Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The key word you're using is "build". Building, as we all know, costs money. Where is the money going to come from?
Hint: before you say it, it's not going to come from the gas tax.
Ok, let me rephrase that. If the goal is to reduce to congestion, assuming that's the goal , why not CHANGE a lane to an existing lane to an HOV lane? Surely we don't need a toll or tax to restripe a lane and cut down on all that dreaded congestion?
I was especially fond of this quote in this thread:
"As long as roads are free in urban areas, they are going to be congested. The only way to reduce traffic congestion is by charging people for it's direct usage."
TxDOT has got to be the most lethargic agency in this state. City planners in all urban areas of this state have encouraged rapid, up front growth with no infrastructure plan in place.
The City of San Antonio's new city manager was hired because she experienced the full volley of urban growth in Phoenix over a decade, which is exactly what San Antonio hopes to duplicate in another decade. In the 80's, Atlanta had similar growing pains to ours and I guarantee you this will not end for another decade or so. You can vote to make the entire city toll roads and it will not bring the relief you desire. Creating toll roads will just end up separating more money from the citizen's wallets without much relief. Multiply what you would pay for toll roads by 240, the equivalent number of days in a typical work year and see what tolls will cost you on an annual basis.
How about HOV lanes to encourage people to carpool and have less congested roads?
HOV lanes are no help either except for friends who happen to work and live in close proximity of each other. Plus, HOV eventually wears out its welcome when they change it to HOV2 or even HOV3 like they have on 95 South in DC. HOV is nothing more than a sparsely used reserve lane for people that just happen to have two occupants or more in the vehicle or you own a mannequin company.
Now we just need to fight the politicians to lower our property tax in exchange.
I just made a previous post on this. Politicans now officially own the electorate and can have their way. Barring some action way outside the bounds, they can do pretty much what they want. In the last century you might have had a voice. Not anymore. Everything is coin operated. Umm, make that dollar operated.
How about we lower our property AND gas taxes FIRST?
Not gonna happen and there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.
Ok, let me rephrase that. If the goal is to reduce to congestion, assuming that's the goal , why not CHANGE a lane to an existing lane to an HOV lane? Surely we don't need a toll or tax to restripe a lane and cut down on all that dreaded congestion?
I agree that the goal is to relieve congestion. However, given that much of this congestion is caused by vehicles with a single occupant within them (and I admit, this would describe my car 99% of the time), exactly how much congestion do you think it would cause, say, on a 4-lane freeway like 1604, if you closed of one of the lanes to 99% of the drivers in SA, thus forcing them into the one remaining lane??
Now, I agree that car-pooling is a smart idea, but TXDot knows the way SA (and Texas) drivers operate. We like having our own cars, so TXDot is trying to build freeways to accommodate that. You can't have the argument both ways; in other words, you can't say "TXDot is trying to force me to pay tolls", and then turn around and suggest that TXDot force us all to carpool. Sacrifice will have to be made somewhere, by someone. Are you willing to be one of them? If they did make HOV lanes, would you put forth the effort to find people to carpool with, perhaps driving miles out of your way to pick them up just so you can drive in an HOV lane? Solutions aren't as easy as just snapping your fingers or restriping a lane, I'm afraid.
Case in point: Not one overpass has been built on 281 in the most congested areas where it is badly needed. Another perfect example are the newly finished intersections on 1604 at Potranco and/or Military. Not one overpass and the traffic is still as bad as it was when they were contructing it over the past few years. How hard it is to build a few overpasses?
Perhaps you'd like to get out there and show us how easy it is
I think the point mastercone was making was even now, as the traffic problems are blatently obvious, TXDOT still builds highways the same old way. Creating traffic problems. They know what they are doing. It's much easier to sell toll roads in conjested areas so let's create some conjestion.
It would be much easier and wiser to plan for more traffic that you know will be coming tha to build highways in an irresponsible manner and then have to come back and fix them later. Why would they not do that? See mastercones earlier post for a possible answer.
Texas is the largest state in the lower 48. This isn't the northeast where you can drive through a half dozen states in a few hours and the population density is more vertical than horizontal. North to south or east to west, it takes the better part of a day of non-stop driving to cover this state. The state of Rhode Island is smaller than Bexar county.
How many of us have neighbors or know folks that work in the vicinity of our daily work areas? The problem in San Antonio is that most have a commute of 20 minutes or less so this kills the popularity of carpooling.
City & county planners get an "F" for failing to take precise care in shaping the future development of this city and surrounding areas. This city and county are allowing the developers to run roughshod over the entire area and this results in the immense growing pains that we are experiencing.
Lousy traffic is not a natural result of any development that occurs in a given location. It's a direct result of no planning and development and sheer growth at any expense, especially for the purpose of wantonly expanding the community for political or financial purposes, etc.
Never mind that we have no graduates in this state from the best traffic engineering school in the land, wherever that might be located. This fact alone is more demonstrative of my first point. Take a look at Medina county. There, the county has an ordinance that prevents developers from buying an acreage tract in the county and building homes or selling lots that are less than 1.5 acres in size. Medina is the last hold out of surrounding counties to the development hysteria that has already long since permeated our county.
If Bexar and surrounding counties had maintained a similar policy, we wouldn't have the triple stacked traffic that we see today. The reality is that all of the money hungry tax entities want all of the new homes built in their respective counties so they can have a cut of all of the revenue, etc. You can put 6 homes on a 1.5 acre parcel in this county. In other words, Bexar gets 6 times their money in property taxes not to mention at a much higher rate than Medina county. In fact, if you have the time, take a drive to Castroville or Hondo, Texas and see the last bastion of model planning in southwest Texas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oldmanshirt
I agree that the goal is to relieve congestion. However, given that much of this congestion is caused by vehicles with a single occupant within them (and I admit, this would describe my car 99% of the time), exactly how much congestion do you think it would cause, say, on a 4-lane freeway like 1604, if you closed of one of the lanes to 99% of the drivers in SA, thus forcing them into the one remaining lane??
