T Fords of Texas at the Bigfoot museum

Last Saturday, March 6, I had the great pleasure of taking part in a ”T Fords of Texas” club cruise around Medina County.  Led by Castroville residents Tom Campbell and Wayne McBryde, a group of nine Ts traversed the area’s handsome back roads under a glowering sky, dense with dark and darker grey clouds, too high to actually rain, but very dramatic.  In an open runabout T driven by Gary Bethke, I had the full opportunity to take in the wintry landscape with occasional hints of spring, such as isolated peach and red bud trees in delightfully unexpected full bloom.

 I dressed warmly for the occasion.  We stopped first at an old folks home then moved on from Castroville to a restaurant in Devine.  You find yourself waving to a lot of people along the way.  Yard work, my most disliked obligation, was popular that day.  We headed to Bigfoot in the afternoon and had the opportunity to visit the museum opened in honor of Bigfoot Wallace who ended his tumultuous days in a small cabin at the Medina River nearby in the late 1880s.  Wallace was one of the people who created for the rest of the world the romantic impression that everything is bigger, better, wilder and yet more convivial in Texas.  Reporters and writers sought him out to hear his first hand accounts of his frontier exploits.  Though he claimed Scottish ancestry I think he must have had a good share of Irish blood in him, too.  He never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

 Model T events in the early part of the year are particularly rewarding.  Before raw heat settles its torpid haze over us for the rest of the year, it’s worthwhile to experience how our forbears traveled in other kinds of weather.  In the 1850s, young Castroville resident August Santleben, who would go on to become the region’s preeminent freight hauler before the arrival of the railroads, accompanied his father on trips to Bastrop in an ox drawn wagon to collect lumber floated up the Colorado River during the winter, to earn extra money while avoiding the heat of summer during such a lengthy trip.

 I did not take the 1924 Ford Model TT truck I usually drive on the cruise because it only moves at 25 MPH, a good ten miles slower than regular Ts.  A person would have to think about driving it anywhere over long distances, though I have been known to navigate it as far as Lavernia, making sure to avoid major roads.  But the TT was positively revolutionary compared to ox or mule drawn wagons, though decidedly louder. 

 There were few mechanical problems that I was aware of on our trip which probably involved around fifty miles of driving, though a few hoods were open at one point or another.  If you are interested in seeing around forty plus Ford Model Ts of every kind, from race cars to heavy duty trucks, plan to visit the Texas Transportation Museum, 11731 Wetmore Road, San Antonio TX 78247 on either Saturday or Sunday, May 1 & 2.  Admission to the T show and the whole museum, including train rides, will be free thanks to the Red McCombs Automotive Group.

Omnibus soaking its wheels in the SA river

With all the zippidy-doo-dah hoopla over the possibility of a return to streetcars, why not go the whole hog and bring back mule drawn omnibuses?  I mean, who else is doing that?  Let’s think outside the box and get out of Portland, Oregon’s shadow once and for all.  Think of the benefits.  No expensive overhead or the need to tear up streets for miles on end and tourists will love it.

Mule drawn streetcars were introduced in San Antonio in 1878 but omnibus service has that beat by seven years.  It cost 5 cents to go from Main Square to Alamo Plaza.  With all the money we’ll save by not installing staggeringly expensive streetcar systems and their unsightly overhead power lines, we could go back and charge the same fare in 2010 that it was in 1871.  I guess there is a flaw in my logic somewhere but, you know, I’ll be d****d if I know what it is.

Streetcar from VIA Metropolitan Transit report (looks like it's in Portland).

After starting the fiscal year by shaving $19 million in spending, including 330 jobs, the city is now being asked to kick in $17 million to build a two-mile streetcar line.

That’s just part of the bill to buy streetcars and lay rails along Broadway and South Alamo Street by 2014. The county, VIA Metropolitan Transit and the federal government could also pony up to help pay what would be an estimated $90 million.

City Council heard the pitch this afternoon.

“If there was any sticker shock … council members mostly kept it to themselves,” the Express-News wrote.

The city hasn’t made any commitments, at least not yet.

At $45 million a mile, the price tag is quite a bit cheaper than, say, turning U.S. 281 out by Stone Oak into a superhighway, or, I should say, tollway.

Ah, but already I’m talking apples and oranges. This quaint two-mile rail line wouldn’t be a wide commuter route helping connect San Antonio’s core to its fringes.

Nope, unlike U.S. 281’s role as an artery for sprawl, the rail line, if done well, would be a magnet for compact living, working and playing. The idea is to drive some growth to the inner city, by creating a place where people would gladly leave their cars behind more often. Tourists would love it too.

