so the week i moved in to my apartment just happened to be the same weekend of the St. James Art Fair. yes, for one whole weekend, thursday through sunday, our friendly neighborhood LMPD (louisville metro police department) blocks off several city blocks in the middle of old louisville (just south of downtown). there's a giant art festival, and vendors set up tents all along the streets that have been blocked off.
yes, right in front of HUNdreds of apartment buildings.
of course, my street was not blocked, but parking was prohibited. which means essentially the same thing.
but louisville, i forgave you for that. it was a small area, it was a long-standing tradition, it didn't make traffic bad, it just made it very difficult to find parking at my house where i LIVE. and you gave me a really shady ticket, which i never paid after mulitple attempts at logging the ticket number in online failed.
but tonight .... tonight, louisville, i think you and i are through with the niceties. you have put the nail in your coffin.
because of thunder.
that's right: thunder over louisville.
i just spent ALL day getting ready for and playing in and celebrating the wedding of some good friends. at 10 pm, i get in my car and drive two hours to louisville. thunder has been over for awhile. the bridge is no longer blocked. so i proceed on my merry way, seeing the northbound lanes full of traffic but my southbound lane wide open. i see my exit. it's not full of cars. i pull into the exit lane.
BLOCKED. by a police SUV.
so i decide to take the next available exit. which is, of course, in the middle of a dense traffic jam.
i get off the exit, but all streets which normally go two ways are now ALL one-way southbound. since my FIRST exit, NORTH of my house, was blocked, i now am SOUTH of my house and i need to travel NORTH.
THERE ARE NO NORTHBOUND STREETS OPEN.
NONE.
after making a HUGE circle all the way around three sides of my block, and seeing my starbucks, i finally begin to make some progress up 4th street.
a mere 5 blocks up, it's blocked off.
i ask a nearby policeman if there are ANY northbound streets.
"no."
"so you're telling me there's NO WAY for me to get to my house at 4th and hill?"
"nope."
"for the next hour and a half?"
"yep."
wow. thanks for the help, you civil servant you.
then i hear something on his walkie talkie about some street being opened up for northbound traffic. i wait for him to inform me of this .... he just stares.
thunder over louisville has ushered in something new: my RAGE over louisville.
i would put MONEY on the fact that a good 1/3 of the cars stuck in traffic were meandering aimlessly (at a ridiculously slow pace) on roads they DIDN'T need to be congesting further just because all the roads were either blocked entirely or had become one-way southbound. if the roads had been allowed to keep their normal purpose, the people who were trying to leave downtown would be stuck in traffic. the people who had CHOSEN to go to the event would be reaping the consequences. instead, i sat in traffic for over an hour, i THINK i got rear-ended when i was trying to cross a street w/ no light and no traffic director and endless cross-traffic and a car behind me beeping endlessly, i couldn't find a parking spot by my house, and i had to carry my violin, guitar, and luggage from this weekend two blocks to my house. and i didn't even get to GO TO THUNDER IN THE FIRST PLACE.
i have NEVER in all my life seen a city handle such an event and such a traffic situation with such profound stupidity. not one bit of it made sense. unnecessary blockages and very confusing re-routing.
SOMEone, in SOME government office in louisville, IS going to have to deal with me and all my wrath. there is just no reason that thousands of people should be completely blocked from getting to THEIR OWN HOUSES. no reason whatsoever.
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