PG&E Pipeline Work. The gift that keeps on giving!!

I've made previous mention of the extensive work underway that attempts to ensure that no more California towns explode in a fireball.  There was absolutely nothing funny about the 2010 San Bruno gas explosion and if you stop to think about it, there is nothing funny about how much work is underway that is ostensibly required to prevent another explosion.

The traffic resulting from the road work however is very very funny.  Like laugh out loud funny.  And believe me I do laugh.

The road will be a parking lot.  People wait and wait for a green light only to see it turn yellow and red with no opportunity to get across the road.  What they do is drive their cars into the middle of the intersection.  THEN when the light turns red and they are stuck there, traffic in the opposing direction goes absolutely apeshit.  I kid you not.  Grown men and women just sitting there honking their horns over and over while sitting in their cars.  I nearly fell off my bicycle I was laughing so hard as one car driver gestured furiously at another car driver and honked his horn and turned red and none of them were going anywhere.  The place was a parking lot.  Just two fat middle-aged babies shouting at each other.  Extra bonus is when they enact this drama from their positions in cars worth upwards of $100,000.00 USD.

Which part is a little dangerous for me but still pretty damn funny?

I'll be bicycling up the bike lane.  The bike lane is bike-sized, meaning, you can't fit a Fiat into it and you extra can't fit a Bored Shovinator into it.    The cars are literally going nowhere.  They just sit there with their engines humming.  Some of them get so incredibly freaked out at their static experience that they inch over until they can get a tire into the bicycle lane.  Just a tire but it appears to make them feel better to put a toe over onto our side of the fence.

What happens when the bicycle lane widens out enough to fit a car into?

Free lane!  They start crowding into the bicycle lane and driving up.  After all it's basically a turn lane, correct?  You can drive up the bicycle lane if you are important (and of course you are important) and if you plan to turn right at some point?  Turn out the answer to that one is a big "no."  What was waiting at the top of the road?  A police car issuing tickets to all the cars driving up the bicycle lane.  So they spent 45 minutes in traffic that they could have biked in 15 minutes and just before turning off and finally going home they get a $200 ticket.  If I were nicer I would feel bad for them but I'm not nice and I don't feel bad.

What is funny but possibly stupid?

Taking their picture.  But we did it anyways!  Behold!  A zillion people who would prefer to sit in traffic going nowhere than bicycle and be awesome.  You can't see their glum frowny faces but I guarantee you, they are there.