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One of these nights, you can drive through downtown without road work frights

These days (and nights), finding a way to walk over to that eligible person at the bar is not the only rough territory you’ll have to cover. There are many streets that get you around in the evening that are very hard to negotiate because of road construction, meaning the endless string of red lights you’ll encounter on Carmichael Road are not the only traffic problem when getting around, such as from nightclubs on The Hill to the ones downtown. (Concerning Carmichael, ever heard of placing a flashing yellow light at places where no one is moving from any direction late at night?)
More-over, I’m talking about the soon to become infamous road work being done on Vine Street. (A work zone sign says “closed daily.” Well that affects night travel, too). The latest is that despite the fact that there are currently no turn lanes at Vine and Second and it’s a straight-shot, you still have to sit through the red-then-green situation. (Again to invoke the possibility of a flashing yellow, I guess it’s too much bother to switch things up for a few weeks). Try to make it to The Village Inn or Kozy Korner in North Hudson for last call with the current constraint. They just might greet you as they’re locking the bar door.
Along that route, there have been the occasional downed pylons pushed toward the other lane, as I’m assuming bleary eyed drivers were pinched too tightly by lane changes. And if you are parked along Locust Street going east from the Smilin’ Moose, and try to get through at Third and Vine, guess what, that’s been shut down, too. Now we hear the news that as of May 31, the intersection at Vine and Second will be closed, too. Just hope there won’t be a speed trap set up where the detour takes you.
And relatedly, for a longer time now, if you’re swinging through First Street from Dick’s to later go east to the intersection by Dairy Queen, you’ll note that even the late-night signal going that direction can make you wait up until a few minutes. Maybe that’s why for a while now, more party limos than usual have been showing up in North Hudson, and more recently even up on The Hill.

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