Traffic Control (Alamo: house, neighborhood, school)

[pobre]

I live near a nationally televised, mega church in Stone Oak. They have a large exodus (see what I did there?) of cars Sunday mornings, I get that. They have LEO, I get that. What I do not get is why they will shut off both lanes of Stone Oak parkway to let cars exit. Cone off one, SOP people still have a lane, and they have a lane. They do the same on 1604, except I believe they only cone off one lane.

And if 1, I mean ONE car approaches that exit, they will stop everyone else.

Our church hires LEO at busy times,such as Christmas Eve (exit on 1604, 3 lane section), but they put flares down for one lane, leaving the other 2 open.

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by pobre

I live near a nationally televised, mega church in Stone Oak. They have a large exodus (see what I did there?) of cars Sunday mornings, I get that. They have LEO, I get that. What I do not get is why they will shut off both lanes of Stone Oak parkway to let cars exit. Cone off one, SOP people still have a lane, and they have a lane. They do the same on 1604, except I believe they only cone off one lane.

And if 1, I mean ONE car approaches that exit, they will stop everyone else.

Our church hires LEO at busy times,such as Christmas Eve (exit on 1604, 3 lane section), but they put flares down for one lane, leaving the other 2 open.

I made the mistake of going out stone oak instead of waiting to turn out the frontage road from one of the apartments in the area Sunday and it took me almost 45minutes to get back to 1604 from said church.

[Neshomamench]

Can you imagine how bad it would be without the help of cops?

[Azure110]

Originally Posted by Neshomamench

Can you imagine how bad it would be without the help of cops?

Which cops? The ones that can direct traffic or can't?

[huckster]

I did spend a number of years away from San Antonio some in Detroit, Michigan, Neshomamench , and it is of course the home of the modern automobile assembly line and.... traffic cops.
Lots of history there too , just like San Antonio and fact is, that city is ten years older. (French)
It only took ninety minutes for Ford to produce a Model T. Around the clock. Top speed 45 MPH.

There were no traffic cops on downtown Detroit streets, home of the first concrete paved Rd. M-1-. So, It was mahem on four wheelsback at the turn of the twentieth century that occurred on Detroit city streets. No stop signs or traffic lamps or yielding for pedestrians,no speed limits, nothing. So; there were- bad Collisions, pedestrians mud covered or ran over (fatalities) etc. Yes, uh, is the home of the first traffic lamp also.
Lots of cars were on the Downtown City streets along with horse drawn carts and streetcars- noone had any drivers licenses. Imagine no cops.
Eventually the traffic cop evolved ; these were stationed on foot inside elevated wooden shacks over the downtown sidewalks. Exactly like a prison guard shack - ten feet above downtown Detroit streets so the traffic and the drivers could be visually monitored from overhead by the cops .
The Stop (red)! or Go (green)! signage protruded out the side of these covered shacks and which you'd darn well better obey and stop that Model T ! Let the pedestrians and cross traffic get through. Speed limits were put in place. Traffic flow was achieved. Women could not physically hand crank a Model T over and it was advised that men start the thing left handed because in case of an engine back fire it would break an arm.
The electric starter changed everything.

It was pretty bad without cops you say? Absolutely.

Originally Posted by Neshomamench

Can you imagine how bad it would be without the help of cops?

[Neshomamench]

Originally Posted by Azure110

Which cops? The ones that can direct traffic or can't?

Articulate exactly how they are directing traffic poorly.



There are consideration that the cop has that a person stuck in a car is unlikely to understand.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by ged_782

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned schools -- particularly, pedestrian crossings controlled by school crossing guards, and school bus loading/unloading stops.


I worked in an office building here in the 1980s that was a couple of doors down from a large apartment community. The kids in that community would line up on the sidewalk in front in the morning, and then the school bus would stop on the street to load. All the traffic going both directions on the street would have to stop for the flashing red lights, which would take a few minutes, due to the number of kids needing to be loaded and seated. It seemed to never fail that I would encounter that on may way to work in the morning.

And that's a problem, because?

Drivers like to ignore the red lights next to our neighborhood school, instead racing through them, only to have to slam on their brakes 50 feet along because there's another crosswalk.

It would seem that if you want to avoid it, you'd find another route to work. That's what I've done in the past. It's usually only between about 7:30-8:15 and 3:20-3:40.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by WVREDLEG

Spurs home games? Much more intricate traffic disruption, 41-50+ times a year (always factor them going the distance in the playoffs, of course) and much longer than the 30 minutes to empty a church parking lot or a shift at USAA or Valero. Nothing against The Spurs..........but every home game has not one, but two extended periods of special traffic control--coming and going.

There is not much going in that part of town, but anyone getting caught in that vortex going anywhere but AT&T Center wouldn't mind stopping for a few minutes while the church parking lot empties out. It used to crack me up watching the big SUVs getting run down by police after plowing through the orange cones because they were in the wrong lane at the wrong time. You think you are going straight at the next light? Nope. Making a left anywhere? Nope.

You get used to it. I used to live in a small city with a HUGE football presence. The whole city shut down during games, and for the entire morning before the game (because tailgating) roads were one-way going towards the stadium and for 2 hours or so after the game all one way going away from the stadium. It was annoying the first time, then you just learned to avoid that area or go on foot.


I do get annoyed when I'm stuck in traffic, but if it's a regular thing - like every Sunday, every Wednesday, why not learn an alternate route to avoid it on those days?

I live near the Alamodome and Institute for Texan Cultures and we get slammed all the time with closed freeway off-ramps and road blocks and our whole neighborhood gets blocked off. It's definitely annoying, esp because I often don't know ahead of time. We really need to find a better method of alerting neighbors to events at those places.

[ged_782]

Originally Posted by Chaka

And that's a problem, because?

The OP was complaining of businesses, and to a larger extent, churches; where LEOs are hired to direct traffic, and sometimes close traffic lanes, during peak arrival and departure times. I was just pointing out school-related traffic delays I've experienced that are worse than what I've typically seen at churches and businesses.


Not complaining, as those are situations where little else can be done, aside from choosing an alternate route, or planning ahead for the expected traffic delays.

[Hedgehog_Mom]

Originally Posted by Chaka

I live near the Alamodome and Institute for Texan Cultures and we get slammed all the time with closed freeway off-ramps and road blocks and our whole neighborhood gets blocked off. It's definitely annoying, esp because I often don't know ahead of time. We really need to find a better method of alerting neighbors to events at those places.

Does your neighborhood use Nextdoor? Sometimes it can be pretty irritating but it's also a good way to find out what's going on around the neighborhood or the surrounding streets.