Tuesday, November 29, 2011

In Spite of all the traffic hassles...

We love Wegmans. The staff is friendly, it's clean and not very expensive--with the exception of the prepared food section. With that area, enter at your own risk! Home Goods is cursed with the pre-existing Weis parking lot which is too small and insanely arranged. It's very busy and has brought some life back to that center.
Our only complaint, sitting through the extra lights to get there from our side of the 24/Tollgate intersection/manmade disaster area. In our imaginations of what that intersection would look like, we imagined that we would have the light at Constant Friendship and then breeze over to the Wegmans. Now we have an extra stoplight and it takes twice as long as it used to.
And when is it going to be finished? Why as we write this is one lane of traffic closed and orange barrels everywhere? When?
Also, if you missed it, in Friday's Aegis there was an article about how great the traffic pattern was. The reporter talked with various officials who said they hadn't heard anything negative, thereby helpfully providing a laundry list of people who are going to get complaints from us at TAA. Thank you Aegis.

Monday, November 21, 2011

What the expletive expletive expletive

We tried to be hopeful about the new traffic pattern but after almost facing mortality up close tonight after encountering a traffic barrel in the road on newly divided highway we have really had it.
What insane group of highly paid consultants designed this cluster expletive expletive. No one is using the highly touted bridge to Bel Air except to bypass the now --and one would guess forever-- jam packed conditions at the Tollgate/Emmorton Road "exit" of 24 to make an illegal u-turn.
Since the new traffic pattern emerged we have personally experienced the following:
** sideswiped while trying to "merge" onto traffic speeding down the hill on 24 to exit at 95 south. Merging out of Constant Friendship there is nowhere to go except into the line of traffic trying merge over and presumably kill you.
** watched numerous people try to drive over the median to get to the Tollgate Road area.
*** saw someone run into barrel dividing the new area.
*** watched dozens and dozens of vehicles come up the hill on 24 and make an illegal u-turn at the light at Singer to get to Walmart/Target, etc.
*** traffic backed up to Crisfield Drive from the light at Constant Friendship.
So who was this designed for? Not for the thousands and thousands of Wegman's customers who are forced to take the Tollgate exit and block all the lanes coming down the hill at Emmorton Road to try to get to 95.
Definitely not, as if anything is ever built to benefit the residents of Abingdon Ha!, for those of us here in Abingdon.
Who to complain to? Joe Woods? David Craig? The MTA? Who cares? It's done. I guess we should just say thank you that they didn't just bulldoze us out of here for the convenience of people trying to get out of Bel Air.