Construction is everywhere. If you need to be somewhere, it is a universal construct that construction will be there first, waiting for you and waving it's orange flag of "nope not this way". I visted Florida and my grandfather joked about how there were two seasons: winter and construction. It's pretty much the same elsewhere, only without the added misery of being in Florida.
The state of alligators, old people, and humid weather. Come and visit!
Nobody minds necessary construction. You drive down the road and see a fresh building being erected and look over for a sign of what it is. A new restaurant, is it? Well maybe me and the boys can make this our regular hole after it's finished! Or so you tell yourself before never visiting it (along with everybody else who forewent it in favor of McDonald's)
I'm sick of all this fast food. Why doesn't anybody open any real restaurants around here?
That's the difference between the types of construction. There is constructive construction and then there is the government is wasting your tax dollars construction. Nobody minds the former, but it the latter that is constantly getting in the way.
You see the second type everywhere. They'll renovate the same road a few times a year, arbitrarily recement a sidewalk or raise a curb, send a small orphan child to spit polish all the traffic lights, etcetera. That's the people in charge picking high profile, low cost, cosmetic touch ups to make it look like work is being done. Its what you always hear old conspiracy theorists complaining about at city council meetings.
The city I grew up in is notorious for this. There was a dangerous alley where a girl was fatally assaulted. Awful. But the local council stepped in and built a fancy gate to the entrance of the alley and declared it a wash. After all, nobody gets hurt in parks.
There's also a sidewalk that I walk on every single day that has had a "sidewalk closed" sign on it for the past month, with no signs of construction workers touching it, or having any intention to touch it. There are no sinkholes or sandworms, and the ground isn't lava (THE FLOOR IS LAVA) so for some reason the ground is temporarily out of order.
Seems safe enough.
It's easy to see what they're doing though. They're responsible for keeping the local economy running. They're employing more people by setting up quick, routine jobs for local contractors, and trying to construct a safer area is better for jobs than just paying normal wage to the police and having them add an extra scene to their route. And the way government operates is on a lowest bidder priority, so it's hard to get set up for any larger cost jobs.
So construction isn't all that bad. It keeps people employed and you can always use it as an excuse to be late to places.
Rating: 2.5/5
Oh hey, my train's at the stop. Good timing, me.
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