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A water main break near campus late Sunday caused the city to block off the large north-south avenue that passes the library where I work.
The city failed to set up proper detour signs. This is a typical university campus area where the streets are weirdly offset and terminate unexpectedly because either the building was there first and the streets were routed around it, or because at some point the university bought the land and closed down the street.
The street that the library is closest to dead-ends 30 feet before it reaches the north-south avenue mentioned above. GPS systems have never registered this, although it's been that way for at least 15 years, if not forever. This street also part of the shortest route around the blockage.
There's construction all over campus, too, shutting down a couple of streets that GPS units tell you to take, but a new route has been put in that turns north shortly before the library street terminates, and if you just take that and turn left when you get to the end of the new route, you'll get back onto the main north-south avenue.
Nobody knows this. I spent part of yesterday staring out my window, since I have a front-row seat (albeit a couple of floors up) and watched a bunch of people drive surprisingly fast, given this is a campus, down the library street, pass the correct turnoff, and then slam their brakes 50 feet later when they realize the road dead-ends into a sidewalk and a brick wall. There's a fountain on the other side of the brick wall, but I expect the wall was put in so that people wouldn't drive over the fountain area to get back to the main avenue. But it's been there since before I started working here. You'd think GPS units would know by now!
Sometimes the drivers even turn confidently into the parking lot at the dead end, to realize too late it's a teeny tiny one that contains handicapped parking and a couple of reserved spots for emeritus professors.
The the drivers reverse out of the parking lot in a huff--you can tell they're in a huff, somehow--turn around* and zoom back the way they came, completely missing the turn that would take them to the north-south avenue, if they but knew it
*Mostly.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
myrialux was stuck behind one lady who tentatively reversed the entire way back down the street yesterday.
Crappy diagram, not to any sort of scale, and missing several buildings. The blue heart is the Library loading dock, wheremyrialux lets me off when he drives, and my office is on the second floor, a bit to the right of the heart.
North is at the top. The green arrows point out the way you should go--east for a few streets and then, off the page, north for a long block, then west and back onto my diagram, following the green arrows.
The red arrows depict the route everyone drives. You can see from the green arrow part that the road ends in a brick wall, but the parking lot entrance looks a bit like a road, or like the parking lot might go all the way through.
This morning,myrialux took the route in green to the library, where he dropped me off. We had a caravan of a number of cars behind us, who decided we knew where we were going. I rolled my window down and started pointing with broad gestures to the road they SHOULD take and yet NOT A SINGLE PERSON did so, and they all followed us past the turnoff, past the library loading dock where myrialux turned in to drop me off, to the dead end into a glorious traffic jam.
myrialux was stuck on the loading dock drive until they all left, so I stood out there and pointed everyone to the correct road. Most people smiled and waved in thanks, and turned the direction I was pointing, but a couple either didn't see me or had no idea what I was trying to tell them and so stomped on the gas and zoomed back down the way we originally came.
Some say they are stuck on campus even now, circling the classroom buildings, construction zones, and graduate student housing for eternity.
The city failed to set up proper detour signs. This is a typical university campus area where the streets are weirdly offset and terminate unexpectedly because either the building was there first and the streets were routed around it, or because at some point the university bought the land and closed down the street.
The street that the library is closest to dead-ends 30 feet before it reaches the north-south avenue mentioned above. GPS systems have never registered this, although it's been that way for at least 15 years, if not forever. This street also part of the shortest route around the blockage.
There's construction all over campus, too, shutting down a couple of streets that GPS units tell you to take, but a new route has been put in that turns north shortly before the library street terminates, and if you just take that and turn left when you get to the end of the new route, you'll get back onto the main north-south avenue.
Nobody knows this. I spent part of yesterday staring out my window, since I have a front-row seat (albeit a couple of floors up) and watched a bunch of people drive surprisingly fast, given this is a campus, down the library street, pass the correct turnoff, and then slam their brakes 50 feet later when they realize the road dead-ends into a sidewalk and a brick wall. There's a fountain on the other side of the brick wall, but I expect the wall was put in so that people wouldn't drive over the fountain area to get back to the main avenue. But it's been there since before I started working here. You'd think GPS units would know by now!
Sometimes the drivers even turn confidently into the parking lot at the dead end, to realize too late it's a teeny tiny one that contains handicapped parking and a couple of reserved spots for emeritus professors.
The the drivers reverse out of the parking lot in a huff--you can tell they're in a huff, somehow--turn around* and zoom back the way they came, completely missing the turn that would take them to the north-south avenue, if they but knew it
*Mostly.
myrialux was stuck behind one lady who tentatively reversed the entire way back down the street yesterday.Crappy diagram, not to any sort of scale, and missing several buildings. The blue heart is the Library loading dock, where
myrialux lets me off when he drives, and my office is on the second floor, a bit to the right of the heart.North is at the top. The green arrows point out the way you should go--east for a few streets and then, off the page, north for a long block, then west and back onto my diagram, following the green arrows.
The red arrows depict the route everyone drives. You can see from the green arrow part that the road ends in a brick wall, but the parking lot entrance looks a bit like a road, or like the parking lot might go all the way through.
This morning,
myrialux took the route in green to the library, where he dropped me off. We had a caravan of a number of cars behind us, who decided we knew where we were going. I rolled my window down and started pointing with broad gestures to the road they SHOULD take and yet NOT A SINGLE PERSON did so, and they all followed us past the turnoff, past the library loading dock where myrialux turned in to drop me off, to the dead end into a glorious traffic jam.myrialux was stuck on the loading dock drive until they all left, so I stood out there and pointed everyone to the correct road. Most people smiled and waved in thanks, and turned the direction I was pointing, but a couple either didn't see me or had no idea what I was trying to tell them and so stomped on the gas and zoomed back down the way we originally came. Some say they are stuck on campus even now, circling the classroom buildings, construction zones, and graduate student housing for eternity.