Roadguy just got back to town last night and is feeling a little travel-weary, but he perked up upon learning that the rebuilding of the Crosstown Commons might truly, actually, finally begin. (A Strib story from the other day, including a map, is here; a Minnesota Public Radio story with text, audio and a few images is here.)

Although excited about the untangling of this troubled interchange, Roadguy is also extremely wary — in fact, during the next four years, he might do the majority of his driving in the 651 and 763 area codes, for he fears that the Minneapolis-Richfield-Edina borderlands might become an incubator for unprecedented levels of road rage. (Of course, up in the 763, there’ll be continued seething, as money that was supposed to go toward reconfiguring the Devil’s Triangle in Brooklyn Park is heading south instead.)

Roadguy wants to hear about the planned coping strategies of Crosstown users and neighbors, as well as any other thoughts you might have on this massive, much-delalyed project. So share ‘em below.

Despite Riley’s comment yesterday, Roadguy does actually get to St. Paul now and then. He doesn’t use the 10th Street exit very often, but he did last weekend, and he encountered this:

(This photo may look vaguely familiar.)

Roadguy sort of rolled his eyes at the sign, for he has been misled by black-on-orange lettering many times before (you might recall this and this, just for starters). Surely, he figured, if he proceeded, there would be at least one lane open, or something. Alas, no:

These guys were serious. Not just barricades, but floor-to-ceiling chain link. Additional specific signs were on hand to ban pedestrians …

… and the unemployed:

My having to reverse course could have been avoided if only I had (1) believed the first sign and (2) made use of the city of St. Paul’s handy street-closings page, which says that this stretch of 10th will be blocked until mid-September.

I can probably teach myself to check a website before leaving the house; learning to trust construction signs will be trickier. I’ve been betrayed by Minneapolis for so long, but maybe things are more honest east of the river….

If you have thoughts or stories to share or know of anything I should check out on my next St. Paul visit (besides Riley’s T-Intersection of Doom), send an e-mail or leave a comment below.

Southbound 100 in St. Louis Park is taking the weekend off. Details here.

This is a major Roadguy peeve:

As you can perhaps see from my CrapCam photo, the right lane was not closed — the orange barrels had been moved off 28th Street and were out of the way. Yet the workers couldn’t have walked a whole block to turn the sign sideways? Here’s a similar scene, also from this summer, on Nicollet Avenue:

Actually, the left lane was wide open. (I drove a few blocks, just to check.) Part of the right lane on the other side of the street was blocked off, which is sort of like the left lane being closed. But not really.

This kind of thing happens often enough that, when I see a “lane closed” sign, I think, “Hmm, is it really?” and I sometimes wait before moving over. This isn’t good — if drivers switch lanes unnecessarily, or if they don’t move when they should, it’s both a safety issue and a congestion issue. I think our orange signs should do better than mere truthiness.

Roadguy’s friend Karen, a former Minnesotan, is something of a road-trip goddess — a few years back, she drove solo from the Twin Cities to Alaska, where she now lives and is running a bed and breakfast. She read my post about our looming Crosstown construction woes and offered a little perspective:

“Didja hear that a bridge 60 miles north of me washed out? That made the detour to Denali National Park 342 miles longer than the original 180 miles from here — you had to head out towards the Yukon border to catch the other highway that goes to Fairbanks, drive north six hours, then drive south four hours again on the flood-ravaged road. I bet despite the perennial MnDOT presence on the Crosstown and 35W, none of those detours take you THAT far out of the way.”

She makes a fine point — I guess we’ll just need to buck up next construction season. Or, as LibraryGirl suggested, stock up on audio books.

No, no, don’t actually bring a book. Roadguy would never advocate reading behind the wheel, even if you’re perusing high-quality prose while crawling along at half a mile per hour. But if you’ve been fearing construction-related delays where 62 meets 35W, you can set your worries aside for the year; the Crosstown will be the same old mess until at least next year, after which it might be a prolonged, orange-barreled mess. Of course, if you’d like to speed things up, feel free to step forward and front the construction money that the state’s been hoping for….