For local drivers, this is shaping up to be the construction season of our discontent.

With federal stimulus money and Major Moves projects joining those already scheduled, the roads are alive with the sounds of bulldozers and dump trucks.

We like to think that traffic will get better after it gets worse, with newly improved roads meaning smoother driving. I hate to put a damper on this optimistic view, but urban planners agree that better roads produce a "if you build it, they will come" trap and draw more traffic, which requires more road improvements.

More than usual, it seems, alternate routes don't seem like great options – they, too, are the scene of construction projects.

To put it in perspective, the projects haven't been that much of a burden, perhaps adding 5 or maybe 10 minutes to commutes and errands. Local drivers with big-city experience usually consider our city's traffic problems minor.

Consider Chicago, where steady congestion on the infamously clogged Dan Ryan Expressway has even given birth to perhaps the only well-known catchphrase concerning traffic jams: Cryin' on the Ryan.

While local traffic backups may not seem nearly as bad, local motorists have gone through their own – if scaled down – versions this summer. Here are some:

1. The Lima Squeeze

Cones, barrels and gravel greet motorists commuting to and from the northwest, including the Huntertown area, as Indiana 3/Lima Road undergoes a major widening. The new lanes on the east side of the road will ease congestion – someday. In the meantime, motorists crowded over on the west side crawl along, while motorists on the cross streets – there are more than you ever realized – gingerly drive their vehicles over the temporary gravel intersections, followed by a rough uphill drive.

Just to make things interesting, Dupont Road is completely closed at Lima to rebuild the intersection.

2. Dupont Pinch

A few miles east of Lima, Dupont Road motorists experience more excitement with another widening project. Just to make things interesting, it's right in front of the Parkview North project, so it can be hard to tell the traffic construction crews from the hospital construction suppliers.

3. Southwest Shuffle

The long-awaited Aboite Center Road widening means closing a key link of the road, a major connector between Aboite Township and downtown.

So thousands of cars have been diverted to West Jefferson. With so much Aboite Center Road traffic on Jefferson, government officials decided this would be the perfect time to repave Jefferson. Motorists had the opportunity to sit and wait while that road-chewing machine took up the old pavement, then they were allowed to drive on the rough road's underbelly, then they got to wait some more while the lanes were repaved.

4. Downtown two-step

The good news: Berry and Wayne streets downtown are repaved.

The bad news: no detours, little warnings, just crews ripping up the road and later replacing it.

The goofy news: Crews ran out of paint to make permanent lane markers. We are not making this up.

5. Maplecrest tranquility

What's being billed as the most expensive county road project in history will create a major north-south artery with a new river crossing – all of it being done mostly out of sight of motorists.

The Maplecrest Road extension from Lake Avenue to Indiana 930 creates a road where none was before – meaning no detours, no waits, no expletives, no sudden U-turns.

At least not this summer.

6. Ardmore Hop

The Jefferson repaving winds down at Jefferson Pointe – just in time for motorists ready to turn south on Ardmore Avenue to hit the "Road Closed" signs. Ardmore is undergoing a total replacement enhanced by widening just south of Jefferson, making it suitable for a truck route and finally making the Ardmore-Hillegas project complete.

7. Cursing at Clinton

This one, friends, is the sleeping giant soon to be awakened.

Clinton Street/U.S. 27 is the main southbound artery through the city, and it will be the site of traffic gridlock for years. Literally.

The bridge over Clinton Street will lose one lane, then two, as crews rebuild it.

After reopening next year, Clinton will close completely the year after while state highway contractors replace a smaller bridge and straighten out some curves.