The short drive down Lead from San Mateo (where it starts off as Zuni and a divided two way street) to Carlisle a little over a week ago showed me something. It might make a good subject for my band's next EP cover. I'd dubbed the recordings "Hassles" because it was a good umbrella term for the struggles in the songs and of being in a local band these days. But the destruction and reconstruction of Lead and Coal is, itself, a huge hassle.

Lead and Coal are one way streets (Lead goes "downhill" west to downtown, Coal is the opposite) that split Zuni at Washington and provide relief traffic a way to get around the slow moving Central. The lights were timed at 30 mph, so if you kept a constant speed, you usually would have a nice glide both ways.

Both are eventually going to be dug up, new sewer pipes are installed, and then built back with emphasis on pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Right now Coal is shut down. Lead is a two way, one lane each, street. When work on Coal is completed, two way traffic will move to it and Lead will be shut down.

My job is on the West Side, which means I have to cross the river and get out to nearly the west mesa and volcanoes to get to work. A faceless cluster of warehouses near the western edge of town houses both offices and warehouse facilities for the company I work for.

When I first started, I drove down Lead to I-25. Then the short hop on I-25 to westbound I-40 to Coors Boulevard. South on Coors to a few blocks north of Central. It's about a 20 minute drive. In the evenings I'd reverse and drive down Coal.

Now I make a wide berth. Probably adding two to four extra miles to the daily commute. Even though there is still traffic on Lead, it's very slow and backed up during the day. The evenings are better, but its still much slower (you get hit by most lights no matter how fast or slow you go) than before.

Lead and Coal used to be three lanes each. Then they were changed to two with a bike lane. The reconstruction is, supposedly, the final stage of a long term project. New sewer pipes are good. I'm not sure about making the streets pedestrian and bicyclist merry wonderlands.

For one thing, there are already two streets (both on either side of Central) that are designated bike friendly streets in the immediate area. Speed limits are lower on Silver and Copper, and there are wide lanes for bikers to go down. Lead and Coal are slightly south of these two streets, and are more precarious for bikers because of the constant traffic. We'll have to see what the new landscaping does, but there will still be two lanes of cars on both streets.

It has been said that some of the impetus to the reconstruction came as a result of complaints about the traffic from people who live near Lead and Coal. My first question to this is: did you not notice the traffic when you bought the house? It's not like the traffic just happened one day. It's been there for decades. My own personal estimate is that the complaints of 50 people are inconveniencing 10,000 or more on a daily basis.

And so I set out Saturday afternoon to take some pictures. Primarily, I wanted to get a good shot to illustrate the Hassles cover. But also wanted to investigate, to an extent, what has been going on as I make a large circle around these two streets pretty much every day. I walked from Washington to past Carlisle on Coal (no work was being done) and then cut to Lead and walked back. I think I recorded a fair representation of the construction zone (although I didn't cover two-thirds of the length of the project).

I use more gas than before to get around my own neighborhood. To get to work. To get to restaurants and bars in the Nob Hill and Downtown area. To live. And gas ain't cheap these days.

There's still another year to go before we get to experience the fully beautified Lead and Coal. And while this construction is going on, lots of other streets in my neighborhood are getting worked on as well. This creates new routes through streets that usually wouldn't see lots of traffic. Which will probably create more problems on those streets.

All of this brings to mind the general crumbling infrastructure of this nation. We built the Interstate system over half a century ago. My town, especially, was built for car traffic. We are spread out and low level (few buildings go above three stories). Sometimes the planning was done well, other times not. People ask what we pay taxes for, and this is part of it. Streets, bridges, sidewalks, railways.

And I just keep driving around it all.

Matt Worley hates driving on Gibson, one of the wider arcs of his daily commute.