As everyone living in or near Monroe knows, we have a significant road construction program underway along the bypass.

I have to cross the bypass at least twice a day and in the last few weeks I’ve found myself taking the very long way around, as the overpass for Wisconsin 81 was closed. This has sent me behind Walmart and onto County N, eventually hooking up with Wisconsin 81 north.

On one of my oddest journeys, I was driving home after a school board meeting. I took a wrong turn and ended up having to get onto the County N exit off Wisconsin 11. It was raining and dark. Of course, there are no lights along the highway or the exits.

As I pulled onto the ramp to get off Wisconsin 11 — I was driving the speed limit — I came upon a vehicle completely at a stop on the ramp. The only way I knew it was there were due to its brake lights. And those were hard to distinguish because they were at the same level as all the reflective stickers at the top of the cones that outlined the construction zone.

If I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have driven right into the back of that car. That was scary.

It was obvious to me that the car was stopped because the driver had no clue where to go. This was a person using their GPS navigation system likely to get onto Wisconsin 81 to either go north or south. There isn’t enough signage in the world that can explain the completely odd way a driver has to detour when a Wisconsin 11 overpass is closed.

Of all the places I’ve lived and worked, Monroe, even when all the roads are open, has a complicated layout of streets. There are only certain places where you can cross certain highways. The downtown is a mix of one-way and two-way traffic. Different sections of the city may have only a couple points where you can enter and exit them.

It’s got to be entertaining, and frightening, for long-time Monroe residents to watch tourist traffic, or people looking for certain addresses in residential portions of the city. There are a lot of lost outsiders wandering around.

You would think with the Avenue versus Street system that things would be fairly simple, right? Well, then you move from east to west and get completely messed up. There are a lot of non-through streets in Monroe. If you think you’re going to hop on a street and just keep driving west until you get to the west side of town, you aren’t going to make it. You’re going to be stopped within a few hundred feet of Wisconsin 69 wondering, “Why can’t I get from here to there?”

As for the confusion, it’s somewhat offset by the general good condition of the city’s streets and surrounding rural roads and highways. The reason why Wisconsin 11 is under construction is because it was absolutely needed. There were some sections of that road heading west that would try to rattle your bones out of joint. It was quite bumpy.

The improvements made in the past couple years to 8th Street have been very nice. That’s an excellent ribbon of road now and it doesn’t take forever to navigate the stop lights.

No matter where you go in summer in Wisconsin, you’re going to come across some road construction. Two seasons, right? Winter and road construction. And every city has its quirks. We have a one-way Square … Well so does Lancaster, and many other cities. I think the most important thing is we have a vibrant Square with wonderful businesses of all types and a beautiful courthouse.

Soon road construction will come to an end. And that will signal the start of our five-month winter, so I’m not quite ready to see the cones put away yet. I do wish everyone driving through our construction zones a safe journey. It’s been one weird summer when it comes to using the bypass to quickly get from one side of Monroe to the other.

— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.