Q – Help!  I live on Railroad Street and I have been driving to work for many years by way of Lark Avenue.  Now they have put up a “No Left Turn” sign at the intersection of Railroad and Lark and I have to turn right and go all the way to the airport before I can make a U-turn and double back.  This means I have to get up in the dark every morning to allow for the long drive.

A – You don’t say where you work.  If it’s downtown, then why not forget Lark and stay on Railroad until you reach Gully, which has a protected left turn.  You may not know it, but Gully is now one-way going east all the way to Five Points, where you can take the dogleg around Barling Park (watch for slowpokes in the old people’s crossing) and onto Victory.  Bear right over the viaduct to twenty-seventh and then hang a left at the second stoplight and go four blocks to the dead end at Lagrange.  Take Lagrange as far as the zoo (stay in the right lane), and from there it’s a straight shot to the Hopper Expressway and the Rotifer Bridge.

Charles Portis.  The New Yorker, December 12, 1977