The curse of Street View
Picture of the Eifel Tower from my latest "trip" to Paris
Lots of people have their Internet compulsions and addictions: Facebook, Farmville, YouTube, eBay, video games, and so on. My wife is a recovering Pinterest addict.
My web vice is Google Maps Street View.
I’ve always been a spatial kind of guy. I instinctively know which way is North. I was telling my mom how to get home from the airport when I was four. My degree is in Geography. I have no need for a GPS.
And I love to travel. Mostly, I’m a it’s-not-the-destination-but-the-journey kind of guy. I love watching the scenery go by, seeing new places in fast-forward. Of course, that comes from being a transportation-enthusiast. Getting from Point A to Point B is often my favorite part of vacations.
So now that I can essentially do that from my desk for a huge chunk of the world using Street View, it can quickly consume a significant quantity of my time. more »
A little weirdness on the road to Central Arkansas
Heber Springs, Ark., a friendly town of 6,000 that tourists swell to 30,000.
Driving through the pine forests of East Texas, on the way to Central Arkansas, you pass signs for places like New Boston, Pittsburgh, Mount Pleasant and even Paris.
It’s almost like pioneers started running out of names by the time they got to Texas.
But things get a bit more imaginative once you arrive at the Arkansas border. Names there start off with morphed incarnations like Texarkana, and later dish up tidy permutations such as Arkadelphia.
The one that snapped me to attention on my trip last weekend was “Okolona.”
You know, Oklahoma’s just a short jog to the west, I thought. Could it be? Is this some sort of an Arkansas localism? Perhaps it was pranksters?
Gas prices top $3 a gallon in unusual run-up
Just two days before Christmas, average U.S. gas prices have topped $3 a gallon. And you can expect prices to keep rising into spring and summer.
This isn’t a typical run-up.
Prices usually peak in the summer and slide down after Labor Day. In recent autumns, regular unleaded dropped an average of 22 cents a gallon, even when you exclude the freakish plummet in 2008 after the economy popped.
But this autumn, gas prices shot up 30 cents a gallon.
Being thankful will cost you more this year
You’re going to pay a little more for a lot of things this Thanksgiving.
If you drive anywhere, gas will cost about 20 cents a gallon more than a year ago. Texas prices average $2.68 today.
If you fly, tickets will cost about 4 percent more. On top of that, at some 70 airports, including San Antonio’s, you now face security scanners that see through your clothes or agents who will touch in ways that few people would dare.
Staying home? Cooking a traditional turkey meal will cost 13 percent more in Texas.
Meanwhile, 9.6 percent of U.S. workers are looking for jobs. Experts, revising predictions, now say unemployment will remain higher than thought for years to come.
Yet, Americans seem ready to celebrate, an AAA survey indicates.
About 42.2 million people will make a trip of at least 50 miles this holiday weekend, up 11 percent from a year ago. On average, they’ll travel 816 miles and spend $495, nearly the same as last year. Nine out of 10 will go by car.
“When purse strings and heart strings compete in a tug-of-war, especially at this time of year, the heart wins out,” AAA President Robert Darbelnet said.
And so it has. Some things you can’t put a price on.
- Check weather
- Check state roads, or call (800) 452-9292
- Compare gas prices
Commuting Passenger rail Roads Safety Toll roads Travel: Interstate 35
by Patrick
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Big plans for Texas’ worst highway (including tolls and rail)
Planners and pundits have long decried Interstate 35 as Texas’ worst highway.
Notorious traffic backups and numerous crashes on I-35, especially on the stretch from San Antonio to Austin, have spawned big-ticket projects such as the SH 130 tollway and Lone Star commuter rail. Putting two and two together from such thinking eventually led to the now supposedly defunct Trans Texas Corridor.
But more big plans are in the making.
Four committees, each looking at a segment of I-35, are holding public meetings this month to wrap up draft plans on what to do with the highway, its feeders and parallel roads. Billions of dollars worth of projects are eyed, including this for South and Central Texas:
- Convert one I-35 lane each way into toll/carpool lanes from Buda to Georgetown
- Remove tolls and widen SH 130 to six lanes from Seguin to Georgetown
- Build high-speed passenger rail from San Antonio to Dallas
- Build passenger rail from San Antonio to Laredo
- Widen I-35 from San Antonio to Laredo
Holiday travelers defy sluggish economy
The nation’s economic recovery seems to be slowing down, but not travel plans to enjoy the last days of summer.
Some 34.4 million Americans are making trips this Labor Day weekend, according to an AAA survey, up 9.9 percent from last year’s dismal showing.
Vacationers will also spend more this year, the survey shows. Median spending is expected to be $697, up nearly $50.
Travelers are expected to pay more for airfares, 9 percent higher; car rentals, up 7 percent; and hotels.
But one thing they won’t be spending more on is gas. Regular unleaded, now averaging $2.68 a gallon, is down almost 20 cents from the spring, an AAA report says. Texas prices are averaging $2.51.
Meanwhile, nine out of 10 people are traveling by car this holiday weekend.
Road trip to Midland and Odessa, Texas
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. more »
Wanna fly in a C-47?
I had arranged to take a 30 minute flight on the “Bluebonnet Belle,” a Douglas C-47 Dakota Skytrain airplane this Saturdayy, August 7, at 11:00 AM. The aircraft, built in 1944, flies as part of the Highland Lakes Squadron of the Commemorative Air Force, which is based right on HWY 281 in Burnet, Texas. There are two remaining seats available out of a total of seven on the plane the way it is currently configured. Frankly, I am staggered that out of all the transportation enthusiasts I know I can only find five people but I guess everyone needs to be surprised once in a while. more »
Commuting Parking Passenger rail Railroads Transit Travel
by Hugh
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Passenger rail in Asutin and San Antonio
Larry Walsh and the Austin MetroRail
My friend, Larry Walsh, and I finally found the time last Tuesday, July 27, to make a visit to Austin’s new commuter rail line, Capital MetroRail. This is what is hoped to be the first thirty miles of a city wide system. This first section runs from the city center at 4th and Trinity to Leander, a commuter colony way to the north of Austin itself. more »
Del Rio, Uvalde, Crystal City and Carrizo Springs
Circumstances, I am happy to say, are obliging me to enlarge my somewhat parochial transportation history research endeavors. Until recently, the furthest I had researched in depth along the old Southern Pacific railroad heading west was Uvalde. I have taken AMTRAK as far as Alpine before and made a couple of trips to Del Rio when I worked for the Union Pacific, but such visits did not involve peeling beneath the surface in any appreciable way. more »
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