Road Work in Binghamton Is Bad Enough Without This

When it comes to traffic, Binghamton isn't as bad as the major cities. But even the smallest of cities have traffic backups when there's an accident, and that's to be expected. The only thing worse than sitting at a standstill inside a car for over an hour is being in one of the cars that caused the backup.

And when it comes to road construction, every city has to deal with it. It seems to me whenever a road is being worked on in our community, they start working on the alternative routes at the same time.

That always infuriates me.

And when it comes to construction projects in the Binghamton Area, the granddaddy of them all has been the Prospect Mountain Project. This has been going on for years and it will take a couple more years before it will be completed. I don't think they needed to get as fancy as they did with this project, but it is what it is.

Monday after I left work I was traveling down Rt.17 to get on 81 to go to Conklin. The road signs on 17 warned motorists that there was construction ahead and to be prepared to stop. They were right.

Right at Exit 4 of I-81, we came to a complete stop. There was no accident and there was no lane closure. The only thing I saw was a tractor-trailer pulled over to the side of the road next to the construction.

Maybe there was rubbernecking going on? I don't know.

So we made it through that construction site and we were a couple of miles away from Exit 1 when the signs for road work ahead started appearing again.

About a mile and a half before Exit 1, which is Conklin and the exit I was taking, we came to a standstill again. It was stop-and-go from that point to the exit. About a mile away from the exit there was a sign that said right lane closed ahead.

So everybody was trying to move over to the left lane. I stayed in the right lane hoping that the lane was open at least far enough to get me to the exit ramp. When we finally made it to the lane closure, the arrow was in the left lane pointing traffic into the right lane. So the sign a mile and a half back should have said "left lane closed ahead", that might have alleviated some of the traffic issues.

As I made it to the exit ramp and drove past all the cars that were still stopped on 81, I couldn't help but think the people that put up that sign are the same people that are building the bridges that we drive over. If they don't know their right from left we may have bigger concerns than getting to our golf league on time.