Driving me Crazy

 

    Tomorrow we’re back on the train, off for a couple of days in Los Angeles and I have to admit the one thing I won’t miss about Albuquerque is the traffic. From an urban planning perspective, the roads are great -- wide, multi-lane avenues, feeder arteries curving to and fro between neighborhoods, each with a decent median strip. Long, straight residential side roads have regular asphalt bumps which help keep those roads unattractive to speeders.

    The problem is not the design of the roads so much as it is the enormous amount of traffic and the fact everyone seems to be driving ten miles per hour over the speed limit. Like the late Gary Parson’s lobster boat, the Mark A, vehicles here seem to have only two speeds—all ahead and stop.

    Red lights appear to be mere suggestions. Multiply all this by the fact that the main avenues have five lanes in each direction at each traffic light and its near impossible for someone not born here to get into the correct lane on the first try.

  

 The worst are the highways. Interstate 40 cuts east to west through the middle of downtown where it intersects with Interstate 25 which runs due north and south. The place they meet is one of those “fly over” intersections that look like what’s left when a firecracker goes off inside a pack basket. Five lanes wide would seem to be more than enough to get everyone where they are going safely but the way they split off one, two, and sometimes three lanes at a time, can be nerve wracking. Merging remains only something talked about decades ago as an obscure theory in drivers’ education.     Unfortunately, there’s no app that can help with all this.

    With little rain or moisture, it’s a great place to own a muscle car or monster truck because you don’t have to worry about rust. No one with a vehicle like that however, has it just to drive slow. Apparently too, mufflers are optional equipment.

Remembering what it was like driving here during a past visit, and wanting to hold my own on the roads, I decided to rent a full-size SUV which we affectionately referred to in past years as “a moving city.” When we got to the rental place I learned they only had one of the largest ones afloat, a 2020 Ford Expedition Max. In a pinch it can seat nine with room for everyone’s carryon luggage, and cages of small mammals in the back. I’m not saying it was big, but it's a great vehicle if you need to mail a package because each one comes with its own zip code.

    Actually, it was much more spacious than our roomette on the train. We nicknamed ours the Urban Assault Vehicle (UAV) as we guessed there are militaries around the world that don’t have vehicles as large, or well equipped with sophisticated GPS navigation gear, combat information systems heads-up display, satellite radio and uplink, and enough climate control buttons to serve as a final exam for those seeking an advanced degree in climate change. I deliberately didn't connect my phone to the Max’s operating system as the next thing you know it would be refusing to open the pod-bay doors and joining with Skynet to launch Armageddon.

    One thing that did impress me was how good it was on gas. Over our 800-mile trip to the Grand Canyon we average just under 23 miles per gallon. One way it does this is if it idles too long at a traffic light, the motor shuts down and then automatically restarts when you take your foot off the brake. I once had a car like that but it was great at stalling and not so great at restarting.

    The one thing driving in Albuquerque has definitely done is reinforced our decision to make the bulk of this trip by rail rather than road. Being designated riders is definitely the preferred alternative. Of course probably the only place worse than Albuquerque for driving is Los Angeles where we’re headed tomorrow. We have no plans to drive while there. If needed, we’ll take an Uber. Fortunately, there’s an app for that.

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