North Side driving ahead? Pack a lunch

All the street repairs being inflicted on Spokane’s North Side this spring are like the Iraq war or the Hillary Clinton campaign.

They keep sucking up money with no exit strategy in sight.

I have just returned from a fact-finding expedition into this construction-ravaged Land of Gridlock.

I felt like a governor visiting a disaster area. Mount St. Helens, say, or Minnesota airport men’s rooms.

What a mess.

Orange cones and sawhorses have replaced trees and Chinese restaurants as the North Side’s most dominant features.

The landscape is also dotted with many curious signs.

“Detour.”

“Traffic Revision Ahead.”

“Towners Conoco Open.”

It’s as if some new civilization is trying to communicate with us on a more primitive level.

Spokane’s motto is “Near nature. Near perfect.”

“You can’t get anywhere from here” is the new North Side slogan.

Because of the construction, many of the North Side’s venerable arterials and thoroughfares are locked up tighter than a polygamist compound.

Let’s see.

Part of Boone is a bust. Wall is walled off from Francis to Wellesley.

Ash is accessible only by hovercraft.

Northwest Boulevard is a street of broken seams.

Drive the North Side?

John Roskelley and his kid had an easier time climbing Everest.

When I pulled onto Garland the traffic was backed up like a presidential motorcade or the inside of the River Park Square parking garage whenever a movie lets out.

The Auto Club now recommends the following survival items for North Side navigation:

Road flares, a sleeping bag, dried food, a tent and a case of tequila.

I’m no authority on street improvement, but wouldn’t it make more sense to tackle the North Side projects one problem at a time?

In a display of hard-hatted togetherness, all the workers could pitch in. It would be like that Amish barn-raising scene in the old Harrison Ford movie “Witness.”

Finish one job fast. Move on to the next.

Naw, scratch that.

Logic has no place when it comes to street repair.

Have you ever noticed that the most efficient part of any street improvement project is the demolish-and-destroy phase?

It’s like when you hire a shady contractor to remodel your kitchen.

He tears everything up in a matter of nanoseconds. Then the bum takes a powder with your down payment.

You dial his number and get that robot voice telling you his phone has been disconnected.

I feel sorry for North Siders. But some of you are sounding a little whiney.

Take the person who e-mailed me the other day and signed the letter “Frustrated Citizen.”

“Why is the city putting such UNNECESSARY burden on the residents of the North Side of the city?’ he/she wrote.

“The South Side has almost NO construction mayhem!”

Now wait just an earth-moving minute.

We South Hillers endured the same torture just a year or so ago. Crews transformed 29th Avenue into a goat trail. Then they stuck us with that worthless Thor/Freya couplet.

Memo to Street Department:

No more crackpot couplets.

No more ridiculous roundabouts.

Just get the potholes patched!

Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t complain. Lord knows our streets need a makeover.

Speaking of which, did you hear that the Scablands outside Moses Lake were recently selected as the new lunar vehicle testing ground?

Yeah. Spokane was the first choice until NASA officials came here and checked us out.

They decided our streets were far more inhospitable than anything the moon could ever dish out.