CTH E Reopens Thursday; Ned England Prepares Comprehensive Traffic Study Of New Route
The 70-year-old Backslide Way resident will deploy his established radar-gun methodology to assess whether the road closure actually improved conditions.
WAUKESHA — County Trunk Highway E is scheduled to reopen Thursday after months of closure, and Ned England, 70, of Backslide Way, says he is not prepared to take the county's word for it that anything has actually changed. England, founder of the YouTube channel "Nedventuresout" (420 subscribers), announced this week that he will conduct what he is calling a comprehensive traffic study of the newly reopened corridor, beginning the moment the barricades come down and continuing, by his own estimate, for two weeks.
The methodology is not new. England intends to position a lawn chair at the corridor's key intersection and monitor passing traffic with the same handheld radar gun he purchased from Amazon for $64, the instrument he has used for several years to document speeding hospital traffic and, on at least one occasion, a neighbor's poorly parked Honda. What is new, he said, is the scope. This is the first time he has turned the radar gun on a road specifically to evaluate a completed public works project rather than an individual driver.
Preliminary Findings Already In
England said he has already formed a preliminary impression of the reopened route, despite it not technically being open yet, based on what he described as "just knowing the road." His early assessment: the corridor will likely prove "exactly the same as before."
"I'm not saying the closure was pointless. I'm saying I've been watching this intersection for six years and I have a pretty good sense of what it's going to do, and what it's going to do is what it's always done."
— Ned England, Nedventuresout
Still, England said he intends to withhold final judgment until the full two-week data set is collected. He plans to log speed readings at regular intervals from his lawn chair, weather and hospital-shift traffic permitting, and compare the results against a baseline data set he says he compiled before the closure began, which he keeps on a clipboard he declined to make available for this story "until it's finished."
An Unusual Home For The Data
In a departure from his usual practice, England said the traffic study will not appear on his main channel. Instead, results will be published exclusively on his secondary channel, "Nedsmokedout," which he launched in July and has until now reserved for air-quality readings taken by counting visible lampposts from the Frame Park pedestrian bridge. England said the crossover makes more sense than it sounds.
"Both projects are really about visibility, when you think about it. Lampposts, cars, it's the same skill. If I can't see the intersection clearly from my chair, I'm not going to publish a bad number just to have something up that day."
— Ned England
England's three Nedsmokedout subscribers have not yet been informed of the change in programming. England said he plans to post an announcement video before Thursday's reopening "if the light's good," and that he is aware the traffic study may not be what the channel's existing audience signed up for. "They'll adjust," he said.
County officials have not indicated any expectation that CTH E will perform differently than it did before the closure. England said that was, in a sense, exactly his point, and that somebody ought to check.