Bill McClellan apologized too soon.

Before the Missouri Department of Transportation closed down Highway 40 from Hanley to Ballas, our columnist forecast doom and gridlock. When it hadn’t come to pass by mid-January, he wrote, “I was wrong.”

Well, Bill, maybe you were wrong about the mobs pushing old ladies in stalled cars off bridges, but that was justifiable hyperbole. You weren’t wrong about the mess it would make of getting around the St. Louis area. You simply miscalculated some of the ways in which it would evidence itself.

I live in West County. Getting downtown isn’t so hard: you just say your prayers and jump into the melee on I-44. Since a single big truck almost completely fills one of the downsized lanes, you have to hope that their drivers aren’t distracted enough to drift over as you pass. It does keep the commute interesting.

Getting to the two big hospitals at 40 and Ballas, or to Mid-County — that’s the tough one. Better hold off on that heart attack until the highway is open again, because when traffic is packed for miles on Ballas, the ambulances can’t get through. There’s just no place for the cars to go on a two-lane road.

You might think that all the secondary roads would be left unencumbered by orange cones during the time that 40 is an unhighway, in order to expedite traffic. You would think wrong. That’s just part of the adventure: shoulder work on Ladue Road, lanes closed on Lindbergh — did we imagine that anyone was under any obligation to make life easier for us?

It’s not a matter of figuring out the best way to get to Clayton or U City; it’s a matter of guessing the least bad way — that day.

Tonight I had to get to the Central West End to review a performance. What’s the least bad way of getting home? I considered my options for going south and west, and took Forest Park Parkway to 170 to Brentwood to Clayton Road.

That was fine, until approaching the sports bar heaven of Sportsman’s Park and Lester’s, just east of Warson Road: Suddenly there was a lighted sign saying “No through traffic,” and a large barrier. Clayton was closed, with almost no notice — and no road that would take us south of 40 without backtracking a couple of miles.

I tried to go north on the street next to Sportsman’s: it ended, and I had to turn around. Conway finally got me through to Lindbergh, and from Lindbergh I got back on Clayton. But you have to wonder why those lighted signs weren’t placed several miles east, when there might have been a chance for drivers to cut south without all the hassle and confusion.

Perhaps the truth lies in a place that even Bill McClellan hasn’t considered: namely, that MoDOT is run by an evil cabal of Kansas Citians and Outstaters who simply hate St. Louis (being an evil cabal means never having to give an explanation) and want to make us suffer.

If it’s not an evil cabal, it would be nice to know why we can’t have a little common courtesy — a few lighted signs where they might do some good, some cooperation with other agencies and a little less gratuitous construction of side roads — from an agency funded by our tax dollars. We know the highway closure can’t be easy. Does it have to be so hard?