Commentary

If the Road is On a Diet …

By Mark Hebert, Unfiltered 7-15-06

Having lived in California for a good portion of my existence, bumper-to-bumper traffic is something one learns to live with and remains just another part of life that makes you say “*#t$#r&u%$#r!!!.”

The joy of finishing an eight-hour workday is quickly washed away when one is greeted by a freeway jammed tighter with automobiles then Dolly Parton’s brazier jammed with … well you get my point. The freeways there are a lot bigger – at times as many as five lanes across in one direction – but with so many people bopping around, the smog becomes thick, patience runs thin and fatal accidents, police chases and carpool-lane shootings are as common in the Golden State as a pair of fake … never mind.

So it was with great pleasure in the winter of 1996 that I moved to Missoula, Montana (my birth place some 24-years prior) and found the traffic was sparse and that tooling around the Garden City via car/truck/scooter/motorcycle was a snap.

Flash forward to the summer of 2006 where the only snap still associated with travel in Missoula was the sound of my neck popping when I looked back at a grey-haired Betty in gold, Buick Lasabre to make sure she really had flashed me the finger after I inadvertently cut her off on North Reserve Street last Thursday.

I didn’t hold it against her because I felt her pain. It was 5 p.m. and I was headed back into town after a trip to Superior. Rush-hour traffic in Missoula has been a pain in the neck for as far back as I can remember (well, within the last 10-years) but on this day it was like nothing I’d ever seen in Montana.

I reached the peak of the North Reserve Street Bridge – a few blocks from Costco – and was met with bumper to bumper traffic all the way down to the four-way light at Reserve and Mullan Road – Wal Mart’s nasty little nest --a span of about a mile.

As I inched down the bridge, I saw an opening in traffic that would allow me to get off of Reserve and onto West Broadway. This route would somewhat detour me on the trek to my Upper Miller Creek residence, but it is a path that I’d taken many times before, especially when Reserve gets congested. I figured soon I’d be zooming down Broadway before cutting across Orange Street, bypassing Malfunction Junction, all in time to arrive at my apartment and catch the beginning of Jeopardy.

“This – an idea set in place by the City Council – is a surefire way to guarantee that traffic will be gridlocked in Missoula forever,” quizzes Trebeck.

“What is a road diet?” answers the witty journalist.

“Correct.”

My delusions of game show grandeur were dashed away as I was met by more bumper-to-bumper traffic on West Broadway. Construction was well underway to complete the “road diet” – a nifty little notion that converts four lanes of flowing happiness into 2.5 lanes of dense evil. Traffic at the intersection of North Russell and West Broadway bottlenecked into the middle of three lanes as drivers nudged their way into the only path of travel which mattered -- a metal logjam trying to flow east.

Going nowhere fast, I was able to inhale a beautiful bouquet of exhaust (my air conditioner is out of Freon) balance my checkbook (I need a raise) and read a vast array of bumper stickers (my favorite stating: There are three kinds of people, those who count and those whose can’t.)

My time in traffic also allowed a moment to reflect.

“If the road is on a diet,” I shouted at my vehicles roof,” then why is its stomach busting at the seams?”

(As a side note, on Monday, July 10 at 2:30 p.m., in between writing paragraphs for this column, I again ventured out in my vehicle and was met by traffic even worse then the Thursday rush hour traffic.)


The road diet was dropped on this fair city after protests and pressure by the handicapped community for ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) -- in order to get accommodations that would help pedestrians cross the busy street – were answered with a thinning of the road. In 2005 there were two fatalities on that stretch of road and that – I agree – is two too many.

I’m a big fan of people not getting run over, always have been. Many Missoula drivers are morons, tooling around, talking on their phones while driving their vehicles as if Luke Duke was in the passenger seat and Roscoe P. Coltrane was in “hot pursuit.” My heart goes out to anyone who has last a loved one in such a sudden fashion and I agree that something must be done, but what is in place isn’t working.

If something doesn’t change soon, more pedestrians will be struck by cars when drivers take to guiding their vehicles onto sidewalks in order to move out of the Missoula Snail-pace Marathon.

So I have an idea – probably a stupid one, but one that could perhaps get people thinking of another way to push West Broadway off of its diet-wagon and assure smooth flowing, safe traffic.

The Bridges of Missoula County.

Put in a few footbridges, then a few more and then maybe some more. Picture pretty red bricked footbridges shooting over West Broadway like passenger-carrying rainbows. Push the road back to four lanes and watch the traffic flow like the river that runs next to it. Ahhhhhh, can you feel the love?
Some people would argue that bridges would obstruct the panoramic view of Missoula and to them I’d say climb the stinking bridge and take a gander, views pretty good up there too, eh?

Of course you would have to put some kind of barrier up to keep pedestrians from dropping cinder blocks onto the roofs of passing cars – just because traffic would be better wouldn’t mean that the nut-balls in Missoula would simply drive away -- but barrier or no barrier, bridges would keep law abiding – non jay walkers – out of harm's way.

There are too many people in Missoula these days to have traffic the way it was 10-years ago, I get that. What I don’t get is how people (City Council and friends) think that shrinking roads is a good way to deal with growing needs.

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