I have to drive from the middle of Lake County to the middle of DuPage County all the time, so I've been waiting my entire adult life for Route 53 extension. I voted for that referendum on election day and I'm wondering when I can plan on rolling down to Itasca without stopping at 75 red lights north of Lake Cook Road. Please advise.
Mobile in Mundelein
Dearest Mo:
Unfortunately for the huddled motorists yearning to breathe free, there is a great leap of reality between an "Advisory Question of Public Policy" and a $1.86 billion public works project (2003 estimate).
Some are saying nothing will happen for at least 10 years because of the costs and logistics involved. What they should be saying is that the regional economy could use, say, a $1.86 billion public works project to perk things up, from the construction trades to the commercial development sector.
And if you think Tuesday's vote was nothing more than symbolism, let us recall this quote from then-chief tollway muckety-muck Jack Hartman when asked in 2004 why Will County got an Interstate 355 extension but Lake County was still waiting for its salvation: "There isn't the same consensus on Route 53 north yet."
There is now. Unless you think a 75-25 vote is a squeaker. (By the by, if you want to check out exactly where the puny opposition came from, check out this hilarious map).
The crystal ball says that you will cruise from Mundelein to Itasca on a new ribbon of roadway in ... 2014. Load up the I-PASS.
I guess you think people don't keep track of your supposed "forecasts." Back in the beginning of December, right after we had our first snowstorm, you wrote that the storm would be "a distant memory the next time Lake County and/or the Chicago metro area receives more than 4 inches of snow in one shot." Care to admit you were wrong?
Perhaps you are referring to the 11 inches that fell in Island Lake on Dec. 19 or the 12.8 inches of snow that fell in Waukegan over the weekend as evidence that The Swami falsely predicted that we would not see a snowfall of more than 4 inches during the winter of 2008-09.
However, it must be noted that The Swami's exact words were that the first snowfall of the year, which occurred on Nov. 30 into Dec. 1, would "be a distant memory" by the time we were pillaged by another snowstorm.
Be honest. After shoveling out and driving through the 40-odd inches already in the books this winter, you can't name how many inches we measured in that first snowfall of the season, can you? Can you?
You cannot. That is what we call a distant memory.
P.S. The crystal ball foresees that the total snowfall for the winter of 2008-09 will surpass the total from the winter of 2007-08 (60 inches), as measured at O'Hare International Airport.
What in the world has happened to Route 41 and Grand Avenue? I tried to drive to work through there Monday morning and it was like that scene in "The Day After Tomorrow" right before the tidal wave hits Manhattan. How long will this be going on? How bad will it be?
-- What In The World? The official word is that the Illinois Department of Transportation is going to rebuild the whole mess, from a new bridge to wider lanes on Grand. But the truth is, someone looked at the map and saw that the Tri-State Tollway is already a nightmare, so Route 41 must become one too.
-- How Long? Official word, through October 2009. In reality, we'll have a rough winter, a late spring, a rainy summer and then an early winter a year from now, meaning a certain percentage of the project will get pushed back to spring 2010.
-- How Bad? In this case, that official word is a ray of sunshine -- what you saw Monday is merely "advance" work, with "full stage" work starting in March. Translated literally from engineering, "advance" means "you'll be a half-hour late to work" and "full stage" means "bring a book to read."
And now to the question you didn't ask: Why? Short answer, because the intersection needs it. Longer answer, because Lake County motorists have been naughty and need to be punished.
It happened again Tuesday. The wife and I went for a drive in the morning, and gas was $3.79 a gallon. When we went out again after lunch, it was $4.09. But I heard on the radio that oil is falling back around $100 a barrel! Should I be outraged, or amused?
The Middle Class
Dear EmCee:
Are you saying that you think there is no rhyme or reason to what we're being charged for a gallon of gas? Are you saying that there is something rotten in the state of Big Oil when last week we were being told that Hurricane Gustav was going to be a direct hit, and our Labor Day Weekend gas prices held steady, and now we're being told that Hurricane Ike is going to miss the oil bull's-eye, but those same prices went up 30 cents while America ate a sandwich?
Poor Big Oil. As they would explain to you through their army of Nick Naylor spokesmouths, they're just misunderstood. Victims, really.
But to your question: outraged or amused? Answer: Both. Be outraged enough to demand that our legislators enact laws that prohibit gas stations from altering a price that has been posted at the start of the day's business (or midnight for all the 24-hour joints), and then be amused when your outrageous request is denied.
I saw this headline that said "Obama tells huge Dem crowd he'll fix Washington." Please tell me he meant Washington Street in Waukegan. I can't tell you how many hours of my life have been spent stuck at red lights on Washington when there is no other traffic on the road.
The Swami feels your pain. As many observers have noted over the years but the city still has yet to grasp, the traffic lights on Washington Street are dysfunctional -- especially the ones in the downtown area, where they seemed designed to keep drivers from going more than one block at a time, day and night.
Perhaps worst of all is the evil little signal at St. Therese Boulevard, which will stop you dead in your tracks just for giggles.
But is there hope on the horizon? Word is, the Lake County Division of Transportation is spending $4 million on "interconnection of traffic signals" from Sheridan Road to Teske Boulevard. But take note: the project started this summer and is "currently waiting for delivery of traffic signal poles in September."
The Swami foresees that the project will be crippled by a sudden and critical nationwide shortage of traffic signal poles sometime in the next few weeks. We all know Washington could never be fixed that easily.
Tomorrow's news, via the crystal ball of The Swami: Traffic deaths rise as gas prices climb ever higher ... and more and more people walk in the middle of the Tri-State Tollway to get to work.
