Ugh. I invent myself madder every date I write one of these now. It just dawns on me how messed up 31st and Astoria Blvd is and how unlikely it is that it can even be saved in my lifetime.
But without further to-do…

OK, so the doodles are moving up in technology, as you can well see. We’ve now taken to using a Google map first, soon after scribbling all by it, as opposed to just starting with scribbles. And of course, you can’t beat the clarity and precision of a picture taken using a my trusty cell phone.

besides…

whether you’d first bring your attention to the little truck tooting along Hoyt Ave S. He just exited the GCP considering he sorta, kinda has to in order to access the BQE. He doesn’t really (at least trucks up to 12′6″ don’t since the bridges are okay for that height), but signs tell him to, so he does. And he clogs up traffic something terrible from here into perpetuity. That means all the way to the next entrance to the BQE more than a mile down the road, just past 46th Street (near my old stomping grounds). Mr. Truck is loud and obnoxious and big and rumbly and tears up the street fairly a bit on his little unnecessary jaunt thru Astoria. Potholes? Noise? Traffic on the eastbound service road? Thank Mr. Truck. That would be the “whole other mess” indicated on the right of the map.

Now back to the bridge exit. There’s a stop stripe there for the service road to allow cars coming off the bridge to cross those lanes and invent a right turn onto 29th St. That’s a mess. next when cars reach at the next corner they are greeted by a brick wall. Much like the humans trying to do the same at 27th Street are. You see, Astoria Blvd by here might well be called the Boulevard of Interrupted Trips. Nothing feeds into anything. That is, everything feeds into nothing. Want to go straight? No, go left, next right. that catastrophe is brought to you by the number “1″ on your map. All those “X”s, yeah, those are ways you can’t go.

All you can do is head down 30th Street, not

so big, after waiting out two lights and that will bring you back out to, that’s right, 31st Street!!! Where you will meet up with all your pals who actually waited out the light at 31st/AB to turn right to head south. Actually, you are probably looking at their tail lights at that point. that is indicated by the giant ickiness at the number “4″ on your map. Those are all the cars that got cute assembly up again with all the cars that waited it out.

Let’s say you don’t want to go south, you want to go north. Well you can’t. Well, you can, but you have to overextend yourself a bit. It is illegal to construct a left hand turn on 31st from AB/Hoyt. That’s right, can’t get left (see “#2″. You have to go THRU the intersection, wait at another light, go left by the parkway and run right into our discussion of two weeks ago, all those cars coming off the parkway westbound, and westbound Astoria Blvd traffic. You all come together at number “3″. Another giant clustercluck indicated by a big scribble on the map. Why send more cars who just want to go north into oncoming traffic, whose cars mostly want to go south and west? Ask DOT.

My guess is something about the timing of the traffic lights will pile cars trying to construct the initial left up to high heaven. So fix that I say. Don’t compound another problem. You ever take in of “turning lights?” Use them!

And oh yeah, as Jim found out that weekend, they keep closing the damn GCP entrance, which makes everything even worse.

besides, now I’m all revved up again. It’s terrible. The whole thing. It’s an unfixable mess. I don’t even know why I bother.
And we are STILL not done. I’ve yet to touch northbound.

That’s up next…

Original post by Rich O’Malley

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