TxDOT released their second annual list of the 100 most congested roadway segments in the state.  Last year’s list inexplicably missed US 281 north of Loop 1604, but not this year.  However, it still wasn’t tops in Bexar County.  Loop 1604 West, from Bandera to Culebra, ranked #1 in Bexar County and #23 in the state with 945,701 annual hours of delay, or about 197,000 hours per mile, costing commuters $20.6 million.  A rush hour trip on that section of 1604 took 51% longer than an off-peak trip, according to the data.

Second in Bexar County was the infamous stretch of US 281 from Loop 1604 to the Comal County line.  It ranked 38th statewide with 1.2 million hours of annual delay costing commuters $25.7 million.  These numbers are larger than those for 1604, but because the congestion levels drop-off substantially north of Marshall, that only worked-out to about 150,000 hours of delay per mile for the entire segment, which was the metric on which the rankings were based.  US 281 also had a lower ratio of peak-period to off-peak congestion: a rush hour journey only took 33% longer.  There are two ways to interpret that stat: either rush hour traffic isn’t really bad, or even non-rush hour traffic is pretty lousy.  I think we all know which of those two applies to 281.

Bexar County had 11 segments on this year’s list (state rankings in parenthesis):

• 1 (23): Loop 1604, Bandera to Culebra
• 2 (38): US 281, Loop 1604 to Comal County Line
• 3 (48): I-35, US 281 to US 90
• 4 (49): I-35, Loop 1604 to Guadalupe County Line
• 5 (50): Culebra Rd., Loop 410 to Grissom
• 6 (56): Wurzbach Rd., NW Military to Loop 410
• 7 (62): I-35 North, Loop 410 to Loop 1604
• 8 (75): Castroville Rd., SW 19th to SH 151
• 9 (81): Fredericksburg Rd., Woodlawn to Loop 410
• 10 (94): Loop 410 North, I-35 to US 281
• 11 (96): Basse Rd./Nacogdoches Rd., US 281 to Naco-Perrin

Some on the list are surprising, such as Castroville Rd.  But overall, this list is probably more spot-on than last year’s.  This is probably because TxDOT used a new methodology this year to compile the list.  You can read all the gory details about their process here.

Bexar County ranked third in the number of segments on the list after Harris (35) and Dallas (24) Counties.  However, the DFW Metroplex had 37 roadways on the list, and the Austin area tied with San Antonio with 11.

You can see the entire list here:
http://www.txdot.gov/news/038-2010.htm

San Antonio Express-News story:
MySanAntonio.com – S.A. traffic could be worse — no, really

There’s also a good John Branch cartoon:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/cartoonists/Latest_cartoons_from_John_Branch.html?c=n#1

Also, the new westbound lane on Braun at Loop 1604 will also be striped and opened in time for Monday’s commute.

That intersection– at Encino Rio– will actually be different than the other intersections in the project in that traffic coming from Encino Rio will still be able to make the left turn onto 281.  In the other intersections (Evans, Stone Oak/TPC, and Marshall), traffic on those streets will have to turn right, then make a U-turn in order to turn left.  But at Encino Rio, since there’s very little traffic that makes the left turn onto Encino Rio from southbound 281 relative to traffic turning left from Encino Rio onto 281, it was decided to eliminate the left turns from 281 onto Encino Rio and into the Martin Marietta quarry and instead increase the left turn capacity from Encino Rio onto 281 southbound by adding a third left turn lane.  This combination of changes will provide the time-savings and signal phase reductions that will improve traffic flow on 281 itself.

However, this last dash to the finish line will have an appreciable pain factor– there will be major lane closures all weekend at Encino Rio as crews transform the intersection, finish the traffic signal installation, repave all the lanes, and mark them.  So I strongly advise everyone to avoid the area completely this weekend.

The remaining intersections will be completed in the same fashion one-at-a-time moving north (i.e. Evans is next) starting the weekend following Labor Day.  This means completion of the project, which is about a month behind schedule due to unusually heavy rains earlier this year, will be in late September.

