Diatribe: Hold on there: You’re not going anywhere quickly

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With no exaggeration, I’ve probably made the drive between Chicago and Detroit a minimum of 500 times. There aren’t many things about that trek that surprise me. However, this past week may have broken the mold.

We accompanied my beloved twin grandsons and their parents from Detroit to Chicago to spend a week of sightseeing. I lived in Chicago for 22 years before moving to this Third World atoll, so I know my way around the Windy City pretty well. We stayed at a downtown hotel because of the central location and had a new Nissan Quest to make the drive in and also to motor around the city. (We took separate vehicles on the way in.)

From where I live I have two choices to make a straight-in approach to Chicago; I can either head south about 35 miles and take the Ohio Turnpike/Indiana Toll Road/Chicago Skyway route, or take Interstate 94 to the Indiana Toll Road to the Chicago Skyway. Generally I take I-94 because I abhor tolls and Lord knows there are lots of them.

Thus, my lovely wife and I began our happy journey — loaded with a full cup of Dunkin Donuts Coffee and songs in our heart. That song was snuffed out fairly early when we encountered our first construction-based traffic delay. Just like the dignity of a convict’s first night in prison, there went a half-hour out of our lives. We weaved around so many lane closures and diversions I was getting motion sickness.

When the blockage cleared and the speed limit rose once more to 70 mph (or as close to it as 80 mph can get), we settled back to listen to ’50s on 5 on satellite radio. Unfortunately, that euphoria lasted about as long as the dignity of a convict’s second night in prison.

This particular slowdown/stoppage lasted the better part of 45 minutes. I began to see a pattern developing. Rather than bore you with the same scenario, suffice it to say that by the time we exited Michigan and entered my beloved home state of Indiana, the aforementioned convict would have painfully adjusted to his nightly routine as he entered his second week in the barrel.

As we neared my home town of Valparaiso, Ind., we peeled off and hooked up with my son for lunch. He had come in from the western suburbs of Chicago and was telling me about his construction delays as he headed east through the Borman Expressway in Gary. Inwardly I chuckled because we weren’t going that way. Rather, we were taking the Indiana Toll Road to the Chicago Skyway, where there’s never any noticeable delay. After all, why are you paying $3.50 for the Skyway alone if you’re going to be held up in traffic?

After a sumptuous lunch we parted company; my poor 42-year-old baby boy headed back to his house and we prepared to get onto what once was my favorite high-speed road — the famed Indiana Toll Road. (A historical note: In the 1950s, my grandfather sold some land that was earmarked for building the toll road. Thus, lots of my toys were purchased with that money.)

We entered the Valparaiso/Chesterton booth, took a ticket and about five minute later we had to stop for a toll – 60 cents to go about five miles. Nonetheless, we sped onward. In my mind I could smell the end (of the trip). But what’s this? As we entered the beautiful confines of Gary, all traffic came to a complete stop. Our three crowded lanes converged into one horrific lane — and it only took an hour to achieve it.

By the time we got to our hotel I had completed the worst Detroit-Chicago drive I’ve ever made during my 50-year experience of driving that route. Angry does not begin to describe my disposition at that point.

There are a finite number of direct routes to get from one major city to another – it can be two or three. Most cities one drives to involve either a half-day or full-day’s ride. With the airlines lying in wait to steal your assets like stage coach robbers of the Old West, driving seems to be a better choice for families. So, Mr. Transportation Secretary: Why schedule maintenance on every major artery that gets you from here to there?

I realize that maybe the tourism director doesn’t talk to the transportation director and/or the public works director. If Michigan and Indiana want to schedule construction on I-94, do so – but work with Ohio to ensure there will be a repair moratorium on the toll road until the I-94 work is done. And publicize the fact.

I’m at least intelligent enough to realize that the construction workers aren’t the ones responsible for my delays. Who knows, maybe it does take five of them to watch a group of their colleagues take a break? But try telling that to some guy fresh out of the hills who is high-tailing it to Lucy’s house because her husband is at the VFW Hall drinking with his buddies.

We’ll call this guy Vern. Old Vern has a window of about two hours. However, he’s already used one of those hours in a construction delay. He’s angry enough to take the shotgun out from under his front seat and blow away a few of those workers leaning on their steam rollers. Sure, the sign says, “Injure a worker and spend up to 15 years in jail.” What’s the worst that’s going to happen to Vern? He’ll have three hots, a cot and new friends in prison.

Al Vinikour is a Midwest-based freelance auto writer. Proving a mind is a “terrible thing to use” he sometimes sits in traffic and ponders about things — generally auto-related — that make him mad. Believing the “pen is mightier than the sword” (and generally results in a whole lot less jail time), he vents his anger through a word processor and produces the Driver’s Side Diatribe column. E-mail him at vinikour@comcast.net.