Nonetheless, critics and proponents will duke it out with such comparisons. And with so many angles on varying public and private costs, some visible and some not so visible, expect a debate that’s about as clear as mud.

Docs and links:

• City Council agenda briefing
• Downtown Circulator Study
• City 2010 budget highlights
• Express-News story

Pay-and-display station in San Francisco

The San Antonio City Council this Thursday will consider whether to approve a plan to replace most downtown parking meters with so-called “pay-and-display” systems.  (UPDATE: Council approved the plan during its 3/4/10 meeting.)  These systems, which originated in Europe and have become popular in US cities over the past decade, consist of a payment machine (”pay station”) located on each block, such as the one pictured to the right.  After parking your vehicle, you locate the nearest pay station, pay for the time you want to park, get a receipt from the machine, then return to your vehicle and place the receipt on your dashboard.  The drawback to this system, of course, is that you have to walk to the machine (which typically is located mid-block), pay, then return to your vehicle to put the receipt on the dashboard.  The benefits, however, are that the machines accept credit/debit cards and dollar bills, so no more having to scrounge for loose change.  Also, motorists can move their vehicle if desired without having to “feed” another meter.  The City is the biggest benefactor in the form of reduced maintenance costs and collection overhead for thousands of parking meters; remote maintenance of the machines via wireless connections; and enhanced revenue, likely the result of more people opting to pay since they can use credit cards and bills.  Also, unlike with parking meters where any remaining time is inherently donated to the next person who parks in the space, leftover time under pay-and-display systems is essentially forfeited to the City.  Studies generally show that parking violations are reduced under pay-and-display systems, so the City would lose some revenue from parking tickets, but can, as a result, reallocate those enforcement resources to other areas.

Under the proposed plan, the City would purchase 134 solar-powered pay stations from US-based Parkeon, Inc., by entering into an agreement with the City of Seattle to use their existing competitive contract with the company, thus allowing San Antonio to get a better deal.  Assuming Council approval, the first machines would be installed beginning in May, with installation of all 134 of them completed by July.  The plan is to replace meters in the busiest areas; meters in outlying areas may be replaced in a future expansion.  In addition, the system will be installed in “pay-by-space” mode in eight City-owned surface lots.  In that mode, users enter their parking space number into the machine when paying.  Because the space number is recorded in the transaction, the user does not have to return and place the receipt in the vehicle.

The impetus for this program was a 2006 pilot project and a 2008 parking study that both determined pay-and-display to be an improvement over the existing conventional parking meters.  The project is estimated to cost about $1.5 million and will come from the City’s parking repair fund.  An educational campaign is planned to help the public learn how to use the system

The City currently has about 2,100 parking meters downtown.

For a map of the proposed locations, click here.

The candidates’ (major candidates only) policy statements are evaluated in order of their current polling numbers, Republicans first.

Republicans

Rick Perry
Perry is pretty much running on his record, and his transpo policy proposal is essentially “more of the same”, sans the Trans-Texas Corridor, which he has said many times is “dead”.  Yes, the language for it still exists in the Transportation Code, but that’s not something he can control– only the Legislature can change the law.  In any case, as I pointed-out with my review of KBH’s policy, there is still language in the Transportation Code that authorizes the state to install roadside emergency call boxes.  But after a pilot project back in the ’90s, that concept was dropped, so there’s no reason to believe the Trans-Texas Corridor is any different.

My main beef with Perry is his steadfast opposition to raising the gas tax.  I know that’s a conservative cornerstone, but in terms of real value, raising the gas tax in proportion to the amount of value it has lost due to inflation and improved fuel economy isn’t “raising taxes” in the traditional sense.  Furthermore, it’s the responsible thing to do to maintain and improve our roads, something that is a cornerstone of state government.  Kicking the can down the road (pun intended) is not a solution.

Debra Medina
If her answer to the 9/11 question on the Glenn Beck show a few weeks ago didn’t make her appear either out on the fringe or, at the very least, not able to concisely take a single, identifiable stand on an issue, then reading her transportation issues page will.  Her plan is long and byzantine, so pardon the length of my review of it.

She starts her policy sheet by discussing the plight of a small business owner who complained to her that they lost a contract to TxDOT to install security cameras for the North Texas Toll Authority (NTTA).  The contract was instead awarded to a large company with some foreign offices and many subsidiaries, and one of the subcontractors listed on the project is a well-known, mega-company with “many national and international Dept. of Defense contracts” and from whose staff Perry had appointed members of the Texas Aerospace board.  She goes on to label this– indirectly, anyway– as a “clandestine global corporate pork project”.

