Texans pay a lot for gas
I admit, I don’t know exactly how much I pay for gas every year. I bet most people don’t. But we should, because it’s a lot.
Average Texas drivers paid $1,819 for gas last year, chewing up 4.9 percent of their incomes, according to numbers crunched by the National Resources Defense Council.
Texas ranked seventh among states for percent of incomes spent on gas. Mississippi was first with 6.2 percent, while Connecticut was last with just 2.5 percent.
Remember, though, regular-grade gas last year was 90 cents a gallon cheaper than in 2008, when prices careened to $4 a gallon. Thus, the point of this NRDC white paper: What would happen if prices, which are steadily rising, spiked again?
For Texans, the answer is gas bills 80 percent higher — or 8.7 percent of incomes. If the next spike turns into a steep plateau, the bill over a year would average $3,264.
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Automobiles Bicycles Commuting Roads Toll roads Transit Travel
by Hugh
Comments Off on 2005 Dodge Caravan 4th anniversary
2005 Dodge Caravan 4th anniversary
This is somewhat obscure but while searching through papers for the upcoming tax adventure, I happened upon the original sales document for my 2005 Dodge Caravan which I purchased exactly four years ago to the day, March 28, 2006. Since then I have added 69,271 miles to its already high one year total of 28,702 – it was probably a rental that maxed out early – making a grand total, as of today, of 97,973. more »
Automobiles Commuting: electric car future
by Patrick
Comments Off on Suck in your knees, and meet the future
Suck in your knees, and meet the future
Imagine puttering around on a barstool, bumping elbows with the person next to you and hugging the bumper of the car in front.
You’re in an Electric Networked Vehicle, a smart electric car that will be able to drive, brake and pack more cars into shorter stretches of road while keeping traffic moving.
General Motors will display three models at the World Expo in May.
INRIX: Congestion in SA slightly worse
Top 10 SA-area bottlenecks (in red)
Traffic data services company INRIX’s annual “National Traffic Scorecard” was released a few weeks ago, and it shows that traffic congestion in San Antonio increased slightly over the past year.
This year, San Antonio ranked 25th in the nation in terms of overall traffic congestion. After flip-flopping with Houston last year, the Dallas-Ft. Worth area regained the title as Texas’ most congested region, landing at the number five spot nationally. Houston was sixth, and Austin was 23rd. The Los Angeles area was tops.
Schematics are back!
Snippet of schematic showing I-10 at Loop 410
A few years ago, I had schematics for most of the area’s freeways on my website. They were rather crude, so a couple of years ago, I embarked on a project to upgrade them. I got just one done (I-10 West) when I realized that the process of creating and maintaining them– especially given all the changes brought about by the massive amount of construction the past few years– just made them unwieldy and there was no way I would ever be able to get them all done. So when I updated my site earlier this year, I dropped that lone schematic while I investigated a different method of doing them. Finally, I think I have settled on a design that is substantially easier for me to put together and should be even easier to keep up-to-date, and one that is, frankly, easier to decipher and more informative than the old ones were. Yesterday, I posted the first one, which also happens to be I-10 West. Take a gander and let me know what you think.
New traffic sign needed: “Take turns”
Someone sent me this and I thought it was interesting enough to post here. It’s about four and a half minutes long and worth a look.
Fifty percent of traffic accidents happen at intersections. Gary Lauder, who is the managing partner of Lauder Partners, a venture capital firm, and the co-creator of the Socrates Society at the Aspen Institute, shares a brilliant and cheap idea for helping drivers move along smoothly: a new traffic sign that combines the properties of “Stop” and “Yield” — and asks drivers to be polite.
Construction and closures Roads Transit: downtown
by Patrick
Comments Off on Downtown will be jam-packed Saturday
Downtown will be jam-packed Saturday
Photo from www.luminariasa.org.
It’s going to get a little crazy this Saturday, with some 200,000 or more people converging on downtown and carrying on from morning to night.
If you’re heading down there, or just passing through, have a plan. Several streets will be closed. And buses on a dozen routes will be rerouted throughout the day.
First up, an annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade will thump and blast its way past the Alamo, starting at 11 a.m. Then the party will shift to the River Walk for an afternoon of dancing and music at the Arneson River Theatre and a 3 p.m. river parade.
Later, throngs of artists, performers, musicians and fans will light up La Villita and HemisFair Park for Luminaria: Arts Night in San Antonio, and hang out past midnight. The celebration highlights Contemporary Art Month.
So if you want to be mobile in downtown San Antonio this Saturday, you might have to get a little creative. Good luck!
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Commuting Passenger rail: Austin
by Patrick
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Austin back in the passenger rail game
Promo image from Capital Metro
After a 70-year hiatus, much debate and then a yearlong delay, Austin will soon join American cities that have added passenger rail back into the commuting mix.
On March 22, Capital Metro will start running diesel trains on a 32-mile route with nine stops from Leander to downtown Austin, the agency recently announced. A one-way trip will last a little more than an hour and the regular fare will be $3.
Trains will come by every 35 minutes during peak travel times, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Nearly 200 people can fit in a car, including standing room.
To match the capacity of a highway lane, you’d have to hook up three cars at a time and run them every 15 minutes.
Metro shelled out $105 million for its rail system, a figure that doesn’t include some direct costs, the Statesman said. Still, at about $3.3 million a mile, using an old rail line, the city struck a bargain as far as rail projects go.
Automobiles History Roads Travel
by Hugh
Comments Off on On the road to Bigfoot, Texas
On the road to Bigfoot, Texas
T Fords of Texas at the Bigfoot museum
Last Saturday, March 6, I had the great pleasure of taking part in a “T Fords of Texas” club cruise around Medina County. Led by Castroville residents Tom Campbell and Wayne McBryde, a group of nine Ts traversed the area’s handsome back roads under a glowering sky, dense with dark and darker grey clouds, too high to actually rain, but very dramatic. In an open runabout T driven by Gary Bethke, I had the full opportunity to take in the wintry landscape with occasional hints of spring, such as isolated peach and red bud trees in delightfully unexpected full bloom.