Uncategorized: website
by Brian
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TexasHighwayMan.com update coming soon
If you’ve visited my website lately, you’ve probably noticed that it hasn’t been updated in a while (since May in fact.) I’ve had a busy summer– a big project at work that invaded some of my free time, the duties of being the father of a now 14-month old (which I have loved every minute of), and the time I’ve invested into this new blog have all left precious little time for keeping-up my website.
However, the blessings of time-off for the holidays and some personal leave will allow me to completely update and overhaul my site, hopefully by New Year’s Day. In addition to updating all the information, I will be improving the design and format, dropping some obsolete pages, and slightly re-organizing the remaining pages to be more logical and easier to navigate. My companion site about Germany will see a similar face lift shortly thereafter.
So let me offer my apologies for allowing my site to go stale. I hope you’ll enjoy the new site!
Gas taxes Laws and policies Roads Toll roads: CDAs MPO pass-through financing planning Prop 12 funds stimulus funds TURF
by Brian
5 comments
TURF: “MPO rams 37 toll projects down San Antonians’ throats”
During my daily review of transportation news, I came across this the-sky-is-falling press release by staunch toll-opponent Terri Hall and her TURF organization. As usual, TURF shows a continued lack of insight of what’s actually happening and peppers the article with their predictable array of tried-and-true rhetoric, fallacies, and mendacities as they denounce the large number of projects that are listed as possible toll and Comprehensive Development Agreement (CDA) projects in the new 25-year regional transportation plan. Yes, there are a substantial number of toll-option projects in the plan. However, the outright panic by TURF is premature and demonstrates their failure to see and comprehend the bigger picture and actually jeopardizes badly-needed future projects.
Toll roads: Prop 12 funds Tommy Adkisson US 281 Wurzbach Parkway
by Brian
3 comments
The man who doesn’t get it
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about “the man who gets it”, that man being state Senator John Carona of Dallas, who understands our current transportation funding crisis enough to risk political suicide by suggesting an increase in the state’s gas tax to fix it (the correct solution in my not-so-humble opinion.) Today, I’m going to write about the person who has shown once again to be deserving of the title of “the man who just doesn’t get it”: Tommy Adkisson, the current chairman of the San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization’s (MPO) policy board.
As you may recall, Adkisson was the official instigator of a vote in October to drop the toll option from the MPO’s plans regarding future US 281 and Loop 1604 projects. That proposal went down in flames when the MPO board voted 13-5 against it, mainly because it had no objective engineering study to support it, something even an amateur elected official would realize is essential to substantiate your case. Even the San Antonio Express-News editorial board labeled his actions “erratic and ill-considered”. I, however, was willing to let Tommy off the hook for this boondoggle since it was obvious that outspoken toll opponent Terri Hall was the real culprit pulling the strings behind the scenes and I believed he just didn’t understand what he was getting himself into. His declaration after the vote that he was done with toll road issues and wanted to move on to more substantive discussions, such as mass transit, also led me to believe that he was sincerely jaded on the whole 281 debacle.
But obviously not.
Construction and closures Roads: Jones-Maltsberger railroad crossing stimulus funds widening
by Brian
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Relief coming for Jones-Maltsberger bottleneck
Long a bane for shoppers trying to get to the Quarry Market from US 281 or vice-versa, improvements are finally on the way for the railroad crossing on Jones-Maltsberger.
Last week, the city announced that it had secured federal stimulus and state funds to widen Jones-Maltsberger. Presently, the street narrows from four lanes down to two at the tracks, then widens again back to four lanes on the other side. The improvements will consist of widening the road at the crossing to four lanes (two in each direction) plus a dedicated right-turn lane for traffic turning onto US 281 northbound.
According to the city, construction is set to start next February and be completed by the end of summer.
So what took so long to get this job done? My recollection is that there was some dispute between the city and TxDOT as to who was responsible for that section of roadway, not to mention the fact that any work involving a railroad crossing also has to include the railroad. Ergo, it took a while to get it all sorted-out. Then it was simply a matter of securing the funding, which is typically the sticking-point on most road projects.
UPDATE 1/8/10: San Antonio Express-News story
It’s that time of year again!
On the way home from work one day last week, I noticed that TxDOT workers had started unfolding the “Watch for ice on bridge” signs. That and the delivery of the phone books marks the beginning of the holiday season for me (although the latter is almost certainly nearing the end of the road, so-to-speak.)
Some folks wonder why the signs are displayed when there’s no ice or even the possibility of it. Well, some time ago (nobody can recall just when, but it was at least a decade ago), TxDOT changed their policy to display these signs from just before the date of the earliest average freeze for an area until after the average last freeze. Prior to that, the signs would only be unfolded when freezing precipitation was forecast. This meant that TxDOT crews often had to scramble to get the signs ready for an incoming storm. Also, as you might imagine, it requires considerable manpower (and thus expense) to go out and unfold every sign, then go back after the storm and fold them back up. Plus, there was always the chance of a freak storm hitting without warning, meaning there would not be time to get the signs opened. So the decision was made to just leave them unfolded for the entire time that ice is typically possible. Yes, it means that most of the time they’re not applicable, but if nothing else, they do raise awareness of the dangers of the season.
New TransGuide site online
The new TransGuide website, as discussed in a previous post, is now online.
Funding approved to complete Wurzbach Pkwy
The Texas Transportation Commission (TTC) yesterday approved $130 million in Proposition 12 bond funds to complete the Wurzbach Parkway in San Antonio. The parkway project, which began in the late ’80s as a beltline to connect I-35 to I-10 across North San Antonio, has been built piecemeal over the years as funding has become available. Earlier this year, TxDOT updated the environmental studies to make the project “shovel-ready” in case federal stimulus funds became available. That didn’t materialize, but that preparation paid-off Thursday because the Legislature had mandated that the first batch of Prop 12 funds be spent by September 2011. Therefore, the TTC prioritized projects that could be started quickly. Because of that prep work the local TxDOT folks did, Wurzbach Parkway fit that criteria nicely.
Toll roads: overpasses US 281
by Brian
Comments Off on I’ve got an idea: just build overpasses!
I’ve got an idea: just build overpasses!
(Note: Significant edits were made to this posting at about 5:25pm on 11/19/09. The edits consisted of polishing the wording; the gist of the information was not changed.)
Several recent letters to the editor in the San Antonio Express-News have presented what their writers obviously consider to be an epiphany to solving the problems on US 281 North: just build some overpasses!
Wow, what a great idea!!! Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before??
Well, they have.
Who put the “free” in “freeway”?
The motto of San Antonio toll road opponents is “Keep our FREEways free!” However, the term freeway doesn’t really mean that it’s free to drive on. Now admittedly my Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary has “a toll-free highway” as its second definition for freeway. But that use is purely colloquial and can lead to a lot of misunderstandings when talking about toll roads. Besides, if that was the true definition of a freeway, then the little residential street in front of most of our homes would be a “freeway”, and we all instinctively know that that’s just not the case.
So then, just what is the definition of a freeway?
Commuting Safety: pedestrians sidewalks
by Brian
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Walking in San Antonio not as dangerous
Last week, Transportation For America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership released a report called Dangerous By Design that exposes what most of us here in San Antonio know all too well– that being a pedestrian on local streets can be a dangerous proposition. However, compared to the other three big Texas metros– and most other metros nationally for that matter– San Antonio is not too bad.