Posted on 07/30/2010 10:18:13 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
On Thursday, the state highway chiefs approved $77 million in so-called transportation enhancement projects for the next year.
Enhancement projects are funded by the federal government, which sets aside 10 percent of federal gas tax dollars for the program. The local government requesting the money must pay for the project up front, and the state -- using federal money -- reimburses 80 percent of the cost.
The program has been criticized -- see stories here and here -- but often provides money for projects that stoke the biggest enthusiasm from nearby residents. An example in Dallas has been the Woodall Rodgers Deck Park. That project was paid for by stimulus dollars last year, thrilling supporters and baffling some critics, who'd prefer the money be spent on projects that move traffic.
Here are the list of enhancement projects approved for North Texas...
(Excerpt) Read more at transportationblog.dallasnews.com ...
/johnny
We just took a long road trip. Our interstate hiways are in terrible shape. There would be new hiways for a few miles then back to the bumpy cracked pothole infested road again. I noticed the roads in Illinois were vastly improved this time. They used to be a mess but most were nice new roads this trip.
The last thing to melt in 5 Billion years as the sun consumes the Earth. Will be the traffic cones on I-75 North of the High Five. ;o)
more freeways built => more traffic => congestion => demand for more freeways => more freeways built => more traffic => congestion => demand for more freeways => more freeways built => more traffic => congestion => demand for more freeways => more freeways built => more traffic => congestion => demand for more freeways => more freeways built => more traffic => congestion => demand for more freeways => more freeways built => more traffic => congestion => demand for more freeways =>...
The end comes soon. When the Serpent can no longer eat fast enough to stay alive while looking for food, it will die.
Forty years from now, when the freeways are gone and our children walk in the greenway parks where deserts of asphalt and concrete once stood, we will wonder how the madness ever began.
Oh, boo-hoo. If you want to walk from Dallas to Houston, that’s fine with me. Or you can take a choo-choo that will no doubt be subsidized by my gas tax dollars.
Utopia is Greek for “nowhere.”
LOL Y-e-e-e-e-s, you see it too, don't you? The DEAD END sign at the terminus of your socialist freeway utopia. It's there, we're headed toward it at 120 miles per hour, and there's no way to stop. Soon comes the screech of tires, the crash — and the opportunity to crawl from the wreckage and find a better way to travel.
I’m willing to consider tolling freeways. You pay to use the freeway, and capacity is preserved for a longer time, since fewer people are willing to pay tolls than to go free. But that’s not to say I endorse cramming everyone on buses, choo-choos, and planes. Roads ARE good for commerce and transportation, no matter what the choo-choo pushers say.
Right now, I would prefer to widen some major interstates to six lanes. You are not going to stop the growth of trucking, which can reach places that choo-choos cannot, nor are you going to stop people from liking automobile travel.
Even a fully-empowered monarch would not be so daft, in this day and age, as to cram all people and freight onto trains and buses.
I think this is an excellent idea. The motor fuel tax is, after all, not a user fee; it is an excise tax. (One need not drive a gasoline- or Diesel-powered vehicle to use the freeway.) A true user fee, based upon miles of travel per vehicle, is the only fair way to pay for the upkeep of all these huge new freeways that suburbanites demand.
And there is an easy way to implement such a user fee: electronic tolls. Here in the North Texas area, the toll roads, tunnels, and bridges (of which there are five, with one in the works) do not have fare collection booths. Instead, the on- and off-ramps have license-plate scanners that electronically record the plate number of each vehicle as it enters and leaves the tollway. As you leave, a computer calculates the number of miles you traveled, multiplies by the fare, and bills you via mail for your use of the road. (Drivers who use the roads frequently can buy an electronic tolltag that reduces the per-mile fee.)
This is a true user fee. I'd guess that within the next ten years or so, the various highway departments are going to install license-plate-based electronic tolling on all major freeways. The excise tax on motor fuel simply does not generate enough revenue to keep our monstrous tangle of roads in drivable condition. The alternatives (higher fuel taxes and/or the removal of freeways) are not acceptable to the public.
Sooner or later the Muzis and the Israelis are going to throw down for real. When that day comes, the era of cheap gasoline ends. You think gasoline at $5.00 per gallon is high? Try gasoline at $20.00 per gallon, or gasoline unavailable at any price. "By order of the Emergency Fuels Authority, this motor fuel station is open for military, government, and official vehicles only." Anyone who says it can't happen is whistling past the graveyard.
Shades of October 1973. I'm just glad I'm not going to be living at the corner of 287th Street and Plowed Ground Road when the gas goes away.
Forty years from now, when the freeways are gone and our children walk in the greenway parks where deserts of asphalt and concrete once stood, we will wonder how the madness ever began.
Now we get a glimpse in how come Muslims seem to be stuck in a 6th century mode of thinking. We have another example of the neo-luddite fear of technology and freedom right here.
BC, exactly how will stuff appear at your home? Magic? Not everyone can telecommute like service workers and the guy who loads stuff from the warehouse onto the magic carpet that will deliver it to your house.
What kind of foolishness pretends that if a freeway is constructed people will just get on it for the sole purpose of adding congestion? If people gravitate to a freeway it is because they have calculated that the freeway is the most efficient way of serving their transportation needs. If that freeway becomes congested, it should be interpreted that the other modes of transportation are so inefficient and impractical that sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic is an improvement.
