MODOT Issues

Okay, here's my gripe:

I'm heading from Hwy40 to North Lindbergh via 270. I notice some text on the normally snowflake bespeckled electronic message board which is just before the 40/270 interchange. "Northbound 270 Right Lane Closed at Olive" Right. Got it. So I get to the point of merging onto the outerbelt and traffic is already beginning to slow. I quickly get in to the right hand lane. Within the first quarter mile I am in the center lane. My strategy was to be in the center lane and, if things bogged down to much, zip into the left hand lane and zoom past all of the traffic in the closed right hand side of the roadway.

Well, guess again...

Stop. Go. Stop. Stop. Stop... (Frustration level increases with every passing minute.)

After a half hour of stop and go, I am finally nearing Olive. I've travelled almost 2 miles at this point and can't wait to get past this stupid lane closure. I'm almost through. All lanes seem to be stop and go. That's weird... I wonder why the left hand lane is also so slow...

What?!!??!

All of a sudden, and electronic arrow sign appears from behind the mostrous SUV I've been trapped behind for the past half hour. Right next to it is the first construction sign I've seen: "Left Lane Closed".

Well, that explains why the left lane is slow. I'm in the center lane and good to go, so I let this puzzling development slide.

Within sight of the Olive overpass I am suddenly exposed to another blinking arrow pointing me to move even further to my right. I swear, when that SUV suddenly changed lanes and exposed me to this electronic blinking wonder, I gasped.

What in the world is going on? The sign had said the right lane was closed, not the left. And it didn't say anything about two lanes being closed... The panic and frustration of this obvious error was evident in the many drivers around me who suddenly were trying to merge back into lanes that they had just abandoned a few miles before due to gross misinformation.

Hey MODOT! Figure out how to use your expensive billboards to actually help alleviate congestion, instead of causing more of it. My little 45 minute drive became an hour and a half epic, filled with blunders by our orange vested friends of the concrete sector.