Bill's PurpleCrayon Blog

THE MAGIC RETURNS TO GRAND RAPIDS

Trans-Siberian Orchestra is coming back!

I've written about TSO in previous blogs. I've talked about them with my students. I've sent countless e-mails. I've given everyone I know a heads-up about this extraordinary, unique concert experience.

TSO will bring their unforgettable, totally magical, Christmas show to Van Andel Arena on Sunday, December 19th at 8:00. Pre-sale tickets -- available through their fan club at www.trans-siberian.com -- go on sale Monday, September 27th at 10:00.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra is part rock band (mostly Savatage musicians) and part classical musicians. Their show has all the spectacle and magic of Christmas Eve. It's stunning. I've seen them three times now and I wouldn't dream of missing one of their performances. Not for all the money in the world. (Okay, maybe for all the money in the world...)

DO NOT MISS TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA!

Keep Purple!

Back to PurpleCrayon Direct.

A NON-ARTSY RANT

I don't know who the Einstein was who invented the so-called "Michigan turn," but I'd like to chat with him or her about it for a few minutes.

You know what I'm talking about. At many intersections in Grand Rapids they've eliminated the ability to simply turn left on a green arrow. Instead, one has to turn right, loop around, turn left and then continue on through the intersection
-- sometimes a full five minutes past when one could have turned left.

What's the point of that? And has anyone stopped to consider how the extra sets of lights -- installed just to facilitate the left turn -- hamper traffic even more? Think about it. Instead of simply turning left at the intersection and being done with it, now one has to pass through not one, not two, not even three, but four stop lights before one can get back on the road one wished to go down in the first place.

And that's just the driver wishing to turn left. What about the rest of us who merely want to continue going straight? Now we have to stop and wait at a set of lights before the intersection. Then, if we're unlucky enough to have timed it poorly, once again at the intersection.

I truly wish someone would explain to me the wisdom of this arrangement. If it was to allow for a more fluid stream of traffice, it failed. Thanks to the extra sets of lights everywhere, traffic flows even more slowly. If it was to save gas, it failed again. Having to stop and go through four sets of lights instead of one just to turn left wastes quite a bit of fossil fuel.

On top of that, both lanes now become turn lanes. Take the East Beltline, for example. Never the swiftest of roads to traverse even in the best of conditions. But now, thanks to those bewildering left turns past the intersection, cars slow down in both lanes now -- some to turn right into a business establishment, or some to turn left to loop around to get back to where one intended to go in the first place. Simply trying to drive straight down the road now requires one foot on the gas and one on the brake -- with one's eyes constantly glances left and right to make sure the cars in front aren't slowing to turn in either direction.

And this hassle factor isn't even taking into account the additional cost to the taxpayers who now have to spring for two additional sets of stop lights at every intersection.

I've never been a whiz at math, but doesn't adding more -- time or material -- always cost more?

Again, will the genius who invented this convoluted way of directing traffic please stand up? (Just don't do it in a room full of people who have just tried to make their way from one end of town to the other. I'm convinced quite a few people who love to give you the ol' Michigan left. And a right. And another left. And...)

Keep Purple!