Commentary: Wishful thinking

With highway construction, there’s always a better way

I had a dream the other day.

In my dream I was walking down a road in Northwest Arkansas when I came upon a beaten up, discarded but definitely Arabian-looking lamp. When I picked it up and brushed it off, thunder rolled, the clouds gathered and, suddenly a genie appeared before my eyes.

"What is your wish?', the genie said, sounding a little like Robin Williams, for some strange reason.

"Well, genie," I said, "I've lived in Northwest Arkansas for some time now, and, despite the many impressive changes we've made, I've always felt we'd be better served by a more modern highway and street system."

"You know, you could wish for unlimited riches or world peace," the genie said. "Either is much more realistic."

"No, no," I said. "Highways are my wish, and that's my final answer."

"You watch a lot of game shows?" the genie asked, before reaching into his lamp to pull out a huge stack of papers and an armful of plans. "OK, if that's what you want, that's what you get. First, we'll need all these forms filled out in triplicate and turned into about 12 state and federal agencies that control everything from transportation to small, sightless lizards. You'd be surprised what those two have in common, but, moving on...

"Now, this stack of forms is impact studies, indications to obtain imminent domain, permit requests, zoning requests, bidding requests and other requests that I think include pizza. Because, I'm hungry and I've been in the lantern for a bit.

"Once we get all these signed in duplicate (notice how we don't need them in triplicate anymore? Part of a new government initiative to save paper. You probably saw the thousands of posters they had printed advertising it? And yes, the government does not know the meaning of the word 'irony.'), sit through countless hearings and other official-sounding things that no one attends except people with axes and/or roads to grind, we'll get started. Shouldn't take much more than 10 years, 15 tops."

"Wow," I said, "I was sort of hoping for something a little more ... magical?"

"Would it help if I said 'Shazam?'" said the genie.

"Well, at least since I'm having this done by a genie, I can get it handled without much mess or inconvenience," I said.

"Yeah, about that," said the genie.

"You mean I can't?" I said.

"The short answer is, 'no,'" said the genie.

"What's the long answer?" I said.

"Still 'no,' but there's a PowerPoint," the genie said. "Actually, I'm going to make a complete and total mess of things. In order to give you three lanes, I'm going to cut the highway down to one for so long you'll have forgotten it was ever two. In order to get you from Point A to Point B faster, I'm going to build a road straight off into the middle of nowhere, definitely not even a little closer to where you want it to end up. And in order to make traffic go more smoothly, I'm going shut it down completely. And then wait for it to quit raining."

"That sounds horrible!" I said.

"Actually, it doesn't sound that bad to me," the genie said. "Of course, I live in a lamp and get around by flying a magic carpet, so ..."

"What was I thinking?" I cried. "Why would anyone wish for that?"

"Well, beats me," said the genie. "As a frame of reference, before I wound up here, I was in Dallas/Fort Worth. But, to answer your question, a surprisingly large number of people come to me for better road systems. However, there's a rub (that's an old genie joke, by the way. You know, lamp, rub ... yeah, well, anyway). Seems you lamp-rubbers are, basically, all alike. You want the ice cream but not the calories, the sunshine but not the sunburn, the cute puppy but not the mess he leaves in the back yard.

"In short, you want things, but you don't want the trouble getting them causes. And when faced with that obvious logic, your only recourse is to contend they should have been started earlier or done at night or some other time when it wouldn't be an inconvenience to you. A time, by the way, which does not exist.

"And, over the many thousands of years I've been doing this -- think this is bad? You should have seen the traffic tie-ups on the Appian Way -- you all exhibit one characteristic that transcends time and location. You have no idea how to do something, but you're sure it should be done differently. And faster."

"OK, OK, OK," I said. "I get the point. But we really do need the roads, and if people just realize how much better things are going to be after all the highway construction, I'm sure they'll all be more than happy to politely put up with the inconvenience."

"Dream on, there, buddy," said the genie. "I'm mythical, but that's a fairy tale."

Commentary on 10/02/2015

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