How not to handle traffic flow.

Fortunately I have been taking back roads all the way to work for the last few weeks.  (About 28 miles through Tewksbury, Billerica, Bedford, Concord, Lincoln, Wayland, and Framingham)  I expected it to be a little slower today and I managed to get out onto the road a few minutes early.  I did not, however, expect to spend 20 minutes of my morning at a single stop sign.

That’s correct kids, it took me 20 minutes to get through one stop sign.

It was in Wayland, where route 126 joins up with route 27.  The back up at the stop sign was so bad people were actually putting their cars into park while waiting for some one 200 yards ahead to get the chance to make a left turn.  Here is a photo of the intersection, courtesy of Google maps:

This cluster-fuck was seemingly caused by a single traffic light at the intersection of routes 126/27 and route 20.  After making the left at the stop sign (after waiting 20 minutes for my turn) I had to wait through three light cycles to get across this intersection.  Here’s Google maps’ image:

Imagine my surprise when I got to the intersection and saw that the traffic jam continued on the other side of it.  The reason was a work crew in a parking lot.  That’s correct, they were in a parking lot.  For some reason this parking lot work required a stretch of a few feet in one lane of 126/27 to be closed.  They weren’t working on this small stretch of road, they were working in the parking lot adjacent to it.  Here’s another Google maps photo:

So the end result of all of this was I was 19 minutes late to work today because a road had to be closed in order to do construction of some sort that was not on the road.  This resulted in the traffic light causing a huge back up on 27, and making me sit for 20 minutes behind a stop sign on 126.  Here’s a nice Google view of the whole scene:

I wanted to share this with the people of Earth so that they will know just how stupid people in the town of Wayland, Massachusetts can be, and so that hopefully they will be able to avoid ever travelling through said town.  Finally, to the person or persons that approved closing one lane on route 126/27 so that work could be done in a parking lot I would like to say this:

Fuck you.

Thank you.  Enjoy the rest of your business day.