Whatever. 

If you couldn’t tell, I think this is one of the more ridiculous chapters in the long-running saga of the US 281 story, a tale rife with zaniness.  This interchange project was environmentally-approved by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) using a Categorical Exclusion, which means that in the experience of highway agencies across the country, these types of improvements have not had any significant environmental impacts.  It got that approval for good reason.  Yes, the project location is in the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, but it is wholly within the existing rights-of-way of 281 and 1604 (with the exception of a few small parcels of already-developed land at the corners of the intersection itself.)  Therefore, this project would not cause any additional environmental harm given what’s already there, and actually would help reduce air pollution and runoff pollution caused by oil and other contaminated drippings from vehicles idling at the existing intersection.  But AGUA doesn’t see that part apparently.

Instead, they compared it to the “loophole” that BP used to drill the now-infamous Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Seriously?  They’re obviously drinking some funny Kool-Aid over at the AGUA treehouse.

I had hopes that the anti-toll folks that had partnered with AGUA previously to stop the planned US 281 toll road would pressure them to ease-off of a lawsuit against the interchange.  If (or probably when) AGUA loses this lawsuit, their credibility will be shot, not to mention the enormous public backlash that they are about to incur for this stunt, thus almost certainly crippling any of their future opposition efforts.

Toll opponents have been generally mum on the interchange project.  Initially they made some mild noise about the project’s extent and costs, but as of late, they really haven’t been heard from, probably because it was to be built toll-free and because they read the same tea leaves I did about the public wrath that they would suffer if they opposed this nearly universally popular project.  It’s the old pick-your-battles lesson.

Hopefully this lawsuit will be resolved quickly.  If not, the project could lose its stimulus funding, and then we’re back to square one.

I’m sure I’ll have more on this in the coming days.

San Antonio Express-News (MySanAntonio.com) story

Polikarpov I-16 at the CAF museum, Midland, Texas

Rolling forward on my 2010 resolution to get out of San Antonio more, I took a three day trip to Midland and Odessa, two cities, indeed a region of Texas, I had not visited before in the nineteen years I have called the Lone State home.  I set out on the last Thursday in July, which proved to be a very good time to go.

For whatever reason, HWY 87, the route I decided to take on the outward bound leg, was essentially empty north of Fredericksburg.  Even when I drove into San Angelo just after 5:00 PM, traffic on the road was very light.  It just seemed odd to traverse handsome county seats like Mason and only see one or two other moving vehicles.

Following a stroll around Fort Concho which closed just before I got there, I continued on towards Big Spring before getting onto I 20 heading west to Midland.  Traveling by myself, with just an ipod for company, the landscape became flatter and the wind grew stronger.  A veritable forest of massive electricity generating wind turbines dotted the landscape, harvesting the enormous amount of free energy that just about knocked me over when got out of the car for a moment.

The hotel I chose was inexpensive in every way, but you get what you pay for, so I have no complaints.  I spent the whole of Friday, which happened to be my birthday, driving around the sights of Midland and Odessa.  My first port of call was the Commemorative Air Force museum.  To my surprise and delight I pretty much the whole place to myself during my 2 ½ hour visit.  As most CAF aircraft are dispersed around the country in different locations, like the Douglas C-47 Skytrain I hoped to fly in yesterday, which is based in Burnet, Texas, or the North American B-25 Mitchell located here in San Antonio, there were not all that many aircraft to actually see in Midland.  But I was thrilled to the core to find one of them was a Russian Polikarpov I 16.  As a youth, I used to make model airplanes – none to well, I must admit – and I loved the diminutive little plane, which, to my eyes, looks remarkably like the Brewster Buffalo.  Both were cutting edge designs when introduced in the early 1930s but were significantly obsolete by the time World War Two started.  With little else available, young men bravely continued to fight the good fight in these machines, sometimes achieving remarkable success despite the odds stacked against them.

