Driving

As usual, we drove a lot this past week. It seems like we are driving somewhere almost every day.
The exciting road resurfacing project that was started this spring on the Dnepropetrovsk region side of the Dnepro to Zaporosia with great fanfare ground to a halt sometime in September. Some places that put a finishing layer of asphalt on in the last days... including the short few kilometers from the Dnepro city limits to the detour around the stopped overpass construction (I think its four years we've been driving around that... or five, nothing has happened there since the government fell three and a half years ago) That is the only part of the road where we are driving on both sides of the finished highway.

The resurfacing/ really rebuilding of the roadway started from this side of the regional line, close to our village (the same time as that piece from Dnepro). The sides of the road were cleared of bushes, drainage, curbs were put in some places, it looked like it was going to be wonderful. It was inconvenient to drive on one side of the highway for a while, but it would be worth it, for a wonderful new highway to drive on soon. We even got to drive on some stretches of the newly paved highway for that two way traffic; it was so nice, no holes to go around!

 They got to the first village you drive through from here toward Dnepro, did one side of the highway through the village early in September, chipped off the other side of the highway in the village  put the final layer on one half of the highway near the border line and then everything stopped. One wide paving machine and a few rollers and trucks were parked on the other side of the highway, now there is that paver, one roller and one truck as temperatures dip down near freezing.

The whole two directions on one side of the highway is getting annoying. That's right, no place where they have paved are we driving on both sides of the highway yet, for  maybe 35 kilometers the fast cars pass while speeding along. The trucks are moving slow, so even the Ladas and empty semis try to find a place to pass them, and sometimes there are accidents and near collisions as people try to get onto the highway from villages and the passing is happening into oncoming traffic. The crossovers from one side to the other are full of holes, poorly marked for night time driving, especially after being hit by cars repeatly.

Right around that time (maybe mid-September) they started paving on the Zaporosia side of the border, going toward Zap from the village. Now the highway was closed where we go out of the village and you have to zip into two way  traffic on the other side to go everywhere. The signage is no better, as in photo and how long can they continue to pave as November is near?

We had a foggy night last week and it was nerve-wracking driving home from Bible study in Zap, thinking where is the two way traffic starting? Will we even see the signs?


Our biggest hope for the winter is that they just make it workable until spring, which should not be difficult; putting every one on their own side of the road for the wintertime to reduce the chance of accidents in the snow. Otherwise it is going to be dangerous every time anyone drives the road.