You'll probably only really understand today's post if you're a Canberran subject to the fiasco that is the ongoing efforts to upgrade our bush city's roads. So if you've never been privy to the joys of the ACT's most recent "planning", you should probably just move along and go back to the posts about my kids and their cute little idiosyncrasies. If you have been privy to these joys you probably don't want to read this either - it will probably just remind you how angry you are and you'll wind up punching the monitor or snapping your keyboard while you sob with frustration.
If you want to continue, you should be aware that this post has its foundation in deep resentment and slowly festering bitterness that is gradually fermenting into a solid commitment that will see me spending the rest of my life attempting to secure some form of compensation from the government for all the lost hours their efforts have cost me. I have vague ambitions of tax fraud and drug running but nothing has been set in stone yet.
Still with me? Excellent! I’ve been enduring the roadworks that separate home and work for a long time now. Years, in fact. Three years ago, before my son was born, I could make it from home to work in 20 minutes – 30 tops in peak hour. Now after three years, countless “upgrades” and “improvements”, I’m up to 50-60 minutes during peak hour and I’m officially over the whole thing.
Originally, given the intriguing bundle of roads the Glenloch interchange became, I felt a certain respect for the designers. They must be geniuses, I thought, I don’t know how they managed to get it so four major roads meet and no matter which one you’re on you can go down any of the three without a traffic light or a roundabout anywhere!
I kept waiting for the moment when the witches hats, weird tapes and signs would come down, the bottlenecks would clear and suddenly the glorious vision would be realised and it would all just magically work. But it’s been three years now and it’s all still there. There is no end in sight and, if anything, things are getting worse, not better. Today, after totally doing my block about it on Facebook, I did a little search on FB for “Glenloch interchange”. Here’s the screen shot*.
Not…one…single…person…in all of Canberra (well it is Facebook so I guess we could say the world)
Then there’s the King’s Avenue roundabout. Perfectly functional, if a little slow at peak hour. But functional. Now, six months on and God knows how many bingles due to the constant changing of routes**, we have massive queues of people blocking traffic in almost every direction every single morning and evening God sends. There are merging lanes. There are traffic lights. There are great sweeping arcs of cars poised for movement the instant the lights go green. But there is never, ever a clear moment where you can just sail through and get to where you’re going on time.
All this confirms for me is that there will be no moment when it suddenly all works and makes sense. I will never be making it to work in half an hour or less again. It also indicated to me that whoever was in charge of designing all of it got so excited they couldn’t think straight***. I am doomed to a horrendous run to work for eternity unless I leave the house at 6am and finish work just after lunch sometime. We all are.
I am so fed up that I am seriously considering either spending the dosh to buy up somewhere close to work or giving up work entirely and moving to the country. Frankly, if I wanted an hour’s commute, I would have lived in Sydney or Melbourne.
* If this is ever brought to the attention of the government responsible you can be assured that “liking” the interchange on FB will be mandatory for all employees.
** Not to mention heart attacks born of pure frustration and soul-destroying rage. Anyone else ever wondered why it took seven minutes to drive half a kilometre when there’s not so much as a dead rabbit to slow people down?
*** It is either the same biscuit responsible for Westfield Belconnen or a similar one cut in the same kitchen.
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