So on Thursday night after a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, I had to drive a relative to his home in Salem from our home in Newberg.
I got on I-5 south at the Donald/Aurora exit...and it took me 45 minutes just to get through Woodburn.
At 10:30 PM on Thanksgiving night there was about a 5 mile backup to the Woodburn exit of people trying to get to the Woodburn outlet mall. The stores decided to open on Thanksgiving instead of waiting until Friday.
People were parking their cars on the shoulder and running across the highway, climbing the guardrails, and going down thru the ditch and over the fence to get to the mall.
The mall parking lot was full...the frontage road was full...the 214 overpass over I-5 was full...and traffic was gridlocked for miles in all directions. It was insane...yet people continued to wait and wait, knowing full well that it might be hours before they could make their way to the parking lot.
I dont care if they were advertising free Glocks for every customer.....there is no way in **** I would subject myself to that sort of insanity.
What is with people? What can possibly be at an outlet mall that is so important as to make someone give up time on Thanksgiving day?
That mall is an epic failure of urban planning. The Woodburn I-5 interchange was overcrowded when I lived there 18 years ago...before the Wal-mart and the new outlet mall even existed. Now it is totally inadequate by many orders of magnitude, and it will only get worse.
That outlet mall needs to plan ahead for next year by requiring some sort of parking pass in order to park in the lot. If you dont have a pass, you should be required to park elsewhere and take a shuttle bus if you are so **** bent on getting to the mall on Thanksgiving. And I sure hope the outlet mall is paying the bill for the state troopers that I saw directing traffic...who were (deservedly) making overtime for working a holiday shift.
Rant over. Have a merry Christmas!
I got on I-5 south at the Donald/Aurora exit...and it took me 45 minutes just to get through Woodburn.
At 10:30 PM on Thanksgiving night there was about a 5 mile backup to the Woodburn exit of people trying to get to the Woodburn outlet mall. The stores decided to open on Thanksgiving instead of waiting until Friday.
People were parking their cars on the shoulder and running across the highway, climbing the guardrails, and going down thru the ditch and over the fence to get to the mall.
The mall parking lot was full...the frontage road was full...the 214 overpass over I-5 was full...and traffic was gridlocked for miles in all directions. It was insane...yet people continued to wait and wait, knowing full well that it might be hours before they could make their way to the parking lot.
I dont care if they were advertising free Glocks for every customer.....there is no way in **** I would subject myself to that sort of insanity.
What is with people? What can possibly be at an outlet mall that is so important as to make someone give up time on Thanksgiving day?
That mall is an epic failure of urban planning. The Woodburn I-5 interchange was overcrowded when I lived there 18 years ago...before the Wal-mart and the new outlet mall even existed. Now it is totally inadequate by many orders of magnitude, and it will only get worse.
That outlet mall needs to plan ahead for next year by requiring some sort of parking pass in order to park in the lot. If you dont have a pass, you should be required to park elsewhere and take a shuttle bus if you are so **** bent on getting to the mall on Thanksgiving. And I sure hope the outlet mall is paying the bill for the state troopers that I saw directing traffic...who were (deservedly) making overtime for working a holiday shift.
Rant over. Have a merry Christmas!