This week, south Moorhead finally got a glimpse of the silver lining inside the stormy construction season of 2016: It feels so delicious when it’s almost over.
That must be why an otherwise-inexplicable mood of good cheer has settled across the south quarter of town like a happy cloud. Something wonderful has happened here. On what would otherwise have been a typically blue Monday, the eastbound exit ramp from Interstate 94 onto Eighth Street South finally reopened.
How do you spell “relief”? As far as I can tell, it’s “Exit 1-A.” Returning from a meeting in Fargo, my mama-van and I became one of the very first vehicles to drive the miraculous new route.
It felt glorious.
After what has seemed like an endless summer of delays and dodging detours, we’ve almost reached the promised land. I have to admit it – I haven’t been this excited since our new neighborhood Hornbacher’s opened last summer (even if they did forget the olive bar).
Just think! We can drive both ways across the fancy new overpass. We can come home from the east. We can come home from the west. We could even have slipped smoothly eastward into a late-afternoon Friday exodus for the lakes, if only those inevitable delays hadn’t pushed the finish line past Labor Day.
All that remains is to baptize the fresh westbound ramp toward Fargo. That’s just a few breathless days away.
Oh, we won’t be orange-cone-free quite yet. Some work still remains before all the lanes will be ready for prime time. Eighth Street still sports a scattering of traffic barrels as it heads toward Main, where the southbound lanes are blocked off toward the east. And then, of course, there’s Fargo.
But hallelujah! No more double-lane back-ups eastward all the way from University Drive, waiting to squeeze through the 20th Street ramp! No more fuming through three or four cycles of red lights on 30th Avenue! No more bumper-to-bumper traffic on Convent Road! No more speeding commuters, morning and night, on otherwise-quiet residential streets, as frustrated drivers carve out their own secret passages to circumnavigate closures!
Somehow I didn’t really appreciate our everyday ease of driving until those orange-striped barriers screwed up all the routes my car seems to know by heart. As someone who still brakes in front of old Riverside School on Fourth Street – for a stop sign that was removed decades ago – I promise I’ll never take our sensible city streets for granted again.
Not that the brave new world of Moorhead driving is guaranteed dilemma-free … at least, not for a while. When Russ and I bump into our neighbors lately (figuratively speaking), the topic has evolved from traffic tie-ups to our newest tourist attraction: how to drive the redoubtable Diverging Diamond Interchange.
The odd instructions we’ve all read about how to navigate the I-94 overpass do have everyone buzzing. No wonder. It looks like nothing you’ve probably seen — only the fourth time MnDOT has served one up in-state (two in the Twin Cities, one in St. Cloud). It’s one of fewer than three dozen completed DDIs from coast to coast.
Knitters like me will instantly recognize the criss-crossing as a classic cable pattern. Drivers less steeped in yarn and needles may have a tougher time picturing the schematic. Northbound drivers weave to the left side of the overpass. Southbound cars head to the right. Yes, it’s initially confusing. Just try it and follow the arrows, though. You’re going to love it.
The Diverging Diamond Interchange really is something new – born in France 40 years ago, but not introduced here until the first was built in 2009 in Springfield, Missouri.
While the route feels downright zippy at road-level – local traffic reporter Al Aamodt compares it to a driving course – the design was developed to cut down on crashes. The DDI offers only 14 points at which cars can possibly collide, compared to 26 in the conventional pattern. Those making left turns don’t have to cross oncoming traffic, as they have in the past; left and right turns are simple in every direction. Entering ramps in the wrong direction is virtually impossible.
Traffic experts assure us that we’ll all love it, once we get over gritting our teeth, holding our breath and feeling our way into the intersection. From personal experience, I can tell you that affection does not come easy – especially now, when the bridge deck is still marked off by orange cones protecting workers trying to finish off the fine points.
A friend confides that she has worked out a fool-proof strategy for her first few crossings: She waits for another car to cross ahead of her, then follows its taillights.
That sense of security will come. Before you know it, we’ll drive it without a second thought and get back to complaining about the weather. In the meantime, those of us who lived through the centrifugal pull of the interstate highway system’s very first clover leaves a lifetime ago are ready to take on the challenge. If, as they say, all roads lead to Moorhead … it’s awfully nice to know we can finally get out again.
