25th Street Bridge Song

Yesterday was the first big snowstorm of the season. 10 cm fell like a mofo. Plflplflt! and there it was.
It came fast and it came hard and the city crews couldn't keep up and it was just warm enough for the first layer to come down as sleet, which quickly froze and turned the streets to ice. I had the pleasure of finishing work at 4:30 pm, the midpoint of rush hour. My route demanded that I pass through to downtown and across the Broadway Bridge, a daunting task on good roads.
It was made all the more horrible by the fact that my roaring behemoth 1981 Chevy Van (aka Black Thunder), turns into Elizabeth Manley on ice. Needless to say it was with a sense of dread and foreboding that I fought through the howling wind and driving snow to scrape the ice and snow off the windshield before what I imagined would be a harrowing journey. So I headed off into the crawling stream of traffic, moving like a Youtube progress bar on dial-up.
Soon the heat off of the big V8 kicked in however and Black Thunder warmed up and I realized that I had an hour and a half to make it to my destination. It occurred to me then that I was in my favorite place (my van) with all of my favorite music, and for the first time in a very long time it looked like I was going to have an hour completely to myself. Suddenly the drive home was looking really good.
So the traffic eased forward in the tiniest of increments, and occasionally I'd be in the faster of the lanes, occasionally the slower, and from my perch on high I got to people-watch everybody that went by. A lot of them were really pissed off, I mean REALLY pissed off, and when I'm in a good mood, there is nothing funnier than someone in a futile rage.
There were also a lot of them like myself. Eyes wide with wonder at beauty of the havoc, relaxed and meditative and given over pleasantly to circumstance and chaos.
At the 45 minute mark I'd reached downtown. Whenever I saw someone signalling helplessly for a lane change in the 10km/hr stream of trickling road rage I'd let them in and they'd give me a wave. But as I turned on to 4th ave, headed for the Broadway Bridge, I began to panic a little. From 25th street on it was a stationary line of brake lights blinking and fading like Christmas lights into the white blur of the snowstorm. After spending 15 minutes moving across the first block I began to realize there was no way I'd make it to my son's daycare on time on this route. A quick shoulder check and an icy fishtailing u-turn sent me back to 24th, where I turned towards Spadina. I'd have 2 choices there; roll along spadina to the Renaissance, and come out at the base of the Broadway Bridge ahead of the traffic, or hang a left and hit the University Bridge. At Spadina it became clear that the University Bridge was the best option, so to the left I went.
Now here's the thing and I've taken a long time getting to it but I just came off a really hard day and I'm beat like Tina Turner in the old Ike days so I may have rambled a bit, but thanks for sticking it out.
The thing is this: There is a feature of Saskatoon that for me is the ultimate expression of what makes those of us that live here different from anyone else in the world.
At the base of the University Bridge there are 2 intersections. One from the Spadina underpass on to Spadina Crescent, and one from Spadina on to the bridge itself. Both of these intersections are uncontrolled because there is an implicit understanding in this city of nearly 1/4 million that if we just take turns it works just fine.
So imagine, in the middle of a snowstorm that crippled a modern city, with 10 minute commutes suddenly lengthened to 1 and 2 hours, traffic lined up for miles in places, imagine how well this hokey and simplistic backwater system of taking turns would work. It worked beautifully! People who were jockeying for position all through rush hour, fighting for lane changes, swearing at tailgaters, suddenly paused when they were supposed to and let their neighbour go first, because it's the polite thing to do at these particular intersections. Maybe it's just me, but there is something to be said for human potential, for good will and selflessness and for the intrinsic communal nature of the human animal at the bottom of the 25th Street Bridge. Walt Whitman once said that "Life is not so short that there isn't time to be polite." Saskatoon demonstrates it.