Mobility Toll Road plan is wrong
This Toll Road plan just won't work. It is a quick and dirty way to build more roads, which will not releive any traffic congestion. You will just have to pay more to get to the traffic jam that much faster and put up with a lot more construction barrels for years to come.
If you think a new road will help, got drive Hwy 183 south into Austin. The traffic jams are still there, they just don't have to stop at the 620 light. Nobody gets to work any faster !
I know. I tried it on Thursday.
While I am DO support Toll Roads, this plan that the Mobility people are rushing through simply fails to solve their primary purpose ?– TO RELEIVE TRAFFIC CONGESTION.
Building more roads takes a lot of money and a lot of time, but this road way plan does nothing to encourage Car Pooling, Mass Transit, using low emissions fuels, alternative transportation (electric cars, rails, or elevated rapid transit).
And, their suggested allocation for bike paths is a pitiful 0.015% of the entire $6 billion budget?
I can't see any good reason for not jumping on bike paths for simple and effective solution that we can do today.
Think about just putting in bike lanes on the pipeline and major electric utility easements. Bikes work in Europe and Asia, and the can work here, but not on our roads. It's just not safe to ride a bike on a road with cars and trucks.
I lived in Sacramento way back in 1984. They have a first class bike route that is 50 miles long, and follows the American River, never crossing a single street. Their paths go UNDER all the roads and bridges, and it's 60 miles long!! It's paved all the way and it's the width of one standard car lane (12 feet).
That's something we can build today, without Federal money and Toll Roads.
Overhead rapid transit works, too. I love the Monorail, but I'd have to agree that it's too expensive and too big to be useful. Instead, we could build a much smaller scale system, using programmable overhead taxies. The are small, silent, and all electric. They only need a 16' elevated rail system, which would not go over the tree tops, and easily allow it to by-pass city streets. It would be hidden by most commercial buildings, coming in behind major shopping centers, and able to cover all of downtown and our Southwest Austin area, too Monorails and Commuter rails will never come this far west (past South Lamar).
Keep an eye on this technology, which will be introduced at the next OHAN meeting (www.acprt.org)
And help us defeat the current Toll Road plan.
(The Loop 45 and 130 roads are already taken care of - the new Toll Road plan doesn't affect those on-going projects at all. It's focused on the other major roads in Austin -- 360, MOPAC, and Hwy 183).
Think about this:
In as little as 3 years, you could be paying $10 in Tolls to drive from Circle C to the airport and back !!! Everything else will reflect that new tax - UPS deliveries, retail prices, groceries, taxies, flower delivery, and even the cost of gasoline.
The Mobile plan needs to be back to the CTRMA with a lot of guidance from CAMPO and comments from people like you!
This Toll Road plan just won't work. It is a quick and dirty way to build more roads, which will not releive any traffic congestion. You will just have to pay more to get to the traffic jam that much faster and put up with a lot more construction barrels for years to come.
If you think a new road will help, got drive Hwy 183 south into Austin. The traffic jams are still there, they just don't have to stop at the 620 light. Nobody gets to work any faster !
I know. I tried it on Thursday.
While I am DO support Toll Roads, this plan that the Mobility people are rushing through simply fails to solve their primary purpose ?– TO RELEIVE TRAFFIC CONGESTION.
Building more roads takes a lot of money and a lot of time, but this road way plan does nothing to encourage Car Pooling, Mass Transit, using low emissions fuels, alternative transportation (electric cars, rails, or elevated rapid transit).
And, their suggested allocation for bike paths is a pitiful 0.015% of the entire $6 billion budget?
I can't see any good reason for not jumping on bike paths for simple and effective solution that we can do today.
Think about just putting in bike lanes on the pipeline and major electric utility easements. Bikes work in Europe and Asia, and the can work here, but not on our roads. It's just not safe to ride a bike on a road with cars and trucks.
I lived in Sacramento way back in 1984. They have a first class bike route that is 50 miles long, and follows the American River, never crossing a single street. Their paths go UNDER all the roads and bridges, and it's 60 miles long!! It's paved all the way and it's the width of one standard car lane (12 feet).
That's something we can build today, without Federal money and Toll Roads.
Overhead rapid transit works, too. I love the Monorail, but I'd have to agree that it's too expensive and too big to be useful. Instead, we could build a much smaller scale system, using programmable overhead taxies. The are small, silent, and all electric. They only need a 16' elevated rail system, which would not go over the tree tops, and easily allow it to by-pass city streets. It would be hidden by most commercial buildings, coming in behind major shopping centers, and able to cover all of downtown and our Southwest Austin area, too Monorails and Commuter rails will never come this far west (past South Lamar).
Keep an eye on this technology, which will be introduced at the next OHAN meeting (www.acprt.org)
And help us defeat the current Toll Road plan.
(The Loop 45 and 130 roads are already taken care of - the new Toll Road plan doesn't affect those on-going projects at all. It's focused on the other major roads in Austin -- 360, MOPAC, and Hwy 183).
Think about this:
In as little as 3 years, you could be paying $10 in Tolls to drive from Circle C to the airport and back !!! Everything else will reflect that new tax - UPS deliveries, retail prices, groceries, taxies, flower delivery, and even the cost of gasoline.
The Mobile plan needs to be back to the CTRMA with a lot of guidance from CAMPO and comments from people like you!
