SH 130 toll road (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio: maintenance, taxes, live in)

[case44]

State Highway 130 will be just fine despite the expense. It will still be a good alternative to I-35 when it does become backed up. Keep in mind that Pflugerville, Georgetown, and Manor will experience growth over time. And TXDOT will eventually have to rebuild I-35 through Austin, anyway, so that road will come in handy, whether or not SH 130 will fulfill what planners had originally intended.

[love roses]

I remember a time when the Sam Houston Toll Roads were a ghost town, and now they are so backed up with traffic they are pretty much indistinguishable from all the other freeways in Houston. I anticipate this will eventually happen to I30. The road actually saves me extra time because I don't have to hit all those lights on 79 on my way to 35.

[Austinitegirl]

Originally Posted by jobert

I guess my point is that the toll road was to alleviate traffic on I-35 by bypassing downtown - the rational being that truckers will pay extra to drive out of the way to avoid the downtown traffic, yet i-35 is still backed up with long lines of semis during morning rush hour. Can anyone attest whether 130 is actually being used? - does anyone in this forum live near it, use it, etc? Why would a toll road be built in a relatively less affluent part of town?

Whoa dude - you're getting dangerously close to implying that we be ghetto folk here in Pville. I'm not saying we swing with the big boys in the McMansions off of 360, but the houses in my neck of Pville start in the $200s, and my husband and I make more than all of my friends who live in and around the Allandale, Hyde Park neighborhoods.

I'm sure you didn't mean to make that implication, but I pass WAY more ghetto folk as I drive OUT of Austin every day than I do driving INTO the burbs, so let's watch it with the "you po folk up there don't need no fancy toll road."

I live very close to the intersection of SH 45 & 130 and I use both of them several times a day. I don't see many truckers, but I'm WAY OK with that - I don't want them on "my" toll roads. I see those as roads for the commuter residents like me - I work at UT and live in Pville. As far as I'm concerned, the trucks belong on the INTERSTATE, not on MoPac, not on the toll roads.

I won't say that I'm pleased to be double charged for a road that is only in existence because of the Wile-E-Coyote ACME city planners of Austin who've never heard of a grid system, but I am pleased that my commute has gone from almost 1.5 hours to under 45 minutes.

The toll road used to be pretty empty, but it's now pretty crowded - all the 'burbians like me who just want OFF of 35/MoPac.

Originally Posted by jobert

love roses - my point being is that why should people in eastern travis county have to pay to drive on highways?

Would you give away food to rich people, then charge everyone else to eat?

Ummm... those rich people ALREADY get their cake AND get to eat it too - can't change that. Might as well make life a little easier on the po' working folk in the burbs. But it is total crap that we have to pay so much for it.

I'll tell you a thread you SHOULD start - let's start a thread about why Cap Metro installed a metro rail line in the Cedar Park/Leander area, which has approximately HALF of the population of Pflugerville/Round Rock. I work at UT and don't actually know a SINGLE person who lives in Cedar Park/Leander, but EVERYONE I know (who doesn't live in central Austin) lives in either Pville or Round Rock. I have to drive 20 minutes to reach the closest bus stop, making mass transportation pointless.

If we really want to get traffic off of 35 - let's install a mass transit system where the PEOPLE live. Just a suggestion...

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by jobert

love roses - my point being is that why should people in eastern travis county have to pay to drive on highways?

Would you give away food to rich people, then charge everyone else to eat?

The "rich people" dont have a highway to drive on. Out west the equivalents are 620 and 360 and both are so riddled with stoplights as to be impassable during rush hour.

360 absolutely should be turned into a toll road.

[statefan]

We use it EVERY time we head south from Round Rock to the airport or any area south of downtown. We used it today as a matter of fact, to drop my DH off at the airport. I could fall asleep on the ride, but the lack of traffic is wonderful. I chose to use 35 coming back for a change of scenery, but ended up kicking myself while I was sitting in thar wonderful parking lot of traffic in downtown.

[TX Challenge]

I live where 35 & 130 merge in Georgetown. I use 35 most of the time if I go into Austin. If I see 35 backed up then I might go ahead and hop on 130 to go south.

I travel a lot and love 130 to get to the airport. Basically, I use it only if it is quicker to get somewhere like Hutto or Manor, ect. Otherwise, if traveling to past Austin, 35 seems to be just as quick, even taking traffic into consideration.

[chickenfry]

Austinitegirl; the reason you don't have rail is because you don't pay the tax. just as cedar park opted out, they now have no station (station in leander and station in far northwest austin)
btw-i pay the tax, but voted "no" on light rail.

[TexasHorseLady]

No more toll roads, please. However, SIH130 is my least disliked toll road because at least it was sold to us as a toll road (which would take 18 wheelers off of IH35, and living near the north entrance to SH130 and driving past it occasionally, and using the toll road itself more than occasionally I can say that I've seen one 18 wheeler on it ever, and LOTS on IH35 (I am never in sight of less than five 18 wheelers at any given time, often more on the stretch of IH35 that I travel most often, from North Austin on up to Jarrell).

[Spookmeister]

Either I'm a more observant commuter, or live in a parallel universe that also has a SH-130 in Austin, TX! Next time I drive on it, I'll make sure the camera is handy, pull over and take pictures of the trucks as they whiz past me. :-)
In a couple of years, we'll have threads asking why we don't have more lanes on Sh-130 and which genius engineer/designer needs to be fired. :-)

[TexasHorseLady]

Must be parallel universes, then! I made a point of observing 18-wheelers on it (or entering or exiting it at the north end) because they made SUCH a point of it being for the 18-wheelers to bypass Austin. I thought at first that it didn't go far enough (though I thought that it would be a great way to get to 290 to go down to Houston, cutting off a chunk of the travel), but I haven't seen any more since it went all the way down to 71 and beyond. Like I said, I've seen exactly 1. Now, I don't travel it at night - could that be the parallel universe?