Recently, the New York State Department of Transportation decided not to extend New York State Route 531. The decision came after years of surveys and studies costing millions of taxpayer dollars. Evidently, extending Route 531 a mile to Redman Road would have cost up to $100 million and DOT officials did not think that spending that kind of money during an economic downturn was a good idea. Frankly, spending what amounts to about $20 thousand a foot for a road is not a great use of taxpayer dollars in any economic climate.

 Nonetheless, the selfish side of me wishes that the DOT had spent less time studying and more time improving the traffic situation at Route 531. Those of us that have to suffer through the morning commute dread the possibility of someone ahead of us getting into a fender bender, or getting pulled over on Route 31, because it has the potential to add thirty minutes onto our already long commute to where our jobs are. 

 Of course, that is only one of the potential problems Orleans to Monroe County commuters face on a daily basis. During the winter months, the long trek up Route 31A going east is often like driving on an ice rink and at times it seems like there is more snow on the road than on the lawns I drive by. The only nice thing about it is the excitement of reaching the Monroe County line, which is easily distinguished by the neatly plowed road on the other side of the welcome sign.

 If you are very lucky, like I was this morning, you are stuck behind a woman applying her makeup and a garbage truck both going nearly twenty miles under the speed limit. When I finally drove by her she was looking in the rearview mirror and the back window of the car was covered with snow that she had not brushed off. The slow moving vehicles were the least of my problems, because I still wound up being slowed down by traffic trying to get on Route 531 and then hitting even more construction once I got closer to Rochester.

 The decision not to extend Route 531 may be the first time I have ever heard of the state not approving road construction. If I did not see a bunch of orange barrels lining the expressway, I might think that I had driven out of New York State. It is puzzling why roads that are rarely driven on because of constant road construction are always being rebuilt. Maybe all the heavy construction equipment is actually destroying the roads.

 In the meantime, I will continue to get frustrated with my long commute and think about all the tax dollars wasted on a study that determined that Route 531 would not be extended. Of course, the good thing is that I will not run into road construction in Ogden, and maybe the DOT will do a study to determine how to keep slow drivers off Orleans County Roads in the morning.