road paint

as soon as the first thaw happened, sometime in march (?), the road construction crews came out en masse in madison. roads all over town were torn up, blocked, re-routed, orange-cone covered, drilled, dug. lane closures have ensured that traffic all summer has been nice and congested. as we head in to fall, many of the roads have been re-tarred and opened for business. for the last couple of weeks, many of the roads i take to work and campus have been re-opened, but not yet re-painted. no lines means, to most people, one large lane - very luxurious (seinfeld, anyone?). there are people, however, who are confident they know where the lines would be if they were there and make their own lanes. it's great because not having lines doesn't create enough chaos, we need those falsely confident people on the road too. oh, and have i mentioned the millions of bicyclists in madison? no lines, interpreted by a bicyclist, means the entire road is a bike lane (i'd like to take a moment to disabuse any reading bicyclist of this idea).

this week is paint-the-finished-roads week in madison; instead of orange cones, there are construction workers in the middle of the road. i've been told the workers are worth more points than the orange cones if you hit one. gone are my luxury lanes, back to being told in which ten feet of road i'm allowed to drive. it's kind of a relief and kind of a disappointment, all at the same time. there are still a couple of months left of road construction so the fun isn't over yet, but with the first frost, the construction ends, leaving us with nicely re-paved and re-painted roads to be covered by snow, ice, and slush. gotta love driving in madison!