Overstating the Obvious...
If there is one thing that can be said about living in Fort Wayne, it's that when it comes to things that are as plain as the noses on our faces, this city is an overachiever.
Take the article appearing in yesterday's J/G right on the very first page:
Bypassing the Bypass - After 20 years, Interstate 469 remains a lightly traveled loop.
Now I'll be the first one to tell you that loops around cities are not for the faint of heart, especially when one has to DRIVE on them. And it's bad enough being a passenger while watching someone ELSE drive them.
Fortunately, Philadelphia can't have one of those...it's located along the Delaware River, but one can always point to Columbus, Ohio or (my favorite) Washington, D.C.
Columbus was never all that bad, but considering that it DOES involve driving more miles to save less miles makes it impractical through about 40% of it's circumference. If you happen to live on the WEST side, it's not bad at all - just more congested. And although the EAST side has seen growth in retail and housing over the last decade, you can't ever have ALL the compass points thriving (that would be the NORTH and SOUTH sides).
So it's a mixed bag at best.
Then, there's D.C.
If the other drivers aren't bad enough on that stretch of circular highway. then the SIGNAGE will most certainly be.
Just when you got in the right lane (and aren't trying to be driven off the damn road), you spot YOUR exit sign...several lanes over to the RIGHT (or it can be to the left as well). And of course, you can enter this "wheel of torture" and wind up going in the WRONG direction, which provides hours of fun trying to get off then back on again.
And this is NOT during "rush hour".
Those times of day are even worse, as traffic can grind to a halt (try negotiating THAT clusterf$ck when trying to exit from 4 lanes over).
Yeah, engineering at it's WORST, that's for sure.
But then we come to Fort Wayne, and after driving most all of OUR loop, I find it curiously refreshing, in that I can find my way ON or OFF, have a LOT fewer idiots to dodge, and basically can get from *A* to *B* with little trouble.
And that's along the north and west areas (the most heavily developed).
Which brings me back to the article...and the SOUTHERN portion of this highway.
When we visit my buddy out in Harlan, we take I-469 north to Rt 37 and hang a right, and in all the times we traveled that road, it was like something from a Twilight Zone episode. There were VERY few cars. It felt like one was "not in Kansas" (or Indiana for that matter) any longer. There was the occasional semi hauling something, and maybe a speed freak or two, but by and large, it was relatively DESERTED.
It suddenly became FUN to drive once again. Roll those windows down, let the breeze smack you in the kisser and LIVE a little. And this is during the height of SUMMER. In winter, it's even MORE desolate (Barrow, Alaska comes to mind).
Amazingly, there has been a veritable GOLD MINE in the potential for development (there are some exits along this stretch that don't EVEN have a damn GAS STATION nearby, so check the gauge).
Then it hits me - it's this "top-heavy" syndrome to the NORTH and WEST that drove development AWAY from the SOUTH and EAST. And while all areas did not initially have any infrastructure to speak of, they had to run water/sewer lines north and west to accommodate this "master plan" the city/county fostered.
Why then was the south and east areas denied the very same access to amenities that have made the north and west areas so damn popular? Well, one idea (that no one wants to admit to) is that you need to have all the indigent, criminally-driven and "poverty-stricken" SOMEWHERE...why not keep them in the south and east parts of the city and county?
So while the "developed" regions of our I-469 loop need frequent repairs, the UN-developed portions are damn near AS NEW as when they were first built...not a bad trade-off, eh? AND the city/county gets to "watch" where the bad folks are, because it was part of "the plan" all along.
There was a time when the city floated the idea of a north-south highway cutting through the city directly, but some people turned that down, citing too blatant a "division" on people, especially those in the budding ghetto area of Fort Wayne (south and east), so that plan went bye-bye in lieu of the loop. Better to go AROUND these people than go THROUGH them anyway, right?
The 469 loop is just another part of how the city and county summarily dismissed one part of town for the sake of over-developing another. And those people who bought up north and west of the city now are able to enjoy the CROWDED confines that they sought to evade in the first place. Lucky them.
All I get out of this is ghetto living at it's best (or is that worst?), and little to NO development. Menards and Wal Mart are not "development", but rather RE-development as we used to have a very nice and viable mall until crime took hold and chased it into oblivion.
On the good side, we DO have a nice drive down to Decatur (or anywhere that is SOUTH and away from this city), or out to Rt 37, or even around to Jefferson Blvd (through the back door, as it were), and we still have acres and acres of...acres and acres to view along our sojourns.
On the down side, those of us down here have to STILL DRIVE anywhere else to shop (exception being grocery or home improvement or cheap-ass stuff - just don't stop to watch the clientele...it's scarier than hell).
So when I see an article like this, I commend the writer for having the cajones to get this in print (although there are gaps in the story that we will never hear about for the obvious reasons - some of which I have eluded to here), but I do have to say that to me, this IS like preaching to the choir.
Overstating the obvious?
Sure...why not, eh?
It's what the city excels at (when we're not being lied to) anyway.