The Retort

From the Desk of One Baroque College Student: Every Road Is…

September 25th, 2009 by Lou Donaldson Of The Retort Staff

Ah, Montana, my home sweet home, how do I love thee? Where else in the world do we plan to wear our Halloween outfits over our snowsuits?

Most areas have four seasons while here we only have three, the name of each as sweet as can be. We have Winter, with a cold that freezes to the bone; Mud, aptly named because the crap is everywhere (even in our ears, it would seem); and last but certainly not least, we have Road Destruction.

Yes, “road destruction,” not construction; if it was construction something would be getting done. Like many of you, dear readers, I, too, am plagued by “road destruction.”

With nearly every street, road, avenue, and alley in town torn up in some fashion or another, the road destruction was harder to miss then to find this summer. From Airport Road to Jackson Street and 27th Street to Shiloh Road, “road destruction” reigns.

Chip sealing, paving, widening, narrowing, adding sidewalks and bike paths, and digging up the same water main that the city has been working on for as long as I personally can remember. Even our neighbors in Lockwood and Laurel have not been immune to this plague of “road destruction.”

And now, let us not forget the beautification projects that have Black Otter Trail torn apart. At least they are putting in pretty bushes. Yeah, I don’t care for the pretty little bushes planted in the medians.

Eventually, these bushes are going to overgrow their area and become a road hazard because they block or hinder a driver’s vision and then the city can spend more tax dollars. This will cause more loss of time and it will increase the aggravation and road rage of the people on their commutes and trying to simply drive from place to place.

Now don’t get me wrong - improvements are a good thing. For instance, I think the roundabout that was put in on King Avenue West by Shiloh has helped to keep traffic flowing and reduced the number of accidents. This kind of improvement is an example of good road construction.

The efficacy of the first roundabout has given me high hopes for the other two I have seen being constructed. Despite all of my complaining, “road destruction” is, like death and taxes, part of life.

Roads need to be changed to meet the demands of the growing city and traffic. Water mains and sewer lines break down and need to be repaired. And with many phone and other utility lines running beneath the streets it is an inevitable part of a growing city that these lines will have to be patched, reran, and extended out from the main hub.

Even the beautification projects have merit, without trees and plants this city that is our home, would become blank and stagnant.

All I’m saying is that it would be nice if the city officials didn’t decide to rip everything up at once. I mean come on it shouldn’t take a freaking hour to drive down Central, Grand, or 24th Street. Some of the work could be done at night - it would be cooler and less hazardous for the workers because there would be fewer cars driving by to deal with.

And why exactly do they have to close off an entire street to put a sidewalk on one side of it? You’d think it would be simple enough, just bring in a ground pounder to flatten out the area needed, pour the cement, and call it good.

Maybe as a lowly college student I don’t understand the fine workings of it, but it just it seems like it would be easy enough to make the road construction easier on Billings. Sadly, road destruction is just something we have to deal with.

So take a deep breath, it’ll all be over soon. And when winter comes, the pot holes that were not fixed this year will be filled with snow.