Predictably, this ”everybody in government is crooked, so there’s gotta be a scam here somewhere” mindset just undermines Medina’s own credibility.  First of all, she makes the huge leap that just because Perry appointed some employees of one of the subcontractors to one his most obscure boards, that that somehow influenced to whom TxDOT awarded the contract to install a few security cameras for NTTA.  Now I don’t know for a fact that any of this is not true, but the number of moving parts between one end of that logic train and the other is enough that it’s simply implausible that her cronyism accusation would beget her assumed outcome without some kind of actual evidence of such.  But, like 9/11 truthers, if you’re looking for a conspiracy, you can connect all sorts of dots, even if the likelihood of the supposition actually being true is less than me winning the lottery and getting hit by lightning on the same day.

The far more likely truth in this story is very simple: the security camera contact, like most others in government, was a low-bid contract.  The company that won it has the resources to outbid a small company because of the simple matter of their sheer size; it’s the economic law of scale.  I know it’s hard for folks who truly hate Perry and/or TxDOT to imagine, but not everything that happens with either is devious.

Once you can get past that, her actual transportation plan is all over the map.  The core is essentially the “no build” option considered by planners when they look at a proposed project.  The gist of her plan is that congestion is self-limiting– in other words, once a road gets so badly congested, people will find other routes or just not drive.  To wit, she rails against the “biased” opinions of TxDOT and Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) engineers and the computer modeling used by traffic planners that she claims doesn’t take into account the self-limiting nature of congestion.  Although she attacks foreign companies, she says we should look into foreign research on traffic issues (specifically Canada’s), which questions TTI’s annual congestion report.

Beyond that, she throws-in the populist complaint that TxDOT has no transparency in funding and no accountability for project completion, and she would solve that with the requisite audit and unspecified “reform” of TxDOT.  I welcome an audit of TxDOT—besides finally eradicating this constant battle cry, I don’t think it would find anything significant, and we could finally put all these accusations of fraud and waste to rest.  There’s also the usual “no toll roads” and “get rid of the Trans-Texas Corridor once-and-for-all” pledges, including specifically banning any project known as the North American Super Corridor.  She thinks that TxDOT has gotten “too big for its britches” because it has “gone far beyond road building and ventured into every area of transportation in which the federal government has grant money to offer”.  (Let’s see, last time I checked, they are the Texas Department of Transportation, not the Texas Department of Highways, but I digress.)  She labels the Texas Enterprise Fund “Perry’s slush fund” and says it should be redirected to transportation.  I guess she meant to say “highways”; in any case, I think the Enterprise Fund, besides making such a little dent in the transpo funding shortfall, actually serves a valid purpose.  And, enigmatically, she makes mention a couple of times that the public should know how much road building is done by the private sector, including requiring MPOs to specifically track that, but I have no idea where she was going with that, and she proffers no explanation.

She wraps-up by citing Terri Hall, of all people, who reports that the Texas Transportation Commission “has agreed to pledge the State’s credit… for two (NTTA) toll projects in north Texas”.  Finally, something I actually agree with– I am opposed to the state essentially co-signing on NTTA’s loans, although I do appreciate the strings they did include to help protect the state.  She also laments that the state is using credit to build roads, a point I also agree with.  But her solution to that, besides the do-nothing-and-just-let-congestion-limit-itself approach, appears to be to thumb our noses at the federal government by keeping all gas taxes collected in Texas and rejecting “interference in transportation by federal agencies such as the EPA and insure that Texas agencies enforce only state law.”  Wow, I’m not even sure where to start on that one, so I’ll just let it speak for itself.

There was one sensible, albeit minor, solution that she proposes that I strongly agree with: “Place a stronger emphasis on incident management, including minimizing irregularities in traffic flow that are the major irritants to road users”.  I think that transportation and police agencies statewide can do a much better job of incident management.  And, I also agree with prohibiting TxDOT from lobbying the Leg or Congress—no state agency should be in the business of lobbying.

Democrats

Bill White
Mr. White lacks a comprehensive plan on transpo, at least one that I could find.  His issues page on the topic is a mere two bullet points: end the Trans-Texas Corridor (my position on which I’ve already discussed), and decentralize TxDOT and allow local governments to set regional priorities.  This approach neglects the fact that the Federal Highway Administration warned the legislature during its last session that reorganizing TxDOT in such a way would jeopardize federal funding, which requires a strong centralized and statewide transportation department to accept, allocate, and spend such funds.  Having numerous transportation fiefdoms across the state is more scary to the feds because it diminishes control and oversight and increases administrative costs.

