Higher temperatures the past week have given us a glimpse into the long-awaited summer-like conditions that will eventually descend upon the West Shore and Greater Victoria.
With the warmer weather comes the ability and opportunity for municipal crews to get out there and begin the laborious process of patching up roadways. Arterial routes, and some local roads around our area, deteriorate in a major way between fall and spring, with heavy volumes of traffic using them, especially big heavy construction vehicles.
With work getting underway in a number of spots, including Jacklin Road in Langford and Island Highway in View Royal, where asphalt patching was being done this week between Admirals Road and the Colwood interchange, traffic gets slowed down. In the latter case, some drivers’ tempers flared for no apparent reason other than being miffed at having a longer than usual commute.
We know sitting in a hot vehicle and inching along at a slow pace to or from one’s destination is on par with going to the dentist in terms of the fun factor. But road work is a necessity and the materials are such that a good seal only can be achieved when the weather co-operates. Not only that, taking out one’s frustrations on individuals doing traffic control or the road work itself is a childish way to vent.
At this time of year, we need to expect delays on certain roadways and keep our frustrations to ourselves. Municipalities and the province give plenty of advance notice to motorists that road work will be happening during a specific period, so take an alternate route if you don’t want to risk being slowed down or stuck for a time.
On Wednesday, many motorists who might have otherwise taken Island Highway appeared to be doing just that, as the Trans-Canada Highway was particularly busy inbound.
At the very least, this time of year requires most of us to exercise patience on the roads and understand that there’s a good chance we’ll be asked to slow down for construction somewhere. If you can’t be courteous or at least neutral when encountering workers doing their job to help improve our roads, maybe you need to wait it out for a bit until you can drive without anger.