Yosemite (flame 2)
I didn’t think it was possible for the park staff to top yesterday’s bountiful supply of stupidity, but they exceeded my expectations by a wide margin…
The park newspaper noted that there were 30- to 60-minute delays on Wawona Road (the road south through the park). I’ve dealt with national park road construction before, and it is generally performed in a reasonably intelligent manner. Apparently the Yosemite folks are learning (or not) as they go along.
The main thing that is going on seems to be the installation of 6″ curbs at the side of the road in some points, for some unknown reason. However, to accomplish this, they have actually removed parts of the road, ranging from 10 yards to about 500 yards, and replaced it with a rutted dirt road.
They have one lane closed in a number of places, with flaggers at both ends to control traffic flow. This works so poorly that the trucks that are delivering the concrete for the curbs have to stop, put out a tarp on the side of the road, and dump the whole load of concrete because it is hardening before they get to where they’re supposed to deliver it. So there are large piles of concrete in a lot of the pull-over spots.
Once I got past the intermittent construction, I came to a place where they had removed about 10 miles of the road (again, for no apparent reason) and replaced it with a dirt road. In many spots it appeared that they actually placed the dirt on top of the paved road.
Why they’re doing this work at the peak of the tourist season escapes me…
Someone really needs to start hitting everyone involved hard with a clue-by-four.
