It's bike commute challenge month here in Pac NW, so I've been taking
alternate routes that add a few miles. It's totally justifiable,
though (not just padding miles for the competition). The most direct
route includes several miles of 4-lane highway with pretty heavy high-
speed car and truck traffic, wide paved shoulders but lots of debris
and on/off ramps, and it's boringly straight (for miles). Alternate
routes are much lower traffic, cleaner, beautiful and interesting -
very nice.

So yesterday, though, I just wanted to get home as quickly as
possible, and headed onto the main highway (shoulder). Then I come
upon some pylons that force me into the right traffic lane (well, yes,
I could hae gone behind the pylons, but there was some kind of
construction going on up ahead on the shoulder and there are secured
facilities to the right of the ditch and I just figured I'd... well, I
*didn't anticipate what happened next.)

The pylons gave way to a modular concrete wall with no gaps. Another
such wall on the other side constricted the two lanes. A temporary
double solid white line divided the narrowed lanes and indicated no
lane changes allowed.

I was trapped in a physically contained corridor on a major highway at
Friday afternoon rush hour,with rough pavement, narrowed lanes, high
speed motor traffic.

I considered and reconsidered and considered again cyclocross hopping
the ~four foot high concrete wall. Could not even see for sure how
far this trap went. Kept shoulder checking and trying to make sure I
was seen from behind.

In the end I just pushed as fast as I could (had a tailwind thank dog)
and got out the end of it. All was not rosy after that since the
paved shoulder was *really* filthy with debris from construction and
everything, and now the left lane was blocked and the right lane
narrowed such that cars figured they could also use the shoulder. But
eventually I came to the end of construction.

Won't be going that way again for a long time.