Friday, March 18, 2011

into the abyss

This morning I had to drive to a client meeting way out in an outer-ring suburb; in fact, this suburb is so "outer" that it is almost not a suburb.  A nice but unexciting drive.

... and what I notice, not for the first time, as I go from urban to rural --

--  It takes forever to get out of downtown Minneapolis.  Downtown Minneapolis is not all that big, but the traffic lights seem to be timed to stop you at every possible red light.  It took me almost as long to get out of downtown as it did to drive the rest of the 25 miles to the meeting.  Why purposely mis-coordinate traffic lights?  Just to irritate us? Think of all the time that is wasted, not to mention the gas that is wasted while we are idling at red lights!

--  The roads out in the outer burbs are in much better shape.  The potholes here downtown are vicious already, and my little car is very unhappy about that, having hit some monstrous crevices.

--  But, as I was driving through the sprawl to that outer ring, I'm thinking, wow!  whatever the urban problems might be, how can people live out here in the bland repetitiveness of the 'burbs?  (I guess it's a good thing some people do live out there -- there is already too much traffic here downtown, and having more would just give me something else to complain about)

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