One of the highlights of the past couple of weeks has been the kickoff of construction of the Elmwood Park sewer improvement job. This 1.4 million dollar job involves the relocation of a sewer lift station in a narrow clearance between a buried fiberoptic duct bank and the curb of Wilson Drive, in Metairie, LA. It is a very narrow strip of land where the station must be located, and there's not much room to lay out materials on the side away from the street (There's a canal there.), so the contractor has to close Wilson Drive to set up and construct.

This is apparently a problem for some residents who like to use Wilson Drive as a shortcut. This was evidenced by the scores of drivers who ignored the press release in the local paper, stating that Wilson Drive would be closed (detour to Jeannette or Power), or the message board saying "WILSON CLOSED // DETOUR POWER", OR the sign at Wilson stating "ROAD CLOSED TO THRU TRAFFIC <--DETOUR--", and saw fit to drive down Wilson, only to come to where the street is completely blocked and be forced to turn around, much to the amusement of us at the job site at the time. (The road was blocked, but it was the day before construction began: a last walkthrough before the road would really be closed.)

The real kicker was when some person with the citizens action group "Citizens for a Safer Jefferson" filed a complaint about the road being closed and there not being at least one lane open. To that point I volunteer this: You seek to make Jefferson Parish a safer place. Tell me, what is safe about driving right next to a 25' deep pit? One half-hitch and you have a broken axle of your automobile AT BEST.

BZPower, to those of you who drive regularly, have just garnered your license, in the throes of learner's permit limbo, or just starting to pester parents about Driver's Ed: Pay attention to the road. Just because you drive a street day-in, day-out does not mean you can zone out and make it automatic. 29 times out of 30, that road is owned by a public agency who has the authority to partially or fully restrict traffic for the purposes of future greater good, be it utility work or otherwise. If a sign is out there to be read, it should be read because it's not out there to be ignored.

(If it could be ignored, it wouldn't have been put together to sit out there: those things cost a fair amount of cash (>$80 each).)

Also, your route can be forced to change, and you shouldn't file a frivolous complaint because you're inconvenienced by the 8 month loss of a preferred shortcut: we're the engineers; we can't call our job done if we don't take you into account.

-KIE