Bridge Out Ahead!

Hmmmm, that would have been a helpful notice if it had been posted yesterday, or last week or even two weeks ago, but there were no signs indicating the fiasco that ensued today. I left my house at my usual time to make the short drive to the shop in downtown Lemont, IL. I was meandering along, moving over to the right lane because for the last three weeks or so there has been construction on the Lemont Avenue bridge which is over the I&M Canal and the Des Plaines River. The Northbound lanes have been closed for resurfacing and the Southbound lanes have been used to move traffic in both directions. So, as I drive closer to the bridge I see the notice that the bridge is closed and Lemont Road South detour is permitted a U-turn. I could not make heads nor tails of the Detour signs and I live here and drive over this bridge every single day! I exited to the right and followed along some quarry road but quickly decided this was going nowhere fast, so I whipped a U-ie and headed North down Lemont Road.


I was only 20 minutes late to the shop and Pam followed closely behind so it wasn't a disaster, but all this was to say, "Why weren't we notified?" Such frustration! There are very limited routes that cross over the Canal and River and if you don't have a GPS at your disposal, you'll be calling your husband like I did to find out where to go next. I decided I was going to call the Village of Lemont and voice a complaint about the lack of information regarding the bridge closing, so I went to the website to look up the phone number. Here is what I found:



The "news flash" would have been so helpful if it had been posted at the foot of the bridge yesterday! A customer of mine and her friend came from the Northwest suburbs this afternoon and tried to follow the detour signs. An hour and a half later, they were closer to the shop, about 10 minutes away, when the detour wanted them to head South on State Street. Luckily, they didn't follow the sign or they would still probably be driving around!


On another note, I'm in the process of setting up a new blog. I've been having problems interacting with Blogger and Wordpress blogs and they don't link properly to mine. I'm going to try to bring over all my posts to the new blog and when it's all ready, I'll switch the addy the website points to so you get redirected to the right place.

That's all for now, folks! Thanks for listening!