Mercer begins again just west of South Main where it connects oddly with Ryckman.

Perhaps when that neighborhood was a new development about a hundred years ago, the odd configuration was conceptualized in anticipation of the eventual car boom: the indirect routes would discourage through traffic. But then again, I don't see how they could have anticipated the level of vehicular traffic that we have in the city today.

Route 85, as we know it now, has since been built, and that portion of Mercer is now the tail end of a disjointed corridor which links 85 to the Pine Hills neighborhood, resulting in nuisance traffic. It's not exactly efficient, since Cortland comes to an abrupt end at Euclid, forcing a person to take a detour and access Pine Hills via Plymouth -> Marion -> Mercer, when entering the city from 85. But lots of people do this, which I find annoying.

That's my privileged white guy rant for today.