I never dreamed I’d ever actually see one up close and personal.  It was absolutely the peak moment of my 800 mile journey and would have made the entire trip worthwhile in and of itself.  I also visited the oil industry museum, which was not laid out so well for those who know nothing about the industry, in my opinion.  I’d have done better with a guide, I think.  It’ an impressive place for sure but a little overwhelming and incomprehensible.  Rich in detail but somehow lacking in drama, of what odds and difficulties the individuals involved had to face.

Also a little disappointing was the crater site west of Odessa, mainly because the original vast hole dug by a meteorite the size of a Suburban yet weighing a thousand tons is all but filled 50,000 years later.  I enjoyed rolling around Odessa, and got to visit a remarkably well restored railroad depot, originally located in a tiny town called Texon, now located about seven miles from the city, in someone’s backyard.  Acquired in an almost disintegrated state, the owner has poured money, time and effort into bringing it back to its former glory.

Midland is the more impressive of the two cities which are maybe fifteen miles apart by interstate.  The smell of hydrocarbons, or money, is quite pervasive wherever you go.  I’m certainly glad I finally took the time to go there but, a bit like Big Bend, I’m not itching to go back any time soon.  Bleak landscapes don’t work for me.  I couldn’t stand to live in a place where if I traveled fifty miles I’d still essentially be in the same place.

I came back via lesser roads, again wonderfully empty of other vehicles, aiming first for Ozona and then the Caverns of Sonora Located off of IH 10 some two hundred miles west of San Antonio, this natural wonder is most definitely worth a visit.  The tour lasts just under two hours.  It was a nice finish to a trip that seemed, to quote Joni Mitchell, to be all about the land and the sky.

For commuters from the Medical Center to Bandera Rd., one of the worse bottlenecks is the intersection of Eckhert at Bandera.  While there are dual left turn lanes for traffic headed toward the Medical Center from southbound Bandera, there is only a single right turn lane for traffic coming from the Medical Center to northbound Bandera.  This means that during the afternoon rush hour, that right turn lane backs-up considerably, sometimes all the way to Marshall High School, which itself also contributes to the problems when school’s in session.  To get around that, drivers cut through on neighboring streets, especially Woodchase, and some cut through the Carl’s Jr./Dickey’s parking lot.  A few bold drivers even make illegal right turns from the center lane, which is marked as straight or left turn only.  And I’m sure many drivers just avoid the area entirely.

To finally provide some relief, TxDOT and the City of San Antonio are working to install dual right turn lanes.  Some initial prep work to fix the corner curb and bring the curb cut to ADA compliance was completed a few weeks ago, and the “pork-chop” island that separates the right turn bay from the through lanes was removed earlier this week.  The City now has some traffic signal work to complete and then the restriping will be done.  There’s no official completion date as of now, but I would guess that it would be done by the time school starts-up again later this month or shortly thereafter.

Future new westbound lane

A couple of weeks ago, TxDOT completed the restriping of Loop 1604 to three lanes in each direction at Braun Rd.  This seemingly minor change has had a fairly dramatic effect on traffic.  From my own observations, typical peak period traffic jams in both directions have been significantly reduced.  For instance, southbound traffic used to back-up nearly to Bandera Road during the evening rush hour, a distance of a mile or so.  But now it typically backs-up only half of that distance or even less.  I’ll be interested to see how it looks when school gets back into session, but for now, the improvement seems to have eased things quite a bit.  If you drive through this area regularly, post a comment and let me know your observations.

TxDOT is also planning at least one other improvement at that intersection, that being an additional lane on westbound Braun.  Right now, there are two westbound lanes: one is a left-only lane onto southbound Loop 1604, and the other is a through lane for Braun, which itself is now four lanes west of Loop 1604.  The problem is that during peak periods, traffic wanting to turn right onto northbound 1604 backs-up quite a way along Braun inside 1604, essentially blocking that right lane.  Folks who want to go through on westbound Braun then either have to wait in that line of mostly right-turning traffic, or they can go around in the left lane.  However, that left lane then becomes the left-only lane, so those folks wanting to go straight on Braun then have to shunt over to the right lane, which often causes conflicts with the people who waited in the right lane and unnecessarily disrupts traffic in the left-turn lane.  Additionally, vehicles turning left onto westbound Braun from northbound 1604 during peak periods (especially the school buses heading to the Leslie Rd. bus barn and the gravel trucks going to the nearby quarry) oftentime fill all of the available storage space, thus causing further delays for Braun through traffic.

