OPINION: Big-city fun with small-city driving

May 9—Every once in awhile, I think about how nice it is living and driving in a small town.

Did you ever drive through Chicago, New York City, Detroit — or even Cleveland during rush hour? You take your life in your hands battling your way through the big cities.

For people like me, who like to drive around the speed limit and stay in one lane if I have to, big cities can add up to big trouble.

On a recent trip to Detroit, I tried to merge left on the highway when another guy decided he was going to merge right.

The result? A call to Tonia Dilger-Maxwell, my insurance agent.

Of course, accidents do happen in small towns. And there are times when you might think you live in the big city.

I visited Pleasant Elementary Tuesday to take photos of the "Parents and Pastries Day" at the school. The parking lot was full, and cars were even parking in the playground. At the same time, parents were pulling through dropping off their children.

Jody and I live by Maplehurst Elementary, so we know all about the before and after-school traffic situations.

The cars will start on Collingwood, back all of the way up to Central Boulevard, and then snake their way to St. Mary's Street.

Doesn't anybody take the bus anymore?

When you live around one of the schools in town, you just have to be smart. For us, anything between 8-8:30 a.m. and 3-3:30 p.m. is a little risky.

Going back to Pleasant, I have been there taking pictures in the early afternoon and there are cars already waiting for their children. Somebody at the school said some people will wait for more than an hour to be first in line.

I don't get it.

Small towns do have their traffic issues. I remember one year when the city put out a report about the most dangerous intersections in town. The No.1 spot at that time was the intersection of Cleveland and Old State roads (near the Circle K store).

City councilman Dwight Tkach made a good point at the time. He said you can do things to improve the intersection and the accidents will go down. But when that intersection drops, another one will move up to No. 1.

I wonder what Dwight thinks when he drives down Cline Street to Walmart.

Now there is the closest thing Norwalk has to big-city driving.

Close your eyes and pretend you are driving with me north on Cline Street.

You pull up to the first intersection in front of the former Drug Mart store, Casa Bravos and ALDI. You have to stop. The person to your left has to stop. The person coming at you has to stop. But the person coming in off of Milan Avenue has a free pass — a get out of jail free card. That person can come rolling in and go anywhere they like.

You better keep your eyes open and hold your breath when the intersection is full.

When you get through that and get to the intersection at McDonald's, you have to do it all over again.

You know the drill. The person to your left has to stop. The person coming at you has to stop. But the person coming in off of Milan Avenue had a the right of way, and by then he can work up a pretty good speed. Then the person sneaks out of McDonald's and screws everything up.

Two down, one to go.

Now you have the T-bone intersection where Cline Street dead-ends at Walton Boulevard. That is like the super highway of Norwalk with the people coming up over the hill from Milan Avenue one way and people coming the other way from Walmart.

Again, say a little prayer when you pull out and hit the gas.

Cline Street in Norwalk is like Ohio 601 from Ohio 18 to Ohio 61, just on a smaller scale.

That gets us to Walmart — the wild, wild west when it comes to driving.

There are lines and arrows, but we know that hardly matters. Cars coming this way, cars coming that way pulling out of the Dollar Tree.

Now, I am not complaining. This isn't the Dan Ryan Expressway through Chicago. The Dan Ryan separates the men from the boys when it comes to driving.

On an average day, up to 307,100 vehicles use a portion of the Dan Ryan, according to statistics. The Dan Ryan, and its North Side counterpart the Kennedy Expressway, are the busiest roads in the entire state of Illinois.

The Dan Ryan has 14 lanes of traffic; seven in each direction. Four of those are express lanes and the other three provide access for exit and on-ramps. Because of its width, the Dan Ryan is very popular with commuters who live south of downtown Chicago, making the road prone to traffic jams during weekday rush hour.

Just hearing and typing that makes me cringe.

You can say what you want about Cline Street and the dangers of driving to Walmart, but in the big picture, it really isn't that bad.

The real danger starts when you get into Walmart. It seems to get bigger every time I walk in the doors. How come they keep moving things around on me, and how come they alway put the good snacks right at the check-out lanes?

That's in case you missed the hot food to the right when you walked in.

I always wonder ... why when I go to Walmart for that cheap gallon of milk it always costs me $200 to get out the door? And why do I always get that shopping cart with the wobbly wheel that makes all kinds of sounds?

This is starting to scare me. What's going to happen when I retire and have a lot of spare time on my hands to think about stuff like this? I need to get a hobby.

Joe Centers is Reflector community editor. He can be reached at jcenters@norwalkreflector.com.