Farouk Shami
Mr. Shami is the only candidate to suggest raising the gas tax.  In his plan, he would raise the gas tax eight cents, then index it to the Highway Cost Index (HCI) going forward, limiting annual increases to 4% and allowing any requisite increase in excess of that to be postponed to the following year.  In years of a negative HCI, the tax would not go down, but the “excess” revenue generated would be using to pay-off bond debt.  As I have mentioned many times, I fully support increasing the gas tax, so I give him a big thumbs-up on this.

Mr. Shami would also allow the Transportation Commission to issue bonds backed by future gas tax revenues, a point I disagree with.  The state has already issued enough debt for roads; it’s time to get back to a pay-as-you-go system.

He also supports no taxes on alternative fuel vehicles to encourage their adoption in order to improve air quality.  I also disagree with this– those vehicles still use our roads and therefore should pay something; maybe not as much as gasoline or diesel vehicles, but they shouldn’t get a free ride.

Other points of his plan are to increase the Texas Transportation Commission to 14 members who would be elected, with their districts coinciding with the state Board of Education districts.  I’m OK with this idea, as I was when KBH proposed it.  He also says he would require all bidders of TxDOT contracts to disclosed their political contributions (that’s OK with me; the more transparency, the better), ban TxDOT from lobbying (again, I’m on-board with that), adjust senior management of TxDOT by having the elected Transportation Commission appoint a CFO and IG (essentially the same idea as KBH’s “transportation CEO”, which I like), and improve TxDOT’s interaction with the public and local governments (which as far as I’m concerned is the typical political lip-service.)

He also has the requisite “kill-the-Trans-Texas-Corridor” and “no-toll-roads” pledges, a proposal to change TxDOT’s focus to concentrate on repair and replacement of existing roads (thumbs-down from me on that; maintenance, repairs, and capacity improvements all require equal attention IMO).  He accuses TxDOT of “artificially and fraudulently” lowering the estimates of road life “to overstate maintenance costs” (not sure what his basis on that is, so I can’t give an opinion.)  He wants to focus on “real mass transit solutions”, but doesn’t elaborate any more (I’m fine with the concept, but want to see more details on what he believes to be “real solutions”.)  Lastly, he wants to end eminent domain “abuse” with a six-point plan and to focus on expanding roads within existing rights-of-way, both of which I agree with where reasonable.

So, if you’re a single-issue voter and transportation is that issue, my impression is that Mr. Shami is probably the best of the bunch just based on his published policy ideas.  However, few voters are single-issue voters (myself included), and given a recent poll that showed that Texas voters would cut highway funding first to balance the budget, transportation frankly isn’t as big an issue as it probably should be.

In addition, I’m going to use the videos to update my exit lists (much easier to do from a video than trying to write them down at 65 mph <g>) and also to build the new lane schematics (see the previous parenthetical note).  I hope to get those done in conjunction with each video, although I haven’t done I-10’s yet.

To keep the clips within the YouTube guidelines (and to make them a little more interesting), the playback will be at double-speed (or even 4x for the longest ones.)  I opted not to put a soundtrack over them; everyone has their idea of perfect “driving music”, so crank-up whatever you like to listen to when viewing them!

Diagram of a typical super street intersection (KY DOT)

Just yesterday, I mentioned that plans for a Loop 1604 super-street would be announced soon, and indeed the project was announced today at a Bexar County Commissioners Court meeting where the court approved kicking-in $900,000 of Advanced Transportation District funds to help pay for the $7.4 million project.  The remaining $6.5 million will come from federal stimulus funds.

There will be three components to the project.  The first, to start in May, will make improvements to the Braun/1604 intersection.  I will get a copy of the plans from TxDOT as soon as I can and will pass-on the exact details of those improvements.  However, it does not appear that the intersection will see the typical super-street design, that being replacing left-turns with turnarounds.  Work on those improvements will take about a month.

Next January, work will begin on the actual super-street portion of the project, which will redesign the intersections of New Guilbeau, Shaenfield, and SH 151, replacing some left-turn movements with a combination of right-turns and turnarounds.  Eliminating those left-turns allows for additional green time for 1604 through traffic.  That project is expected to last seven months.

The final element of the improvements, which will begin late next year or in early 2012 in May 2011 and take a little over two years to complete, will build an underpass on SH 151 at Loop 1604, connecting 151 to Alamo Ranch Pkwy.  That project will cost $18 million and will be funded separately.

