COLUMN: Where’s your Frogger spot?

When Scooter’s Coffee opened last month, there have been times when the drive-through store customers have caused some bottlenecks and slowed traffic knowing it’s near one of Creston’s most popular intersections. Sumner and Taylor, which double as highways 25 and 34 through town, has a daily traffic count greater than my fingers and toes.

We in the office expected those traffic snarls to happen. When the “new” wears off of Scooters, the traffic intensity should subside, but won’t go away. I don’t blame the location of Scooters; the visibility is fantastic and it should benefit from hotel customers next door. I’m confident, over time we will expect to have a line of cars at Scooter’s. If it’s not there, that’s business. If it is, it will change our driving habits. I’ve heard of stories of traffic in some spots of Japan that are mind boggling and make the Scooter’s traffic safe enough for a blindfolded toddler to walk through.

We should be accustomed to some traffic snarls and fears in that area. It’s closer than you think. I keep thinking Wyoming Avenue and Taylor Street is another. McDonald’s is at that intersection.

It’s a combination of driving anxiety and an obscure reminder for me of the 1980s video game Frogger. There have been times when leaving McDonald’s at rush times creates a string of cars wanting to leave the intersection or go to McDonald’s. The lay of the land at that area is not ideal as westbound traffic on Taylor is on a slight incline approaching Wyoming. Depending upon the vehicle you are driving and the vehicles on Taylor, you don’t always have a clear, safe view of westbound traffic on Taylor. A left turn from Wyoming to Taylor may be the hardest, and longest, thing to do in town.

The same explanation could be made leaving Dollar General. It may be worse since the view of westbound traffic on Taylor is more obstructed since that store is at a lower elevation from the Taylor Street incline than McDonald’s.

The Frogger feel is when you have an opening and a short window of time to go. So you go, sometimes faster than you normally would at an intersection, to beat the oncoming traffic from either direction. You can see and beat the eastbound traffic on Taylor and confident there is no westbound traffic at that moment.

I’m not blaming the city of Creston or the state department of transportation for the flow of traffic and potential hazards at those specific areas. I know of other towns where years of development unintentionally created worse driving areas and traffic flows than from McDonald’s to Scooters with customers. It’s worse when a school is nearby.

Scooter’s and McDonald’s are not the only spots in Creston I’ve heard people discuss about safe, comfortable driving. I’ve heard comments about the intersections with Howard Street between Elm and Sumner. If a car is parked near a street intersection, it can block the view of traffic from the streets intersecting with Howard. A routine two-vehicle accident last winter along Howard, at one of those streets, was the beginning of those comments for me.

I do wonder what traffic would be like at Townline and Sumner if the traffic light worked in a traditional way, not a four-way stop. With multiple lanes of traffic, including turn lanes, I’ve seen moments where people are hesitant not sure about who has the right of way. The intersection includes entrance to True Value hardware. Not having a constant flow of traffic from the hardware store gives the intersection more of a three-way stop feel.

I haven’t experienced or paid attention enough to other parts of Creston to know of other potential driving hazards. Every town has those kind of spots. The Colorado town I grew up in had a massive repavement and restructuring of major streets, some which double as highways, through town during the pandemic. The longtime one-way streets were converted to traditional two-way streets. I haven’t been home enough times yet to get used to it.

And I haven’t forgot how to play Frogger.