By CC THE TRAINED MONKEY
I was in the car the other day, stuck in traffic, as usual, and I heard something interesting on the radio about California. It appears that for the first time ever in the history of the universe, more people moved from California than moved to California. I wondered – where did all those people go?
The next thing you know, I’m reading an article about the growth of Montana. Montana itself isn’t growing, just its population. Missoulians are all up in arms about building big apartment complexes and something called infill. Infill is where you have two houses next to each other, and enough space in between so you aren’t bothered by their surround sound systems, or their kids playing drums in the basement.
Then, one day two contractors come along and one says, “Look, Bob, there’s enough space in between those two houses to put in another house.” Then you have three houses all shoved together and everyone can hear everything, which is okay … if you’re deaf.
There’s so much talk about growth. It must be a good thing, right? Unless you’re referring to your thighs or that weird lump under your armpit. It’s like nobody wants to live in a small town anymore, because, let’s face it, there are no Super Walmarts in a small town, and where are people supposed to shop?
Growth means more opportunity. It also means more fences, because the lines of personal space start to blur once the crowd moves in. And where there are crowds there are usually lawyers, because certain members of the crowd are from California and they think, if they do something stupid to hurt themselves on your property, they can turn around and sue you for it. So, you’ve got to build a fence to keep those people out. Fence builders are totally high fiving as we speak.
Growth means more cops too, because you’re going to have to deal with the increased gang activity. Oh yeah, you forgot about that, didn’t you? Look, if you’re going to have a big city, you have to have big gangs. I’m sorry, but those are the rules. I didn’t make ‘em up.
Another thing growth implies is chaos. To combat the chaos of your burgeoning population, you’re going to have to implement more rules and regulations. Who’s going to make up those rules? I’ll tell you who – people who like to create spreadsheets and organize their paper clips by size, that’s who. The people who have those little executive clocks on their desks, you know, the ones with the wooden bases that have matching pens jutting out from either side. They’ve never even used those pens. The ink in them dried up 15 years ago.
And what’s really sad is that you’re actually going to vote those people into office, because you forgot what annoying little control freaks they were back in high school. They have no faith in your ability to think for yourself, which is why they plop big concrete “traffic guiders” on your street, just in case you get confused and try to drive your car on the sidewalk.
I live in L.A. and you know how many of those concrete blocks we have here? None. You know what else we don’t have here? Roundabouts. You know why? Because we don’t live in freakin’ England, that’s why!
Do you know what an ant death spiral is? That’s when ants get lost and they start to follow each other in a circle. They go and go and go until they finally die from exhaustion.
Sometimes I have nightmares about the street where I grew up, which, incidentally now has a roundabout at the intersection, even though there’s never been an accident there in the last 150 years.
In my nightmare, someone gets lost in my neighborhood and they make the mistake of circling the roundabout. Other people see them and think they know where they’re going so they start to follow them, round and round and round. Pretty soon thousands of cars are trapped in a tragic all night death spiral and the next morning I step out to find a sea of idling cars with lifeless drivers behind the wheels.
I’m not prone to prophetic dreams, so this probably will never happen … on my street. But I have no control over what happens on yours.
Look, a certain amount of growth can be a good thing. I just want you guys to be smart about it because Missoula is a great place. If you’re gonna wreck something, wreck Billings. Nobody cares about Billings, except the people who live there, and I don’t know any of those people. Although I’m pretty sure that tomorrow they’ll all be on my doorstep with torches and pitchforks. Like that hasn’t happened before.
Missing Missoula
CC the Trained Monkey
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BIO: Carol Chrest is a bitter old spinster living in Los Angeles. When she’s not working ridiculous hours at her cruddy day job, she writes screenplays. She drinks.
Hey now…I was born in Billings! I’m up for wrecking Bozeman instead! LOL! You’re so right Carol.. At least in Missoula, I think the title “City Planner” is an oxymoron. Thanks for the laugh!
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Carol,
OK, here I am. The Billings Boy with pitch fork (actully it’s just a bar b que fork) in hand. I’m on your door step to tell you Billings is just fine. We are a very happy city who not only enjoy the finer things in life but are happy to have a boat load of round a bouts. I love the round a bouts, english or otherwise, they save me time. The key to driving the round about is similar to politics, eventually you have to turn right to get out of the death spiral. Keep up your writing you jog my memory of all the wonderful times I had growing up in Missoula.
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Holy cow, Randy, I forgot you lived in Billings! Now I have to take back everything I said or you won’t send me our old choir songs like you promised. Incidentally, I’ve been waiting for them for about a year now.
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Wow, a guy forgets to send music and she turns on an entire city. Whew, I’ll did those songs up ad shoot them to you.
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CC this is great!! I totally agree with you about wrecking Billings….and Carol I also agree with throwing Bozeman under the bus as well! Thanks for the laugh!!
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Butte comes to mind…..”best thing is seeing Butte in your rear view mirror”.
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Jonboy, what you say it true, but you can’t touch Butte, even though it’s like the run down trailer court of Montana, because it is a pristine party town. It is sacred and must be preserved as is.
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Coming from England (having arrived in Missoula in a roundabout way) I have many years of experience with roundabouts. Contrary to popular US misconception and mis-use, the purpose of a roundabout is not as a traffic calming or traffic guiding measure but as a means of improving traffic flow. The roundabouts in residential areas such as the University district are quite ridiculous. If the City knew what it was doing with roundabouts it would have put one at the junction of Russell and Broadway years ago. Now that’s “a sea of idling cars with lifeless drivers behind the wheels” if ever I saw one.
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OMG PG–thanks for confirming what so many of us already knew/suspected!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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PG, will you PLEASE PLEASE run for city government! Also, will you have coffee with me this summer and explain in your no doubt awesome British accent the correct way to use the roundabout in London, because last time I was there I totally winged it and everyone knew I was an American driver. Also, I was driving on the wrong side of the street.
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CC, I would be happy to explain the finer points of London driving over a coffee, but the key principles are to keep your foot to the floor and and don’t give an inch. Roundabouts are a lot more fun when negotiated at high speed.
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Yup. Good ol’ Malfunction Junction. And what’s with the roundabout on Higgins?!? I’ve lived out-of-state all my adult life so am locked into what I remember in the ’50′s & ’60′s. Boy what a surprise it was when, while driving out South Higgins, I came upon a roundabout. LOL – Didn’t know one was necessary there. I miss the “old” Missoula I have stashed in the recesses of my mind but an awesome for-instance I love is the Clark Fork River revitalize. WOW!
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I really like this column, in a round-about way…
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The YES song pops into my head whenever I hit the blender intersection on Higgins.
http://youtu.be/Bj_1KcGLwFQ
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Also being from the UK I have had experience with roundabouts, I was recently in a town there called Milton keenest where they have around a thousand of them and NO traffic lights, it works, now I’m not saying we go to those extremes, however one on Russell and Broadway would work, only if the city employ me to give roundabout awareness classes for a handsome sum!
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I’ll take your class. That comes with a free beer, right?
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I agree with you on many aspects of this article CC, the city officials of Missoula need to try harder, or at least smarter when it comes to expanding our town/city, roundabouts are unintelligent for our town (the bitterrooter’s are already bad enough at driving haha). It seems like some of our government officials need to take 27 steps in order to accomplish 1 task. I personally have never lived in a large city, I’m a Missoula guy, but I love visiting and experiencing the vast amounts of culture that exist in cities. Missoula is very diversified, but has nothing on places like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, or L.A.
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