So if you live in the Charlotte area you might be aware they are finally putting in the Monroe By-pass. You know the road that will take traffic off of Hwy7 74 and around Monroe and the 20 plus stoplights that slow progress for all the beach traffic.
Yes Monroe needs a by-pass but not the one they are building. The one the state is building does'nt even start from 485 and only goes to Wingate. Really lame! Any and all the locals know we have Hwy 218, the real by-pass. If you can't tell I do not support the by-pass.
It was voted on and the land east of Monroe sold to the state more than 20 years ago. By some very wealthy people in Union county. They made a lot of money off this and have been pushing this through for years. they never took into consideration the projected growth of the area and still refuse to account for the growth.
Enough of my ranting, I can't change it and it's coming. About two months ago they finally started construction and they are moving at a really fast rate. All this affects me because it goes within a mile of my house. We are on the outside of it and that's a good thing.
My only problem with the construction has been the fact that right after it was started we received a letter stating that they had decided to close the road behind me. A road that was originally planned to go over the by-pass. I wrote e-mails and made phone calls to the numbers and e-mails provided, and found out that I and everybody else was doing the same.
After about 3 weeks and no response beyond the one person I talked to. I just assumed that it was going to be that way. Then Friday we got another letter stating that after re-consideration they where gonna go ahead and build the bridge! For once it actually feels like we won something. I even talked to my buddy who owns the store at the other end of the closed road and he said it's been killing his business. He was calling like every other day.
Why did this matter to me so much? Because for me that was and is my main route to get to Monroe on my bike. Without that road I am forced to ride my very busy and hilly road to get to hwy 601 and then ride it for several miles. When I used to be able to head out the back road with hardly any traffic and then only be on 601 for less than a mile.
So "Thank Goodness" plans changed! It just feels like we won something. For once the people were listened too. The only thing that sucks, they are behind on building the bridge now. Where they have already started building all the other bridges all over the county they still haven't even brought in any equipment to start this one. They had decided long before that they had no plans to build it so they never even had it on the schedule. Now they are behind and it's gonna be at least a year before it's done. But at least it's gonna get done.....
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