DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour         

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 press car 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 I-94 to the Indiana Toll Road to the Chicago Skyway. Generally I take I-94 because basically 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. We weaved around so many lane closures and diversions I was getting motion sickness. But I thought that was it so 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 the satellite radio.

Unfortunately, that euphoria lasted about as long as it took Elvis to sing Heartbreak Hotel.

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, I had used my litany of curse words 100 times over. My beloved wife even had smoke coming out of her ears.

As we neared my home town of Valparaiso, Ind., we peeled off and rendezvoused 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 kind of 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 (just what the hell does that mean?) lunch we parted company and my poor 42-year-old baby boy headed back to his house and we prepared to get on to 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 minutes later we had to stop for a damned toll; 60-cents to go about five miles. Nonetheless, we sped onward. In my mind I could smell the end (of the trip) already. But what’s this?!!! As we entered the beautiful confines of Gary, all traffic came to a complete stop. The lanes and bridges began to look like Hanoi after Operation “Arc Light” in 1972.

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 had during my 50-year experience of driving that route. As angry as I was when I got out of the car I wasn’t going to cower.

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. That’s all well and good. Sure, gasoline is still fairly high…but for what it cost you to check a family’s luggage on an airline flight it would pay for the fuel charges for the entire trip!

So, Mr. Secretary of Transportation I ask “WHY IN HELL SCHEDULE MAINTENANCE ON EVERY MAJOR ARTERY THAT GETS YOU FROM HERE TO THERE? I realize that perhaps the tourism director doesn’t talk to the transportation director and/or the public works director because maybe they’re all carrying on with the others wives. But why screw us at the same time?

If Michigan and Indiana want to schedule construction on I-94…do so but work with Ohio to ensure there will at least be a repair moratorium on the Toll Road until I-94’s work is done. AND PUBLICIZE THE FACT!!! It may wind up with a season’s delay in repairing the other highway but the goodwill achieved would be more than adequate for all states involved.

I’m at least intelligent enough to fathom 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 please just use some common sense if you can find any. Or the economic thrust of Hit the Road Jack and don’t come back no more may become a reality.