52nd City

Highway 40 Site Launched

Amanda Doyle and I are still fielding submissions for The Wire, our old, locally-focused talk show, which means some good, interesting, local ideas can't be entertained. Doesn't mean that press releases can't be shared in other forms. One Joe Passanise e-mailed us about an effort to pause/stop the Highway 40 shutdown, with a website offered for info.

We pass along the word below:

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You probably believe that that stopping the closure of Highway 40 is a dead issue. MODOT has successfully marketed the need to close Highway 40 to government and business leaders. Unfortunately, when I talk to people about the complete closure of Highway 40 for two consecutive years, they are surprised. Why is this?

They are surprised because it really defies common sense. In all of the construction history that regular Highway 40 motorists have experienced, an
interstate highway has never been completely closed longer than a few hours and only during the late evening/early morning hours. So when you tell people that Highway 40 is going to be completely closed for two years, it just doesn’t register.

However, unless there is an 11th Hour emergency action, after January 1, 2008, these same regular users of Highway 40 will experience “culture shock” with the closure of Highway 40. I say culture shock because that is exactly what it will be.

Motorists looking for north-south roadways to get to alternate east-west roadways will be shocked to see that all these roadways are stacked with traffic.
These roadways are filled to capacity NOW even with Highway 40 open. The culture shock will then extend into their lifestyle because they will spend more time traveling to and from work and less time in their personal/family environments. Cost of travel will add to the shock because their funds will have to be shifted from other personal needs to pay for the additional cost of travel when Highway 40 is closed.

So, this is my 11th hour effort to stop the closure of Highway 40 to prevent culture shock for about 160,000 motorists – including my wife - who currently travel Highway 40 on a daily weekday basis.

Check out my website: stophighway40closure.com
Joseph Passanise