paganbabies
The Eau Claire Bypass
Over 18 years ago, an idea began to circulate among those with spheres of influence over the Eau Claire area. Concerned about the already apparent traffic problem on U.S. 53 (which served not only as a major thoroughfare for the city's residents, but also as the only major connection to pretty much all of northern Wisconsin) officials had the insight to begin preparations for a bypass to alleviate the congestion. Three main proposals were eventually made and studied: 1) a bypass connecting I-94 south of the city to U.S. 53 to the north in Hallie by going east around Lake Altoona; 2) the same connection made by way of a road to the west or inside of the lake, and; 3) no bypass at all but a reconstruction/realignment of the existing highway 53.
 Construction at Abbey Hill, very near my house. |
Nobody really cared for option three as it was projected to be the most expensive and would still carry all the traffic right through the city, albeit at a faster rate. But strong and sometimes heated debate over options one and two postponed the groundbreaking for a number of years. Residents of Altoona and Seymour were not fans of a new highway running through their front yards and therefore preferred option one, the outer route. Eau Claire, however, well aware of the gas/restaurant &c. business that would be lost through option one, pushed heavily for the inner route. Money will always trump the wishes of Altoona's poor (“If they're so concerned about the appearance of their lawns, why do they put garden gnomes in them?”) and the inner route finally won official approval in late 1995 (though this did not end the controversy).
 Construction at the southern end of town, by Draganetti's. |
Construction began in August of 2002 and went along swimmingly, pretty much until completion, ahead of schedule and on budget. To the city's residents, however, it felt as though things were moving very slowly, especially when construction of the southern half of the project got underway. The lower half of 53 (which, as I've said, was the cause of all this trouble and already very congested) had its lanes reduced to one each way and its speed limit dropped to 35. At its worst, a commute from the north side of the city to the south side, about a seven mile trip, could take a half-hour. But in fall of 2006 that was all finally put behind us as the new highway was opened along its entirety. There remains some substantial work in progress in places like the highway 12 interchange, but traffic on 53 is now almost negligible and a trip on the bypass will take one clear across town in about three minutes.
 Despite global warming, it did occasionally get cold enough to halt construction. |
 Click this image to see the full plan of all the new additions. |
The bypass now acts as a freeway so travelers who do not need to stop in Eau Claire can sail right by the city in a small fraction of the time it used to take to go through town. It also has convenient access points for city residents who need to get from the north to the south (or vice versa) quickly. The road's 65 mph speed limit makes it a convenient and impressive piece of civil engineering, unlike anything Eau Claire has ever seen, so if you want to drive 45 mph, stay the fuck off the fucking bypass you fuck.
Never in my eight year tenure as an Eau Claire driver have I been more ashamed of the people with whom I share that title. To be sure, in that time I have seen all the standards: the left lane cruisers, the I-don't-know-how-a-four-way-stop-sign-works-but-I-drive-an-SUV-so-fuck-you Moms, and a fair number of truly blind geriatric drivers whose love for ambushing me increases dramatically the closer I am to my destination. And these are precisely the types of people one would hope to avoid by using the bypass. By cutting so much driving time out of the day, the new road should in fact lessen the chances of a collision. Instead, I'm just as likely to smash one of these people, and now the speeds make the crashes lethal.
I take the bypass at least twice daily. In the few months it has been open, I've already compiled some pretty damning statistics (Figs. 1-3). These figures represent the closest estimates to date (January 2007) of ill-adept and plain incompetent bypass users. For a quick and rough interpretation of these data, presume every driver represented in blue is one of the fucks in my way.
 Fig 1. Proportions of drivers divided by their levels of success in On-Ramp navigation. A successful result is here designated as "respectable." |
 Fig 2. Proportions of drivers divided by their aptitude in identifying speeds appropriate for conditions. An ideal outcome is here designated as "respectable." |
 Fig 3. A combination of Figs 1 & 2 to give the reader an impression of overall bypass use. Recall that blue is bad. |
I observed a significant relationship (p < 0.005) between failure to recognize that an on-ramp is used to get up to speed and failure to maintain an appropriate speed on the highway (though there were outliers who did speed up after preventing those behind them from doing so for as long as possible).
This problematic driving has been recorded along the full length of the new road, but by far the greatest number of incidents occurred on the Highway 93 interchange. (For a more detailed account of the problems see the ancillary page 
.)
On the off chance that one of these neanderfucks has developed the skills required to operate a computer, and has stumbled upon this article while searching the internet for "reckless endangerment, how to," I would like to address him directly:
Listen, you farteating, vacuum-headed piece of debris, you are nothing but an obstacle to the rest of the civilized world. If you weren't always encased within your 3 ton Humscalade®, I would run your ass right the fuck over, back up, pull out my tire iron and go to work on your scraps. We should give out drivers licenses at age 10, so that natural selection has a chance to work on your degenerate race of retards before it can reproduce. Fuck you. Stay off my roads. Fuck you.
Ok, so I realize my past two articles have been rants, which can get old quickly. Next month, something scholarly, or at least intellectual. Maybe music?
-bj- |