I live on a side street so that I don't have to listen to the rush of cars fleeing downtown Durham.

I vacation at Sunset Beach so that I don't have to put up with an endless stream of cars cruising past my beachside getaway.

Problem is, neither theory is doing so hot these days.

I live on a two-block-long street one block east of Roxboro Street, (the main north-bound artery flowing out of downtown Durham). I live one house north of Trinity Avenue, which connects Duke University's East Campus with a number of central Durham neighborhoods (which most undergrads fear but where professors and staff like to live).

The stoplight at Trinity and Roxboro malfunctions frequently. I don't mean that it merely isn't timed properly with other lights (which it isn't, but no lights in Durham are controlled in any sort of designed way). I mean that the light can stay red (or green, depending on what street you're traveling) for minutes or even hours at a time. Again, there are no magnetic sensors or anything in control. The lights just get stuck.

For that (and a few other reasons which are much more complicated), a lot of drivers have taken to roaring down my little side-street paradise at all hours of the day and night. Just this afternoon, one of my neighbors told me she almost got run down by a school bus a few days back.

A full school bus.

Down in Sunset Beach, the southernmost inhabited barrier island along the North Carolina coast, there is a similar threat to tranquil living. Since 1953, the only way to get on or off the island (in a car) has been a one-lane pontoon bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway. This is a real-live "swinging" bridge, one that unhooks from the roadway and turns sideways to allow boat traffic to pass. If you're not waiting for cars from the other side of the bridge to cross, you're waiting for the boats to get through. On Saturdays and Sundays in the summer (changeover days for rental houses) the lines on and off the island can take an hour or more to negotiate.

The folks who run commercial interests on Sunset Beach (the island) and Sunset Beach (the mainland) are united in their desire to build a 65-foot-high bridge across the Intracoastal. This solution eliminates both the one-lane issue and the drawbridge issue in one elegant stroke.

There is a catch. With the same elegant stroke, Sunset Beach will look just like every other coastal beach community in North Carolina. I'm not talking about high-rise condos (which could be forestalled with--I'm laughing so hard I'm almost crying here--effective zoning ordinances). The bridge itself will dominate the landscape, turning scenic and seemingly isolated coastal bogs into smelly, mosquito-infested mud holes. Who needs ugly condos to wipe out the scenery when you've got a seven-story mile-long bridge hogging the view?

But even that complaint is secondary to me. What I like about Sunset Beach is that most of the folks who hunker down on vacation for a week or two really do hunker down. They buy a week's worth of grub at the Food Lion on the mainland (the nicest Food Lion I've ever seen, may I add). Then when they get on the island, they lock their cars and don't use them. Need beer or cigarettes? There's a great little store at the center of the island. The furthest house on the island from that store is barely a mile away, and since you're at Sunset to relax and not worry about time, a five or ten or even thirty-minute walk (round-trip) is no hassle. In fact, it's a pleasure.

I'll admit, if there were a big ol' bridge, I'd be on it every day for something. Probably some fresh seafood for the grill, but I might also fancy something more exotic than the Sam Adams at the island store. Perhaps a fancier body board than can be found on the island. Hell, without the wait it might even be tempting to drive ashore for a round of miniature golf.

Even without condos, the traffic will increase immensely. And I'll probably go find another beach to call home for one week a summer. But not in the near future. The bridge has been on the books since 1981 and tied up in court since 1990. Chances are there are a few rounds to go.

In my own neighborhood (where I don't have the option of simply choosing another place--and wouldn't anyway), we're kicking around a number of ideas. Speed humps (which I hate). A lower speed limit (my own idiotic idea, one that has little chance of acceptance and even less chance of working) or some other sort of street blockage. Someone suggested a mini-roundabout. We all kinda like that. Which means the city will veto it out of hand.

The irony in all of this is that I like cities. I like being where the action is. But I'm beginning to see the benefits of seclusion. Or, at least, a respite from the ugly deposits we humans keep leaving on and above the surface of the earth. I'm not a Luddite or anything like that. But I don't see any reason to keep paving the world. A bigger bridge isn't necessarily a better one. And while a malfunctioning stop light is a perfectly good reason to jump on a side street, there's no need to put the whip to all 105 horses of your Ford Escort while you're doing it.

Whether I'm at the beach or at home, when I'm sitting schnockered on a porch sometime after midnight, I don't want to hear some fool squealing tires so as to get to McDonald's ten seconds sooner.

I don't think that's too much to ask. Really.

Jon Worley is perfectly happy to hear tires squealing if the cause is just and good. Flying through Cary on the way to a Carolina Courage soccer game, say.