Now, I agree that car-pooling is a smart idea, but TXDot knows the way SA (and Texas) drivers operate. We like having our own cars, so TXDot is trying to build freeways to accommodate that. You can't have the argument both ways; in other words, you can't say "TXDot is trying to force me to pay tolls", and then turn around and suggest that TXDot force us all to carpool. Sacrifice will have to be made somewhere, by someone. Are you willing to be one of them? If they did make HOV lanes, would you put forth the effort to find people to carpool with, perhaps driving miles out of your way to pick them up just so you can drive in an HOV lane? Solutions aren't as easy as just snapping your fingers or restriping a lane, I'm afraid.
It's easy to be an armchair quarterback. I agree this city has evidenced little or no desire to control it's sprawl. I don't like this any more than the next person, but it doesn't do any good to say "should woulda coulda". The problem exists, so what are the solutions? Let's hear them if you have them. Blame TXDot, SA, Bexar county, Rick Perry, and Santa Claus if you want to, but you also have to be able to come up with a solution to the problem. We haven't seen alot of viable alternate solutions. HOV lanes and light rail are two alternatives, but who is going to use them? It seems most people's idea of a solution is to say "TXDot is a bunch of liars and crooks, so whatever TxDot is for, I'm against!"
It was the 1990 campaign for Texas governor when Clayton Williams handed the 1990 gubernatorial election to Ann Richards on a platter when he said "Rape is like bad weather. As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."
The answer you seek is similar to the quotation above. The traffic mess is NOT going to be fixed anytime soon and when it does get fixed you WILL pay for it and the government will set the price you WILL pay.
I have left enough information in this thread to completely inform you of the problem and likewise, it is more than enough information for you to draw your own conclusions.
HOV lanes, the "mouse and cheese traps" are losers as ONLY 10% of the traveling public is rewarded with a high speed lane while the rest of the populace languishes in the other lanes. Even when HOV becomes encouraging or massively successful, you will see HOV2 or HOV3 lanes like many areas in the northeast. Once you get to a level of 20% HOV compliance(20% or more of the traveling public are using HOV lanes), you then have to increase it to HOV + 2 passengers or even more. HOV is a loser. If you have never experienced it then you should have never brought it up.
Light rail is 20-30 years too late. In the late 70's, San Antonio adopted a .5 cent sales tax for the VIA bus transit system. Now that same system has added another .5% just awhile back. VIA now gets 1% of every dollar you spend that is sales taxable and for what? Mostly so the increasingly inefficient bureaucracy can expand and help itself to more of the public trough.
Truth be told, America stopped investing in its infrastructure decades ago. Long gone are the days where new highways are laid and new infrastructure projects are undertaken. If you just look at Bexar county alone, there have been no new infrastructure projects except for the Alamodome(now empty with no team) and the new ATT Arena. Every other project has been a patch and replace boondoggle. Look at the millions that are being spent to extend the riverwalk. Was that the best use of your tax dollars or could the city have used some of that money to fix an eyesore near where you live? Get a clue. Citizens are no longer the priority but just a revenue source.
Bexar county's new budget has exploded with millions in cash, thanks largely to substantially higher tax appraisals all over the county rising at least 10% and a lot more for the coming year. Now they are only focused on entertaining funding of sports complexes for UTSA, St Mary's, and Trinity. Do they want to fix infrastructure? No. Will they if you call and remind them? No. Do they care? No.
The only way you will ever see any relief for all of the problems and ailments that surround you is to fire each and every one of the self-serving bureaucrats at all echelons of government. Since we know that is not likely, the only recourse is for you to either move out to the sticks or lay back and try to enjoy it. It doesn't get any prettier than that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oldmanshirt
It's easy to be an armchair quarterback. I agree this city has evidenced little or no desire to control it's sprawl. I don't like this any more than the next person, but it doesn't do any good to say "should woulda coulda". The problem exists, so what are the solutions? Let's hear them if you have them. Blame TXDot, SA, Bexar county, Rick Perry, and Santa Claus if you want to, but you also have to be able to come up with a solution to the problem. We haven't seen alot of viable alternate solutions. HOV lanes and light rail are two alternatives, but who is going to use them? It seems most people's idea of a solution is to say "TXDot is a bunch of liars and crooks, so whatever TxDot is for, I'm against!"
I'd like to see a law banning the gas tax fund from being dipped into for anything other than its intended purpose - roads.
A few years ago I drove I-95 from NJ to VA and back every weekend. The enter/exit areas that are tolled caused backups, some of them substantial, even with a smartpass (whatever it's called).
A few years ago I drove I-95 from NJ to VA and back every weekend. The enter/exit areas that are tolled caused backups, some of them substantial, even with a smartpass (whatever it's called).
It's called EZPass, and the worst troll plazas I've ever had to deal with are on I95 heading into/out of Delaware. Even I95/I895 going through Baltimore are drivable outside of rush hour. I've seen multi-mile backups at noon on a -Sunday- heading into Delaware. That's just stupid.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
, why not CHANGE a lane to an existing lane to an HOV lane? Surely we don't need a toll or tax to restripe a lane and cut down on all that dreaded congestion?
If we tax air, will everyone leave?
