What could have been...

Maybe you've noticed, as you drive around the Austin area, how it seems that some roads are a lot wider than others (Riverside Dr from I-35 down to 290 just west of 183):,

how some elevated, divided highways just..end, and suddenly become surface streets (290 East as it comes into town, goes under I-35 and over Airport Blvd, and then just dies out right at the railroad tracks and "becomes" Koening Ln):

and 290/71 as it enters Oak Hill and runs straight into a bunch of traffic lights). Why is this?

The answer?

Enviromental impact studies and clueless politicans.

WAYYYYYY back in the early 1960's, there were ambitious plans for an extensive network of freeways in and around the Austin area. Here's a map:

They had crosstown freeways going east/west just north AND south of downtown, a freeway running north/south roughly paralell to Lamar, and a connector running from it at 35th street over to a freeway west of town (which WAS built - we know it as Mopac).

Speaking of Mopac, this is what it might have looked like as it crosses the river, looking north:

A little overkill at the time, maybe, but damn, all those roads would sure move some traffic if they exisited today. However, all these great plans were killed by enviromentalists and idiot City Councils over the years, even as newer, better plans were brought up.

Don't believe me, go here:

 http://www.texasfreeway.com/austin/historic/freeway_planning_maps/freeway_planning_maps.shtml

Spend some time at that site (it's where I linked the above photos from), and see what could have been...and why it isn't.

Austin has always been growing, and will continue to do so. Austin NEEDS MORE ROADS. We need to make a few changes to the roads we've already got to help traffic flow better. There have always been plans to improve the network of roads around Austin, but a few greedy, small-minded idiots have always managed to throw a wrench into the works every chance they get.

Now, yet another opponent to freeway construction has come upon the scene....TOLLWAYS. Yes, that's right, why should TxDot bother to use the billions of dollars we taxpayers cough up every year to actually build roads for us to use, when they can contract out the work to foreign investor owned companies to do so and then CHARGE us to drive on them? I don't know about you, but I don't mind paying a fair amount of taxes, as long as that money is used for things it should be used for. I DO get just a little pissed off (and you should, too) when my tax dollars are pissed away and I'm told they only way any new roads will be built is if they're TOLL roads that I'll have to pay yet AGAIN just to drive on to get where I need to go.

Details in my next post.   
         

Fix this damn traffic.

Is anyone else besides me fed up with this ridiculous Austin traffic? Why can't we get across town without sitting and staring at an unending stream of brake lights? I-35 is a joke. MoPac is a parking lot, Lamar is jammed up at 5th and 6th Street constantly. The 130 toll road is an alternative, BUT - it's a TOLL road, and it's several miles out of the way, with more traffic lights to sit through just to get to it.

We pay millions and millions of dollars in taxes, where is it being wasted? Why isn't it being used to BUILD MORE ROADS?

Mopac was designed and built to be a cross-town EXPRESSWAY, these days it's more like a long, skinny parking lot. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for all the entrance and exit ramps, allowing more and more cars onto a road that's already packed beyond capacity. Pay attention next time you're on it, notice where the traffic jams occur - at the entrance ramps. The cars trying to get on Mopac force their way into the right lane, the cars already IN the right lane either have to slam on the brakes or move over into the center lane, which causes the cars already in the center lane to have to hit the brakes or move into the left lane, which causes, you guessed it, the cars in the left lane to have to hit the brakes. Wonderful - just because a few drivers want to barge onto a road that's already full of traffic, it screws up the ENTIRE ROAD, all 3 lanes of it.

Southbound Mopac just south of the river is a perfect example of this - the entrance ramp right before Barton Skyway dumps traffic from Bee Caves Rd into the right lane of Mopac with no room for traffic to merge. WHY? There's a perfectly good entrance ramp just on the other side of Barton Skyway with a nice, long lane to get up to speed and hundreds and hundreds of feet for them to merge. The short, steep entrance ramp just north of Barton Skyway need to be CLOSED. Shut down. TxDot needs to get a couple of Jersey Barriers, place them across the entrance ramp, dig up the pavement, throw some dirt and grass where it used to be, and call it good. The traffic on the frontage road can go through the light at Barton Skyway and use the entrance ramp just on the other side.

I-35 - it's such a joke, I don't know where to start. There's so much traffic on it, from long-haul trucks coming and going to Mexico and the rest of the U.S., commuters using it to get across town, people using it to get to and from downtown streets - it's hopeless. TxDot needs to decide what it's going to used for - local access to and from downtown, or Interstate traffic - one or the other. It CAN'T handle both. What they really should to is require all traffic that is going THROUGH Austin to bypass it and use the Texas 130 instead, and let only traffic that's going downtown to use that section of I-35.

183, on the east side of town, would be a viable alternative, but the lack of just a few overpasses make it a frustrating failure. It's a nice, wide, fast freeway all the way across the north end of town, but once you get south of Springdale Rd, it turns back into a pumpkin, with stoplights at Loyola, 51st, TechniCenter, etc. It tries to become a freeway again down by the Airport Blvd intersection, but it's like TxDot got a great idea, got about halfway done, and just......quit. There are bridge columns standing up in the air, but no bridge. The southbound lanes have to squeeze down to ONE LANE to squeak underneath Montopolis, and then there's more red lights at Vargas and Thompson, then at last traffic makes it to the antiquated interchange at Ben White.

Speaking of Ben White, why the HELL isn't there an ovepass at Riverside yet? Just like 183 up north, Ben White is a nice, wide, fast freeway all the way across south Austin, but at Riverside, it just.....quits. Traffic backs up for MILES just because of the the light at Riverside. Over on the west side, Ben White/290/71 is a nice, wide, fast freeway, until you almost make it into Oak Hill, and then it just.....stops. In a monumental example of traffic planning screwups, it goes from 3 lanes, to 2 lanes, and then...BAM. A nice little traffic light at McCarty Ln, which isn't even a cross street. The backed up traffic through the Y in Oak Hill extends for miles east and west, EVERY DAMN DAY.

Who designs this crap? Do the people who make descisions about what roads to improve even DRIVE in Austin? Are they BLIND? All you have to do is open your eyes and SEE where the problems are, how to fix the trouble spots is relatively easy...WHY AREN'T THEY DOING ANYTHING?