Construction and closures Roads: Wurzbach Parkway
by Brian
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Final section of Wurzbach Parkway officially breaks ground
It’s been 30 years in the making. Today, local officials gathered at Walker Ranch Park to officially break ground on the final section of the Wurzbach Parkway. The segment, from West Ave. to Jones-Maltsberger, is actually already under construction, along with the two adjacent segments. When they’re completed in 2014, the long-awaited east-west thoroughfare will finally be complete.
Speaking at today’s groundbreaking were the Wolffs (Nelson and Kevin), Lyle Larson, local TxDOT district engineer Mario Medina, and TxDOT’s new interim executive director John Barton. Somewhat surprisingly, there was little media coverage of the event; only KABB and KTSA had stories on it.
For more information about the three current projects, see my site here:
Texas Highway Man – Wurzbach Parkway
Speed limits going up
If you have a lead foot, then you’ll love this news.
First, if you hadn’t heard already, the Legislature earlier this year approved– and the governor signed– a bill that would raise the statutory maximum speed limit for state highways to 75 mph (excluding, of course, the existing 80 mph speed limit on some sections of I-10 and I-20 out in West Texas.) Texas now joins all but a handful of states west of the Mississippi with a 75 mph top speed. The limit can only be increased on roads where an engineering study determines that it’s safe to do so, but if past practice holds true, that should be the majority of roads that are currently capped at 70 mph.
Even better, the bill finally eliminates the matrix of speed limits for daytime/nighttime and cars/trucks. All speed limits will now apply to all vehicles at all times. Texas was the only state to still have a different nighttime limit and one of the few with a separate limit for trucks.
The new law takes effect September 1st. A separate effort to increase the maximum speed to 85 mph died.
More recently, the speed limit on the northern arc of Loop 410 has gone up from 60 mph to 65 mph. With the recent completion of construction to widen the freeway to 10 lanes, TxDOT completed a speed study that showed the 85th percentile speed being 65 mph, so in accordance with agency engineering guidelines, TxDOT asked the City of San Antonio to officially increase the speed limit to 65 mph north of US 90. Signs went up this past week.
I also recently noticed that the speed limit along Loop 1604 south of Braun Rd. increased from 55 mph to 60 mph.
Passenger rail: streetcars
by Patrick
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San Antonio rail controversy gets ugly
Arguing about light rail is rich with possibilities.
And it’s so easy to galvanize issues: Do we spend hard-earned taxes on transit or roads? Do we revive downtown cores or unclog asphalt arteries to suburbs? What neighborhoods should get the coveted rails or lanes?
The right strategic mix is the sane solution, but agreeing on the right blend can drive decision-makers batty. To wit, the 2000 light-rail election in which VIA Metropolitan Transit was buried first by critics and then by voters. The 2-to-1 defeat silenced local rail advocates for almost a decade.
But now VIA’s latest rail plan – a $180 million project to build a 2.7-mile east-west streetcar line through downtown as well as construct two major transit centers and two suburban bus park-and-rides – seems to be careening around the same pitfalls.
Roads: Braun Road Gilbeau Road Loop 1604 Shaenfield Road superstreet
by Brian
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First Loop 1604 superstreet intersection opens tomorrow
The first of two superstreet intersections on Loop 1604 West is set to open Thursday morning in time for rush hour. Crews have been working this week to pave and complete the other finishing touches. The final work will be done tonight to convert the intersection to its new configuration.
Starting tomorrow morning, traffic coming from New Gilbeau will no longer be able to turn left onto Loop 1604 southbound. Instead, all traffic will turn right with those wishing to go southbound then taking the new turnaround about 1,500 feet downstream. Traffic headed southbound on 1604 will still be able to turn left onto New Gilbeau.
First I-69 signs to go up in Robstown
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has given approval to sign the first segment of Interstate 69 in Texas. The 6-mile section of US 77 stretching from I-37 to Robstown just west of Corpus Christi will likely get the signs later this year. That section of road was upgraded to interstate standards by TxDOT back in 2006 and is part of the larger I-69 corridor plan for Texas. That plan also includes US 59 through East and South Texas and US 281 south of I-37. Lower Rio Grande Valley officials are also hoping to get US 83 through the Valley added to the corridor designation. The Valley is the largest urban area in the US not connected to the Interstate system.
Signing the segments that are at Interstate-standards is an important first step in the overall I-69 project. Besides the public awareness it brings, it also allows the route to receive special federal Interstate maintenance funding and makes obtaining funding to extend it south a bit easier.
Rebirth of a blog
It's all his fault! 🙂
It’s not like there hasn’t been anything to talk about. The 281/1604 interchange started construction earlier this year amid some very interesting legal proceedings. Work also started on the superstreet out on Loop 1604 as well as a variety of other smaller projects. The Legislative session came and went with no progress on transportation funding. And a certain toll road opponent has been in the news a few times lately reminding us that there still needs to be a contrasting narrative.