To rectify this, the additional pavement available on the north side of Braun in the middle of 1604 will be made into a second through lane for westbound Braun traffic.  To safely accommodate that, a big chunk of the “pork-chop” island on the west side of the intersection will be removed and the area repaved, and an additional traffic signal head added (that’s actually already been done.)  See the diagram above to get a better idea of what I’m talking about.  There will also be some lane reconfigurations, although I haven’t seen the final plans for those yet.  However, I fully expect that the right lane from inside 1604 will be guided into the new right lane going through the 1604 intersections, and the left lane will then have the option of either entering the left-only lane or the center (existing) through lane.

These improvements are being done as the first phase of a package of improvements for Loop 1604 West over the next year that will include “super-street” intersections at New Gilbeau and Shaenfield and improvements at SH 151.  TxDOT is paying for the Braun Rd. intersection improvements and is doing the work themselves.

            Recently I became involved in an upcoming PBS documentary on the perhaps unlikely subject of the resurgence of olive cultivation in the old “winter garden” areas between Carrizo Springs and Del Rio.  The story is, however, ripe with fascinating perspectives, including the “eat locally produced food” movement, and the original need for a means to transport the crops being grown in the area, which is where I come in, as the only person around who has spent time researching the history of railroads in the area, which has resulted in voluminous amounts of information on the Texas Transportation Museum web site and two locally published books.

            Over the last five years I have made numerous trips to Uvalde which has, over the past 127 years had the services of no less than four different railroads – the Southern Pacific, the Crystal City & Uvalde which was renamed the San Antonio, Uvalde & Gulf, the Asphalt Belt and the Uvalde & Northern..  Each time I visit the town I learn something new.  When I was there on Friday, the day after the trip by train to Del Rio, I found out exactly how the old SAU&G connected with the SP mainline, plus the exact location of both the SP and SAU&G depots.

            My delight in being invited to be an on camera participant in the documentary should have motivated me to at least try to find out about the railroad in Del Rio as well.  You might be able to understand my discomfort when I could not say for sure exactly when the current masonry depot,  now with a well made, compatible, bus station attached to it, was built.  I certainly knew it was not the original structure, which would have been of wooden construction.  I was in good company.  Representatives of the Del Rio city council, who supplied a bus for our group of eighteen to visit a local olive orchard and grape vinyard, did not know either.  A PBS executive from KLRU in Austin used her iphone to look it up on the web, only to find an absurd site that said not only was the depot the original structure, it was also built in 1876, seven years before the first train arrived.  A city transportation employee, who used to come down to the depot as a girl, and who was able to tell me about the original interior layout of the depot, was able to find a couple of old pictures.  One showed the original depot and the other showed the current structure when it just been completed.  Using the automobiles as a reference, it would appear to have been built in the mid to late 1920s, which is about the same time the entire downtown area was rebuilt, replacing frontier structures with pleasant looking “modern” buildings, to reflect the city’s growing wealth and importance.

            Not wanting to make the same mistake when I go with the film crew to Crystal City, Carrizo Springs and Asherton, I decided to visit these places the following day.  Accompanied by my good friend and avid railroad enthusiast, Fred Bock, the trip was most successful.  Having spent some time in Uvalde itself, we headed south on Highway 83.  Regrettably there did not seem to be anywhere worth stopping to seek information in La Pryor, the first community created by the Crystal City & Uvalde in 1909, but, contrary to the “warnings” given to me in Uvalde, Crystal City was another story.  Following a pleasant tour of the city, where the railroad once ran bold as brass right down the main street, we went to the city library, followed by the immediately adjacent town hall and county court house.  Every community, I have found, has a keeper of the flame, an individual noted for his or her knowledge of local history.  On this occasion, on a late Friday afternoon, the owner of an abstract company was unavailable.  His mother had passed on an unparallelled collection of early local photographs.  Many are on his office walls and even more are on the walls of the local bank.

