DO NOT BLOCK INTERSECTION shouts the sign as you approach the intersection of Plaunt Street and Monroe Avenue in Renfrew. It makes you ask yourself “Now why in the hell would I want to do that?”
It’s the other sign, the one above that one that I really comply with. The stop sign that governs traffic travelling along Plaunt trumps all else. And I, historically a conscientious motorist, perform a complete stop, every time.
You’d be crazy not to.
The problem comes from the fact that you can’t see a freaking thing anywhere to your right. The most egregious blind spot ever stumbled upon happens to be at this corner.
After nudging forward, then nudging forward again, then another nudge with your head on a swivel, guess where you find yourself? In the middle of the intersection, that’s where. And you still can’t see traffic coming at you from your right. Meanwhile, motorists approaching from the left on Monroe are wondering what in the hell you’re doing in the middle of the intersection, often leading to horns and fingers being brandished.
If, in panic, you just go for it, that’s when you meet grandma after she picked up the kids at Central and is now booking it home to watch her shows. Granny’s a wonderful lady, church-going, apple pie, all the rest of it, but put her behind the wheel of a car and then cut her off? You’ll see what granny’s all about soon enough.
This is Renfrew’s most glaring blind spot, in a town absolutely festooned with them. It must be brutal to take your driver’s test here, since blindspots are all over the place.
Alcohol was a serious issue in the day, something we may want to consider all these decades later when we look at how our roadways interact with one another. It’s like some key municipal planning decisions were made with a suspicion of whiskey involved.
Two roadways meeting at right angles was something that escaped our founding fathers. Anyone standing on the corner of Raglan Street and Renfrew Avenue can appreciate this as they look over at the other intersection of Raglan Street and Renfrew Avenue some fifty metres away across the street.
Raglan itself is a street of unique characteristics. There’s the main thoroughfare through the business section of town, another that heads southeast towards Thompson Hill, and a third on the northwest side of the river that leads up to the hospital.
Downtown Raglan meets up with Burnstown Raglan at one of the great tourist spots in Renfrew, Confusion Corner. The hospital part of Raglan is cut off from the downtown part by the Bonnechere River, although there is a connection at the Swinging Bridge.
Easily, these three sections could get away with having different names. Lord Raglan wasn’t that big of a deal that everyone wanted their street named after him.
How about that four-way stop on the corner of Argyle Street and Renfrew Avenue? There’s a building there on the corner housing a business. If you’re travelling and stop on Argyle, you can’t see anything approaching from the left unless the business blinds are open and you can see through to the other side. Yes, the four way stop helps, but in Renfrew, people seem to customarily give up the right-of-way, making even four way stops a challenge.
With respect to Argyle Street, a motorist might be well advised to steer clear of this street altogether. Unless you’re in a pickup truck, an all-terrain vehicle, or an armoured personnel carrier, it would probably be best to use a street on either side of Argyle, like Lochiel or Raglan, rather than taking your chances on Argyle. You and your vehicle could disappear into the kind of pothole Netflix could build a series around. A bad street to be drinking coffee on for sure.
I suppose these are some of the little quirks that every small town has, part of its charm perhaps, maybe even embraced and cherished by some. Moving forward though, I’ll cherish them a lot more in the telling rather than the driving.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 