Tomorrow's news, via the crystal ball of The Swami: Mother and sister of "Batman" star to appear on "Larry King Live," "Maury," "The Steve Wilkos Show," "America's Next Top Model" and "Ice Road Truckers," in that order.
Tomorrow's news, via the crystal ball of The Swami: Wall Street says it just likes to have a little drink now and then to blow off steam, and it's a grown adult, and it doesn't need you judging it, and it can stop any time it wants to, so get off its back already, dammit.
What's all this about oil prices dropping and a bunch of predictions that they will keep falling? When oil prices go up, our gas prices go up the very same day. How long are they going to gouge us before gas prices drop back under $4?
Gutted in Grayslake
Dear G.G.:
What goes up doesn't necessarily have to come down, especially when we're talking about "light, sweet crude," as they call it for some twisted reason. But it has come down, in apparently record fashion, between Tuesday and Thursday.
Meanwhile, as you so sharply point out, our gas prices here in Lake County have not gone down in record fashion between Tuesday and Thursday. Before Thursday, the last time a barrel of oil was under $130 was June 5. That week in Lake County, you could still buy a gallon of gas for under $4.
So the ball is in Big Oil's court. With the foaming-at-the-mouth speculation suddenly cooling down, when will they get us back into the $3 range? Let us peer into the crystal ball and see ... hmmm ... not good ...
Your answer: A hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast in the next three weeks, causing a light bulb to burn out at an offshore platform, giving Big Oil all the reason they need to nail us back to the wall. Not that $3.99 gas is anything to celebrate.
I've read you and Drive Time making fun of road projects that go on and on, like the one at Sunset and Delany. Did you notice that they've finally finished the construction at Route 137 and Butterfield in Libertyville by Sunset Foods? I think that one started when Clinton was in office.
Liberated in Libertyville
Dear Lib:
Do you believe in miracles? Yes! According to the Lake County Division of Transportation, the final stage of improvements to Butterfield Road -- including the final paving at Route 137 -- "is now completed." Area motorists won't know what to do without all the orange barrels, which have become like family over the last two to 10 years.
For the official record, the $36 million widening of Butterfield all the way from Route 45 in Mundelein/Vernon Hills to Route 137 in Libertyville started in 1998, so even though you were joking with the Clinton thing, you were dangerously close to being literal. However, the specific intersection work you refer to, according to the county anyway, has only been going on since November 2006.
Ah, November 2006. Such a long, long time ago. Think about it. Donald Rumsfeld was still your Secretary of Defense (though he would resign that month). Saddam Hussein was still alive and kicking (he would be executed the following month). November 2006 is when the Chicago Cubs signed Alfonso Soriano for $136 million, and your top movies at the box office included "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
It was when the Bears were the best team in the NFC, on the road to Super Bowl XLI.
In other words, if it seems like this was one operation that dragged on for a while, that's only because it was.
A friend of mine forwarded this story about Chicago's traffic being the third-worst in America, behind Los Angeles and New York. Forget all those computers -- what's your take on Chicago traffic vs. the rest of the country?
Daniel B. Ryan
Dear Dan:
Third place? That means Chicago is just the second loser. Or maybe the second winner, as the case might be.
While The Swami is tempted to invoke the Local Bias Privilege and recklessly claim that Chicago's bad traffic is second to none, the words of a former News-Sun editor who lived in both northeastern Illinois and Southern California ring in the ears: "Don't ever say that Chicago traffic is gridlocked. Los Angeles is gridlocked. Everything else is just a traffic jam."
Nevertheless, The Swami isn't convinced that this Global Positioning Satellite analysis is infallible. True, it ranks the eastbound Eisenhower Expressway at Mannheim Road as the worst bottleneck in the Chicago area. To deny this is to deny that a bear relieves itself in the woods.
But Lake County is nowhere to be found on the study's ranking of the 25 worst bottlenecks in the Chicago metropolitan area. Have these robots never been in downtown Barrington or downtown Libertyville at rush hour? Or on the northbound Tri-State at Grand Avenue when Great America opens for business? Or on Route 45 through Wildwood when the College of Lake County is in session? Or on Route 120 through Grayslake and Hainesville during any rush hour, but especially when the sun is setting in the faces of drivers?
Nay, none of these local headaches made the cut, nor did they have any apparent bearing on Chicago's overall ranking. Which, come to think of it, might be a good thing after all ...
Upon further review, let's all keep quiet up here in Lake County about our relatively tame bottlenecks. The poor saps going 13.1 mph on the Dan Ryan for 95 hours a week might move up here -- and bring their hell with them.
I read about how the Northbrook fire chief says the Edens Spur is so unsafe these days he wouldn't let his own family drive on it. I don't usually drive to Chicago, but I'm heading down there a few times this summer for the Taste and stuff like that. What should I do?
Max Rockatansky
Dear Mad Max:
Stay home. Or take the train. Seriously, if you don't like the Edens and/or the Tri-State and/or the Spur during a good year, you will hate it this summer, when the first two are undergoing surgery and the third is suffering sympathy pains.
The problem should have been foreseen by mere mortals not blessed with a crystal ball: traffic limps on both the Tri-State and the Edens, but it has a chance to sprint on the Spur. You know how you get stuck in stop-and-go traffic for an hour, and when you get even a quarter-mile of open road, you floor it just to blow off steam? That's the recipe right now, and it's one made for disaster. People are flying on the Spur just because they can -- even though, as it turns out, they really can't.
The Swami foresees that adjustments will be made in the same way that school buses eventually started stopping at all railroad crossings -- after a few accidents forced the issue. This will make for safer travel, if not smoother (imagine a one-lane Edens Spur on a 95-degree July afternoon).
P.S. If you don't like taking public transportation, Waukegan Road and Milwaukee Avenue are options, though you will want to add two weeks to your travel time in each case.
