Picture this.
You’re cruising down Loop 101 on your way to a 9:30 a.m. class, Starbucks latte in hand and a 15-minute cushion built in to walk all the way from Lot 59 to your lecture hall in time to be already seated and logged into Facebook by the time your sociology professor starts talking.
You’re making great time, the sky is blue and the birds are singing, and all in all it looks like this Monday just might be a good one.
Then, you get within a mile of ASU’s Tempe campus, and you can kiss punctuality goodbye.
Yes, the very second you lay eyes on your parking lot is when you hit … the traffic.
Growth at ASU over the past few decades has come with many upsides, but one of its most significant drawbacks is the havoc a daily influx of 50,000 people wreaks on an unprepared city’s infrastructure.
In the past month, water main breaks around Tempe have made the already-common problem of near-campus traffic a waking nightmare. Don’t even bother trying to exit Loop 202 at Scottsdale Road unless you feel like spending 30 extra minutes in the car, watching the time tick away as you imagine whether or not your classmates are taking a pop quiz while you wait for some kind soul to let you merge so you don’t get rear-ended by the soccer mom going 80 miles per hour in the lane to your left. The intersection at Rural Road and University Drive is a disaster, with the always-have-the-right-of-way light rail trains coming by every few minutes, only allowing a trickle of vehicles to move more than 20 feet on every green light.
Don’t get us wrong, the 202 widening project, among others, is important for the growth of the city and the quality of its roads. But answer this: How does it make sense to be widening the 202 while school is in session?
Spring break is a few short months away, and summer would be ideal for that kind of project to get done with the smallest amount of inconvenience for students possible. Maybe it costs more to build in the summer, but the construction adding to the already heavy traffic around campus right now is nothing short of unsafe. The exits off the U.S. 60 are hazardous at best, the 202’s exits are poorly marked and way too narrow, and unexpected construction with insufficient signage around campus is just an accident waiting to happen. Railroad construction in Tempe also poses significant inconveniences to local residents, not to mention the noise construction workers make late at night in local neighborhoods. And to top it all off, these projects almost never are finished on the proposed end date — they keep dragging it out until the city reaches a perpetual place of unfinished, messy, so-called “improvement.”
One thing is true: If you take a short drive over to California and see the quality of their roads, it’s hard not to be thankful for the road quality and upkeep we have in Arizona. But a little bit more planning and thought for the people who will bear the brunt of the inconvenience would be nice.
