Checkpoint Charley Horse

Neon Memes • More and more, it seems to me that one can no longer visit certain municipalities in the metroplex's so-called central corridor; one must infiltrate them. Fostering that suspicion are the machinations of MoDOT and its allies, those municipalities' street departments. Recently, for example, Shrewsbury added a traffic signal at the thoroughfare of the same name where it accesses eastbound Interstate 44; as a result, because the municipality has a population of only 6,332 according to Missouri's 2007–08 Official Manual, such signals and their déclassé sibs, stop signs, now may well outnumber the residents thereof. Then, just last night, as I strove to return to the South Side after reading and editing (by my count) 783 pages of St. Louis Magazine's 192-page February issue, Brentwood reminded me that it takes a back seat to no city in complicating a drive. More specifically, I discovered I can no longer hook a left from southbound Hanley Road (at its waiting–for–Snake Plissken nexus with Highway 40) onto Dale. Next, in June? Big Bend Boulevard through Maplewood. Honestly, out-of-town motorists must wonder if the metro area's trying to replicate the charms of East and West Berlin. ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor