Thomasville: Threat or Menace
In today’s installment of “Dr. Wrongturn, or: How I Learned to Weep onto my Steering Wheel and Hate Thomasville, Georgia,” we will calmly, patiently, and maturely address the question of whether the civil engineers and city planners who designed Thomasville should be dragged from their cars at stoplights and beaten mercilessly by the hordes of motorists who have become entangled in the city’s sticky, gossamer web of identically numbered state routes. Should those poor, unfortunate souls who, even now, drive in hopeless circles around Thomasville, eyes wide as saucers, knuckles white on steering wheels, their ears filled with the piteous cries of their hungry children, be allowed to impose vigilante justice on the people who created this roach motel crafted to look like an innocent piece of southern Americana?
The answer is, “Yes.” Furthermore, I support disinterment and desecration of any responsible parties who may have already gone on to their great reward, serving at the feet of the Prince of Darkness.
Here is Thomasville, GA, courtesy of Google Maps
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It looks so unremarkable from here, but let’s expand our view a little (click for full size):
I want you to take a minute, look at the full-sized version of the above picture, and count how many Route 84s you see. How many individual, apparently unconnected, streets all share that single route designation. While you’re at it, have a quick hunt around for 319s, as well. I had initially edited the map above in Photoshop to highlight my point, but I’ve decided it’s more fun to allow my readers to look for themselves. Take your time, I’ll wait.
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You’re done, are you? Did you like the way Route 84 would occasionally just end right in the middle of a road and become something else? How about the giant doglegs where Route 84 peters out at an intersection then just reappears a mile or two away? Best of all, did you notice how many times some of those state routes intersect themselves? Do you think I am joking? Please, have another look. You can actually be on Route 319 and come to a four-way intersection where all three other directions are also Route 319. I wonder how many of you spotted the bonus route, #122. Have a look at how 122 comes in the northeast corner of Thomasville, gets swallowed by the route tangle at the center of town, then, mysteriously, juts off of 319 southwest of the city, heading in a completely unrelated direction.
My words and the illustrations above do not do justice to the awful evil that is the Thomasville, GA street system. While trying to find our way out of this sixth circle of hell, we saw signs that literally showed this:
I wish I were kidding.
I had so many hilarious things I wanted to say about Thomasville and the time we spent lost there, but none of it seems funny, anymore. Don’t go to Thomasville.
Tomorrow (or possibly later, I am fantastically lazy): We find our way to 10 West, then on to New Orleans, then on to… THE FAMOUS DOOR.
