#482 Sylvan Tower

I suppose it’s difficult being a municipality these days, what with the developers on one hand wanting to build up all the empty sections and bring in more tax revenue and the environmentalists and former residents on the other, wanting to preserve the natural beauty and relative peace and quiet they have already. Residents ready to put up with a few potholes if only the don’t have to wait too long in line behind the new traffic light paid for by the new tax revenues that were generated by the new developments that are making the traffic so bad they had to put in a light. Still, I’ve spent the last eight months in traffic hell. I’ve been putting up with the rebirthing of Tumwater Boulevard and seen new businesses struggle because the project has screwed up traffic and taken too long and old businesses fold because the new island down the middle is cutting off access to them permanently. Not to mention all the windshield-dinging flying gravel, the carwash-challenging tar-globbed mud, and the attempt to treat machines as sentient beings when they post the sign “Motorcycles Use Extreme Caution.” Through it all, I have been unable to determine whether anything was being gained. It looks as if nothing has. The new traffic island is in place, virtually eliminating any across-the-street access, and the number of traffic lanes remains the same. Funny, I’m no traffic engineer, but it seems to me the problem with Tumwater Blvd was that there wasn’t enough space for the cars on it, not that some of them were turning left.
But I guess you have to expect planning screw-us from a city that went to all the trouble and expense to paint fake trees on their water tower so it would blend in better with the beautiful real trees in which is was nestled, then recently allowed developers to cut down all those beautiful real trees. Rumor has it; plans are even now afoot to repaint the water tower with densely packed houses. Maybe they’ll paint on a traffic light...
America, ya gotta love it