S C D O T
suggestions for your commute
ummmm, avoid rush-hour …
They tell a joke in Michigan that there are two seasons, Winter and Construction.
They tell a joke in Michigan that the State Flower is an orange traffic cone.
At least in Michigan, they tell jokes about the Department of Transportation.
Down here in the Low Country, the South Carolina Department of Transportation is a joke.
Full transparency, the State of South Carolina is as poor as the dirt in the salt marshes (read swamps, alligator infested swamps) that make up up half the State.
Since moving here, the Hilton Head Island Bridge has been a topic of discussion but nothing besides some traffic studies have been done.
This despite the fact that the United States Corps of Engineers will NOT give the current bridge a ‘Safe to Use’ certificate.
When we drive to Savannah we take SC Highway 17.
It has been under construction to change it from 2 to 4 lanes since we moved here almost 4 years ago.
Turns out it has been under construction for 7 years.
You can read about it here.
It’s been 7 years of treacherous travel. When will crews finish Speedway Blvd?
It has another year and a half to go.
One of the steps in building a road down here is pile up enough dirt to get the road bed out of the swamp.
They have to build it twice as high as you might think then wait for a year or more for it to settle into the pluff mud before they can pave it and start using it.
That and a lot of other problems just seem to plague road building down here.
But when you build a road through a swamp you are going to have problems.
Did not anyone in the SCDOT ever watch Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail and the saga of Swamp Castle?
The Castle Owner declaims, “I’ve built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. All the kings said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ’em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up.”
Go another couple miles and you get to the State of Georgia.
There is a lot to not like about Georgia if you look for it but I have to say the build roads seemingly overnight.
In my 12 years of commuting in Atlanta, I can’t count how many freeway projects I saw start and complete in an amazingly short amount of time.
Even when a section of freeway bridge burned up, they got it fixed in reopened in a matter of weeks.
They call this part of the United States, the Low Country.
People who live here wink at you and say, “It’s really the SLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOW country.”
And Boy Howdy! but is it.
There is a significant number of people who live in the Savannah area and use Highway 17 to commute to jobs up here in the Hilton Head area.
One of my coworkers makes the trip once a week.
For those commuters, the SCDOT gave a list of tips for using Highway 17.
The first tip is, Avoid rush-hour if at all possible.
Just makes you feel good knowing these folks are out there.
No Haiku For You 