Thanksgiving "bracings" - inane journalistic melodrama

All around the country reporters are tapping out reports that toll agencies (and other highway operators) are "bracing" for a surge of holiday traffic. This is a melodramatic way of saying that the tollers are preparing for extra traffic.

But where's the news?

People running highways always make preparations for extra traffic - assigning extra staff, trying to clear construction. It's what their managers do, or should do, as a matter of routine.

It would be news if they were NOT preparing for a thoroughly predictable increase in traffic - if they went into Thanksgiving and other holidays "unbraced."

Surely it's time for the old cliche from structural engineering to be retired - editor

TOLLROADSnews 2009-11-25