(Insert your own punchline here.)
Actually, I guess it's not.
According to reporter Mike Danahey's cover story in today's Courier-News (@&%# TRAFFIC! Metra repairs tie up downtown Elgin roads), by Thursday evening, much of the mess was cleaned up that had been caused Wednesday by...
- A semi-truck that pulled down electrical wires at Jackson Street and West Highland Avenue
- A car that broke down on National Street
- Metra tracks being closed on McLean Boulevard and Kimball Street
- Roadwork at Big Timber Road and Highland Avenue
- And the ongoing downtown Elgin street improvement project.
And yesterday, when we asked you for your downtown traffic horror stories, we only got two responses.
Your traffic stories, after the jump.
Emily Whalen of Elgin shared her experience on The Courier-News' Facebook page:
The cops on Wed stopped me at Highland & 31 southbound lights (first car in the line) and then a block later stopped me at the 31 & Chicago St. south bound left turn lane. I was attempting to go the only eastbound rout across the river to g...et my children to school at St. John's Lutheran (Division and N. Spring St.). Why not keep traffic moving through that little section of town especially people who are turning onto the ONLY east bound way across town. I didn't get why Elgin were cramming cars into that little section of RT31. Didn't make sense to me especially after watching the cop at Chicago St. and RT31 let east bound Chicago St. traffic go through in one fowl swoop with 1-2 car length gaps. Does that make any sense?It took me over 20 minutes to go from Lawrence & RT31 southbound east bound to Chicago St. eastbound yesterday. Today 11/20 I left same time as yesterday but went direct east bound Chicago St. and made it through in only 5 minutes b/c it looks as if they were doing the same thing as yesterday.
And Crysta Anderson of Elgin (Twitter's elginista) tweeted this to The Courier-News on Twitter...
Just thankful I rarely drive through rush hour! Yesterday did get caught at 31/National for about 15 minutes.
Others shared on some of your Courier-News reporters' personal Facebook pages they were happy to see police out in the community, directing traffic.
What do you think? Share your stories and thoughts about the downtown traffic tie-ups here in the comments. And drive safely!
-- Emily McFarlan, Readers' Reporter
I only drive in Elgin to visit family and I visited 2x this week and traffic during rush hour was awful and even in the middle of the day it was bad. When I read you only got 2 responses my first thought was that your readers were all still on the road.
I almost blew a gasket on Thursday when the officer directing at National Street at the Clock Tower Plaza left the traffic trying to get out of the plaza sit there for 12 minutes before he let the traffic go. So it took me 15 minutes to go 6 blocks. Ridiculous!