Obstructions are everywhere
It’s fall. The Chico State University students are back, and the roads are being torn up. I guess the crews are taking advantage of the idyllic interval between the summer heat and the rainy season. If you have to work outdoors, this is a good time to do it.
For the same reason, I suppose this is as good a time as any to be stuck in traffic. We can roll down our windows and bask in the toasty air under the azure skies while waiting for the flag man to wave us on. There are limits to my tolerance. When I found out a couple of weeks ago that it would be a 10- to 15-minute wait before I could drive down Vallombrosa Avenue, I decided to turn around and try to find another way home.
Leaving and coming home have been a little tricky in my neighborhood. I’ve felt besieged. First, they repaved East First Avenue, then before it had even been restriped, they started on Vallombrosa. By that time, the Cohasset repaving project had reached Mangrove Avenue. You could get through, but there was the weird sensation of hitting a bump then driving in gravel for several blocks.
The only part of Mangrove that wasn’t torn up was the East First Avenue intersection, which itself had been torn up for several months earlier this year.
Last week, as I headed to the north end of Chico, I thought I’d be well out of the way of the roadwork, but then I turned left on East Lassen Avenue and encountered another “prepare to stop� sign and flag man just two driveways away from where I needed to turn off. But it was a beautiful morning, so I had another chance to bask in the sun’s mellow rays.
With so much roadwork going on at once, it’s hard not to feel how dependent we are on them. I start to contemplate the sobering fact that it would be hard to drive out of Chico in the event of a disaster. All the four-lane roads quickly become two-lane roads. The sprawling city and its capacious thoroughfares become a faint memory as you enter the almost endless realm of country roads that surround Chico. If everybody tried to leave Chico at the same time, we’d be gridlocked solid.
There’s always something going on with the roads outside of town. The bridge-widening project on Highway 99 between Los Molinos and Red Bluff has lasted several seasons. The Highway 149 project south of Chico will be with us for several seasons. I’ve been trying out some creative detours to get to Oroville. But once you’re on a country road, you can never tell what might lurk up ahead. Sometimes lanes are closed because road crews are trimming trees. Sometimes the roads are flooded. Obstructions are everywhere.
It’s good that I like being in Chico and have no ongoing desire to get away. If I couldn’t feel content here, I’m sure the thought of the narrow, always-under-construction roads that surround the city would get to me.