But the past seven months has been crazy for me. I started the year with a brand new baby boy, my wife’s and my second joy. Daddy-duty has kept me quite busy as did several unusually consuming projects at my day job. On top of that, the general lassitude that comes with now being 40 kicked-in, all of which combined to relegate my longtime enjoyment of all things transportation-related—including writing this blog—to the back burner for a while. But things have slackened lately, meaning that I can hopefully get back to blogging about local transportation issues and updating my website, which had also gone dormant for the first half of this year. I probably won’t be as prolific as I used to be, but I’m aiming not to go seven months between posts!
So if you’re still out there, thanks for sticking with us. I’m in touch with my co-bloggers Patrick and Hugh and hopefully they’ll be back in the mix here soon as well.
Cheers,
–Brian
I love it when I’m right…
Back from a few weeks of daddy-duty, and this caught my eye right off the bat…
One year ago, almost to the day, I posted here defending the TxDOT $1 billion “accounting error” that toll opponents, gubernatorial candidates, and other TxDOT-haters were using to justify their anti-TxDOT rhetoric. In it, I noted that if people would just take a few minutes to understand what happened, they would realize that the “error” was in reality quite harmless, easy to make, and, most importantly, that no money had actually been lost.
Well, lo-and-behold, the TxDOT Restructure Council’s recent final report with recommendations on how to improve that agency included a footnote about the error and guess what– it completely validated my position. From the Ft. Worth Star:
And, the report included a miscellaneous note about the 2007 fiasco involving a $1.1 billion “accounting error” that briefly led to a statewide shut down of road work.
The report concluded that in fact there was no actual accounting error — and the department didn’t actually lose $1.1 billion, as many critics have alleged. Instead, the department was in effect a victim of its own dissemination of inaccurate information.
In September 2007, the report noted, a memo was sent to all district engineers regarding the next year’s letting schedule. The memo informed them that $4.1 billion would be available for construction projects, but that figure was inaccurate because it included $600 million in bond funding that had been double-counted internally, and $500 million from the Texas Mobility Fund that wasn’t available.
Steps were quickly taken to correct the mistake and prevent it in the future, the report noted.
The full report is available here:
http://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/restructure/report_010511.pdf
The discussion of the accounting error is on page 55 of the report.
Oil and gas prices Travel
by Patrick
Comments Off on Gas prices top $3 a gallon in unusual run-up
Gas prices top $3 a gallon in unusual run-up
Just two days before Christmas, average U.S. gas prices have topped $3 a gallon. And you can expect prices to keep rising into spring and summer.
This isn’t a typical run-up.
Prices usually peak in the summer and slide down after Labor Day. In recent autumns, regular unleaded dropped an average of 22 cents a gallon, even when you exclude the freakish plummet in 2008 after the economy popped.
But this autumn, gas prices shot up 30 cents a gallon.
Construction and closures History Roads: construction interchange Loop 410 Texas Department of Transportation widening
by Brian
1 comment
Loop 410 is done!
Ribbon-cutting for Loop 410 expansion
For the past 30 years, San Antonians have complained about construction along Loop 410. But no more. As Mayor Julian Castro said during today’s Loop 410 ribbon-cutting ceremony, “the headaches are over!”
The last leg of the nearly $1 billion “410 for SA” project to improve Loop 410 across the northside of San Antonio is just about done with just a few final “punch list” items remaining, so TxDOT and other local officials– including the Mayor, County Judge Nelson Wolff, VIA boss Keith Parker, and city councilman John Clamp– took the opportunity today to celebrate the culmination of 30 years of work that widened Loop 410 from six to 10 lanes from Perrin-Beitel to Culebra and built new interchanges at US 281, San Pedro, I-10, and Bandera Rd. All of these improvements have helped get Loop 410 “ahead of the curve” with regards to traffic and has significantly cut congestion and delays throughout the corridor. And the completion comes just in time: 2009 traffic counts show that Loop 410 has regained its position as the busiest highway in San Antonio with an average of 215,000 vehicles per day between I-10 and US 281.
Oil and gas prices Travel: Thanksgiving
by Patrick
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Being thankful will cost you more this year
You’re going to pay a little more for a lot of things this Thanksgiving.
If you drive anywhere, gas will cost about 20 cents a gallon more than a year ago. Texas prices average $2.68 today.
If you fly, tickets will cost about 4 percent more. On top of that, at some 70 airports, including San Antonio’s, you now face security scanners that see through your clothes or agents who will touch in ways that few people would dare.
Staying home? Cooking a traditional turkey meal will cost 13 percent more in Texas.
Meanwhile, 9.6 percent of U.S. workers are looking for jobs. Experts, revising predictions, now say unemployment will remain higher than thought for years to come.
Yet, Americans seem ready to celebrate, an AAA survey indicates.
About 42.2 million people will make a trip of at least 50 miles this holiday weekend, up 11 percent from a year ago. On average, they’ll travel 816 miles and spend $495, nearly the same as last year. Nine out of 10 will go by car.
“When purse strings and heart strings compete in a tug-of-war, especially at this time of year, the heart wins out,” AAA President Robert Darbelnet said.
And so it has. Some things you can’t put a price on.
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