Freeways are freedom. Exactly how far do you expect granny to travel on foot dragging home the groceries in the Texas summer heat or the Minnesota freezing winters? My client is twelve miles away in Texas hill country and climbing a steep and long hill in 100+ temps on a bicycle Monday through Friday is something I do, but is not something the other 99% of people can or are willing to duplicate. (it helps that the landlord supplies shower facilities for its tenants)
Johnny: "Mommy, how come we aren't visiting our relatives this Christmas?
Mommy: "Because we are enlightened Johnny, its so uncivilized to travel on paved freeways."
The same way it did prior to September 26, 1956: by rail to a truck traveling on surface streets.
That is profoundly ignorant of how modern distribution works today.
One example: Go to google maps and enter in "Braum's". What you will see is a company headquartered in Tuttle, Oklahoma, and then a whole mess of dots representing their dairy and ice cream stores. Note carefully the furthest extent of the stores. There are reasons why the stores only go out so far. The legend goes that you won't find a Braum's south of Hillsboro TX because that is the maximum distance that a truck leaving the Tuttle warehouse can travel during a driver's shift. The idea being that by managing everything from the farm to the store and the delivery in between, they can provide the freshest milk and bread products. Now tell me how your scheme won't crush that business model.
Sysco, Ben E Keith, and White Swan are restraunt suppliers. They too have trucks that must complete a full route in one day. I remember seeing a Ben E Keith truck with snow on its roof in Austin. The nearest Ben E Keith warehouse is in the Farmer's Branch suburb of Dallas, that area got pounded with snow while Austin didn't see a single flake. How would that model work with surface streets? Lets say that they would have to expand their warehouses, driving up the costs of business. Restraunts not only serve a wide variety of foods, they also need dishes, condiments, kitchen supplies, etc. If you were to observe one of those warehouses during the day (while the delivery trucks are out on route) you would see a continuous stream of trucks from Tyson, Nabisco, Kimberly Clarke, and many other vendors. Exactly how would your concept of trains to trucks on surface streets work out here?
Intermodal transportation depots are large, busy, noisy and heavily trafficked with trucks, trains, aircraft and shipping occuring around the clock. Now multiply these depots by orders of magnitude to accomodate a transportation model that eliminates freeway trucking. You would see acres of refrigerated storage because what was once transported fresh must now be frozen or rot in the boxcars from the searing southern heat. Lets add the fun of a stevedore strike that will cripple the entire economy of the region served by that intermodal depot.
Your idea is not only naive, its insane and will throw the economy back by a century - the ensuing chaos and disruption would severely limit the variety and quality of products that we have come to enjoy since not every vendor could afford to purchase access and storage at these intermodal depots that invariably would come under the control of organized crime and the unions.
Please, we already have enough people plotting unspeakable evil on this country, please do not add to their sedition.
Gosh, you’re right. Life would be impossible without acres and acres and miles and miles of ugly, lifeless, soul-killing concrete freeways. Why, we might have to give up Braum’s, or stop drinking Ben E. Keith’s watery fake beer! Forget the blight, the cost, the pollution, the ugliness — pave everything over and let them truckers roll, 10-4!
(Speaking of “organized crime and the unions”, do you know how the beer distribution business works in Texas?)
By then it will be “new heaven and new earth” time, and no transportation funds will have been involved.
But I would propose retaining some of those strips of concrete complete with ramps. They would make for awesome skateboarding.
Not that anyone ever listens.
And you know the real cool part? Without changing anything in the industrialized nations you can experience your Utopian living right now ! Pack your bags and enjoy an exciting new life of acres and acres of undeveloped land surrounding you in exciting Mexico! And the best part of it? You will be moving contra-flow with traffic as you go in their direction, thousands will be coming north.
Not interested in Mexico? There is always pretty much anywhere in Africa outside of the metropolitan areas of Egypt. Don't like that heat? There is always the hinterlands of Russia where you can have miles and miles of vast stretches of nothing. Just you and whatever is on your back. Think of the exercise you will get as you spend every waking moment trying to survive.
If you want to be around people but just don't like highways and paved roads I have your place: Kabul Afghanistan. Just a handful of paved roads, a couple traffic lights and over two million people to share it all with. I was living in a mansion within a couple miles from Eggars and the Palace and the only time I was on a paved road was either to the MoI, the grocery store or to the airport going past the embassies. Why only a few paved roads? Because the Taliban shared your passion for eliminating modern conveyances and literally tore up the existing asphalt and concrete roadways. Trucks, mule carts, bicycles, pedestrians, compact cars, armoured Suburbans, everything bouncing along whatever crap that was there.
(Speaking of “organized crime and the unions”, do you know how the beer distribution business works in Texas?)
I do know that having a liquor distribution license is having a license to print money. Just ask Juan McCain or Jesse Jackson's son. But no, I don't understand the beer distribution business in Texas. If you have the time and the inclination, I would love to know your perspective. I'm guessing its the high-stakes table in the good ol boy network.
Obama to visit Dallas during Texas fundraising trip
08:18 AM CDT on Friday, July 30, 2010
By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
tgillman@dallasnews.com
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will be mining for money next month in Dallas, but he’s not expected to make any public appearances.....
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