            By the time we arrived in Carrizo Springs it was raining cats and dogs.  It was also after 5:00 PM and the library was closed.  Nonetheless, we were able to get the measure of the place for a future visit.  In my experience you hardly ever get much on a first visit, but you do get to sow seeds that usually bear handsome fruit on subsequent trips.  The rain let up while we took a break and a snack in the local Dairy Queen, but the sky looked so ominous we decided to forgo a visit to Asherton and, instead, follow the route of the “Sausage,” the nickname given to the SAU&G, eastward towards Pleasanton.  Because the tracks from the main Missouri Pacific line that still run alongside IH 35 were only pulled up in the 1990s, their evidence is still fairly obvious.  The same cannot be said for some of the communities that sprouted briefly along the line.  Some, like Los Angles, were nothing but a motley collection of dilapidated houses and farm buildings.  Others, such as Hindes, were reduced to a mere sign post.  On the other side of the freeway, towards Charlotte and Pleasanton, finding even a trace of the tracks is all but impossible.  They were removed in the early 1950s, some sixty years ago.  Railroads in general are very benign to the environment and the impact of the right of way is easily erased from the landscape.

            I now feel as though I am in better shape to speak knowledgably about this line.  However, several more expeditions to the area, including one to follow the line of the Asherton & Gulf, which connected with the MOPAC mainline a little further south.  I’m keen to see not only Asherton but Caterina, which was developed by Charles Taft, the brother of then President William Taft.  The local hotel which I believe still exists, supposedly has oversize baths to accommodate the chief executive and, later, Supreme Court judge’s well known girth.

            While a lot of filming for the documentary, which will also include a lot of music, some of it played on instruments originally owned by the Richardson family and kept at their grand mansion in Asherton, has been completed, there is still a good amount still to be done.  Some will occur at the Texas Transportation Museum, where a recreation of thousands of people arriving by train during the heyday of land sales will be filmed in late August.  These land rushes were, in fact, one of the last and largest population migrations in US history, attracting would be farmers from all over America and even Europe to sub-divided ranches.  A group of 160 Mennonites came from Ohio in 1910, to settle in a community called Beachy.  Located near Brundage, itself now not much more than an empty crossroads, the land where the community, which was abndoned in 1914, once stood is now part of an oil field.  It is hard to even begin to put yourselves in their shoes, when both the artesian wells and then the rain dried up and their high hopes turned to dust.

            But hope springs eternal and the humble olive, originally cultivated a hundred years ago, is making a major comeback, bringing with it the possibility of a resurgence of sustainable cash crops that are climate and soil appropriate.  It may just turn out that Asher Richardson and other developers, such as Charles Simmons, who built the Artesian Belt RR which put Poteet, Jourdanton and Christine on the map, were just a century ahead of their time.

Latest radar from National Weather Service.

Hurricane Alex is grinding into a Mexican coast, its tails whipping South Texas and spitting out tornadoes. Winds are blowing more than 100 mph.

Though the brunt of the storm wandered south, it was powerful enough to drive both Texans and Mexicans away from their homes to find safer shelter, the Associated Press reported. A slew of tornado, flooding and wind warnings are in place in South Texas, including a flood watch in Bexar County, the National Weather Service says.

Officials closed the Queen Isabella Memorial Bridge in South Padre Island due to winds and State Highway 87 in Galveston because of flooding, the Texas Department of Transportation announced. More than 100 TxDOT workers and 200 pieces of equipment will move in tomorrow to open roads and fix traffic signals and signs.

Helpful links:

• National Weather Service
• Weather Channel
• Statewide road conditions, or call (800) 452-9292
• TxDOT hurricane page