The plan for MoPac, north of Parmer, is for all of the mainlanes to
be tolled at a minimum of 75 cents (27 cents / mile.) The interesting
thing about this section is that the frontage roads will be
discontinuous. Near Howard Ln the frontage road stops and you have to
detour several blocks on congested streets to get back on the frontage
road. TxDot promised that all existing capacity would remain free after
the toll road opens, so that was a lie.
South of Parmer, the plan is to add one new lane in each direction.
These will be "inside" lanes, near the train tracks. They will have a
barrier to segregate them, with periodic openings to the existing lanes.
Drivers would have to weave over to enter the fast lane and then weave
back across the slow traffic when they reach their exits.
This has been tried in California. Sometimes the slow lane drivers
are uncooperative in letting toll lane drivers get to their exits. This
has led to high crash rates. CAMPO has acknowledged this fact and plans
to build a series of fly-overs for the benefit of the fast lane
drivers. (They would exit to the left, over oncoming traffic.) Building
one fly-over that services a single lane of drivers is expensive.
Building multiple fly-overs for a single lane of traffic is insane.
There is also talk of fly-overs for entering the fast lane.
CAMPO has not identified any cash for the fly-overs. Building a
single, additional, free lane without barriers would have a higher
throughput for the entire road.
The plan for I 35 is a single (1) additional lane that would reverse
direction during the day. This, despite the fact that I 35 is often
congested in both directions at the same time.
CAMPO's staff estimated that a 1.6 cent increase in the (local) gas
tax would be sufficient to build all local roads as free roads.
Vince J May
------ Original Message ------
Received: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 01:30:42 PM CST
From: Vincent J May
To: TCLPActive@yahoogroups.com
The information is in the CAMPO 2030 plan, but you have to do some work to get it. First, go to www.campotexas.org and download the 2030 plan. It's about 300 pages of PDF. Then open it up to page 134, which is in part 5: Implementation.
Part 5 has the details about every section of every road in the plan. You'll see Loop 1 in the table, starting with the northernmost segment, SH45 to Parmer. Column 3 details what exists today (MAU4=major arterial, undivided, 4 lanes total). Column 4 describes what's planned for 2030 (6 tolled lanes, 2 managed lanes).
Look at page 86 to find out what the various classifications (MAU, FWY, PKWY, etc.) mean.
This should suffice if you're creating a map for your own edification: print out the sanitized maps from section 5 (these maps aren't in the PDF, the 2030 plan links back to campotexas.org for the maps, so save them separately if you're going to be offline), and color them with highlighters.
If you want a map for campaign material probably contact Sal at Austin Toll Party.
--steve
------ Original Message ------
Received: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 11:46:45 AM CST
From: "Steve Ravet"
To:
(Travis County Libertarian Party)
The Round Rock Philosopher
