"If we don't get no tolls, we don't get no rolls"
It seems that the city of San Antonio is planning to put a toll road on 1604 from I-35 to I-10. This is a pretty good chunk of road, 19 - 20 miles I believe. The reason they say is because of all the horrible traffic at 1604 and 281 which is halfway from I-35 to I-10.
While I'll admit that intersection gets pretty bad, I don't understand the city's logic in adding a toll road right there. Lets see, we have a 4 lane highway (2 lanes on each side) with bad traffic and we need to help it get better. So lets put a toll road there. Not too smart. The 1604 - 281 interchange gets busy for a reason, its the only way for those that live in the Hill Country to get to the city. Yes there are some back roads, but they'll take you twice as long. If there we're quicker ways for the thousands of people to get home besides 1604 and 281, we wouldn't have this problem. So instead of trying to make the 'quicker way', they want to make it worse.
Aside from the 1604-281 interchange, 1604 is still a 4 lane highway with a small medium between the 2 sets of lanes. The city's idea is to add another lane to each side for either something of another. I need to read up on that part still. The question is, 'is there room for another lane between the 2 sets?'. Yes and no. Yes there is room. No there is not room because of all the overpasses over 1604. The support for the overpasses go right dab in the middle of the lanes the city is thinking about adding. Needless to say this should be interesting.
I'ld like to point out another observation. While driving through Houston a couple of times I've noticed that even with their 8 lane highway, their toll roads get backed up all day long. Maybe its me but that didn't seem to alleviate traffic....
While I'll admit that intersection gets pretty bad, I don't understand the city's logic in adding a toll road right there. Lets see, we have a 4 lane highway (2 lanes on each side) with bad traffic and we need to help it get better. So lets put a toll road there. Not too smart. The 1604 - 281 interchange gets busy for a reason, its the only way for those that live in the Hill Country to get to the city. Yes there are some back roads, but they'll take you twice as long. If there we're quicker ways for the thousands of people to get home besides 1604 and 281, we wouldn't have this problem. So instead of trying to make the 'quicker way', they want to make it worse.
Aside from the 1604-281 interchange, 1604 is still a 4 lane highway with a small medium between the 2 sets of lanes. The city's idea is to add another lane to each side for either something of another. I need to read up on that part still. The question is, 'is there room for another lane between the 2 sets?'. Yes and no. Yes there is room. No there is not room because of all the overpasses over 1604. The support for the overpasses go right dab in the middle of the lanes the city is thinking about adding. Needless to say this should be interesting.
I'ld like to point out another observation. While driving through Houston a couple of times I've noticed that even with their 8 lane highway, their toll roads get backed up all day long. Maybe its me but that didn't seem to alleviate traffic....
posted by Jokerr at
7/15/2004 07:09:00 AM
1 Comments:
/me looks for two cents...
Ok I thought I would chime in on this topic. Making 1604 a toll road is a bad idea in my opinion. The highway was already paid for with tax dollars, so the problem seems to be a failure to handle the amount of growth that has occured on that area over the past four or so years. Its not like the city of San Antonio didnt see this expansion, I am sure they were involved somewhat with the sale of some of the land.
The traffic on 1604 is not an "all of the sudden" type situation. The city of San Antonio is also not new to handling traffic problems. Since the mid to late 80s there has been construction on IH 10, and Loop 410 to expand each of those, and now they are working on the 10-410 interchange to handle more traffic (up to 60% more allegedly). I am sure there have been various other projects around the city that I failed to mention, but you get the gist of it.
Anyhow, simply making it a toll road would not guarentee the funds needed for expansion. The amount of traffic would drop considerably on that route so as a direct result of this loss of commuters on this road, fewer dollars would be generated via the tolls. So what then, raise the tolls? You see the problem here.
The beltway in H-Town is a perfect example that toll roads are not a "good" solution. I disagree with Josh on this point because it is not all that congested all the time. In December they raised the toll there from $1.00 to $1.50. If you ask some the Beltway 8 is a mistake, and others should learn from other peoples failures...like the local govenment of SA.
By
Rainman, at 7/16/2004 12:45:00 AM
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