for breaking the rules. The advanced warning signs alone are enough to cause some of the worst traffic congestion on any route (probably because they aren’t in advance of anything). Mix in contractors that feel like parking their trucks in front of the arrow boards, as opposed to in the restricted lanes, and you have a recipe for “late to work every day”. I’m not sure who is overseeing these various jobs, but it is clear they are doing a piss poor job. I understand the desire to wrap these projects while the students are out, but inconveniencing the regular residents of this city to do so is something I think should have been considered. I also completely understand that when these projects are complete I will probably really enjoy riding on nice roads, but that doesn’t make them any more inconvenient and dangerous today. The number of people I personally have had discussions with about these various zones that have reported nearly getting in accidents is astounding. I would like to think that if nothing else the police departments should take advantage of the poorly regulated zones to meet their monthly quotas. If they happen to make things a little more safe for the general public, that would be nice too, but hey… I’m just a lowly tax payer… what do I know.