It is estimated that the super-street will increase travel times on Loop 1604 by about 35% during the morning rush hour and 65% during the evening peak.  The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which is currently conducting an environmental study for long-term improvements for Loop 1604, will design the project and obtain the required environmental clearances for it.  TxDOT will then construct it.

For more information on how a super-street works, see my US 281 super-street page.

News reports:

• MySanAntonio.com/Express-News
• KSAT
• KENS
• WOAI-TV
• WOAI-AM
• KTSA

Other links of interest:

• TexasHighwayMan: Loop 1604
• OnTheMoveBlog: Loop 1604 Super Street to be studied
• More for 1604 (enviro study)
• Wikipedia: Superstreet

The oft-maligned 1604/Braun intersection

Well, once again, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here.  I’ve been working on what I think will be an exciting new addition to my website (stay tuned for more on that soon.)  However, as I was watching the Sunday morning political talk shows, my wife mentioned something that motivated me to write this post, which is one that I’ve been meaning to do for a while.  While Facebooking (can that really be a verb?), she came across a new Facebook group with the same title as this post.  After rolling my eyes (as I often do in these situations), I realized (also as I often do in these situations) that the creator of that group– and those who subscribe to the explicit as well as implicit sentiment of it– probably just doesn’t have the back-story to understand why things are the way they are and that my initial reaction made me just as guilty of jumping to conclusions as that person was.  Whoever created the group is obviously frustrated– they even say they’re “pissed off” at the “stupid” traffic lights, and I sympathize with their frustration.  But, as is often the case, there’s more to the story than meets the eye, and maybe if folks understood how things got to be as they are, they might be more forgiving.  This posting is an attempt at that.

First off, I can tell you that the local TxDOT folks don’t like the way things are out there any more than anyone else does.  If they had their way, there would be a nice, high-speed expressway all the way from Braun to US 90.  And the traffic signals that are there weren’t put there capriciously– as with any traffic signal, there are a number of technical “warrants” that must be met before a signal can be installed.  But more on both of those topics in a bit.

History
Perhaps a look back at the history of Loop 1604 West might be beneficial and help put things into context.  Fifteen years ago, the Loop 1604 expressway that runs across the Northside ended at Babcock.  Loop 1604 south of that big curve near Babcock was just a two-lane rural road.  (In fact, you can still see where the lane lines for the transition from expressway to two-lane road have been scrubbed from the pavement just south of that curve.)  Other than a lonely overpass for 1604 over SH 16 with a couple of jughandle ramps connecting the two roadways, it was just a run-of-the-mill farm road with some traffic signals at Hausman, Braun, Culebra, and Potranco.  (I can even remember back in the ’80s when the intersection of 1604 and Culebra was a four-way stop.)

With traffic dramatically increasing on the northwest side, work was completed in 1996 to extend the expressway from Babcock down to Braun.  South of Braun, Loop 1604 remained a two-lane road until 1999 when work to upgrade it to a divided highway as far as Culebra was completed.  At the time, that was a considered by everyone to be a significant improvement, but TxDOT intended for it to just be an interim step until funds could be obtained to extend the expressway from Braun all the way south to US 90.  One element of that overall vision– an overpass at Culebra– was funded separately and was completed in 2004.  

South of Culebra, work to upgrade 1604 to a divided highway was completed– after several delays due to utility issues– in 2007.  Again, this work was done with the ultimate expressway plan still in mind.  In fact, the section south of SH 151 was specifically designed to allow for a quick upgrade to a expressway.  The existing northbound lanes will be the future northbound access road.  The existing southbound lanes will be the future northbound mainlanes, with overpasses of course added at the major intersections.  That leaves just the overpasses, entrance and exit ramps, and southbound mainlanes and access road to be constructed. 

Why no freeway?
As I mentioned above, TxDOT’s plan for the area has always been to build a full-fledged expressway all the way down to US 90.  TxDOT’s project plans statewide have always been financially-constrained, so they’ve always had to make trade-offs and take a phased approach at completing projects (just like I have to do on making upgrades and improvements to my house.)  Loop 1604 West is a case in point.  By the mid ’90s, it was apparent to TxDOT’s planners that sufficient funding for an expressway was at least a decade away, if not longer, but the congestion in the Loop 1604 West corridor had increased so rapidly that it needed an urgent fix.  Therefore, to provide some immediate relief to motorists,  TxDOT opted for the cheaper surface-level divided highway to allow it to be funded and built sooner.  And indeed, the road that’s there today is a considerable improvement over what was there before, and given the severe funding shortages that TxDOT is having these days, it was actually good foresight on their part to get something done when they did instead of waiting for funding that probably still would not have come to this day.

As I mentioned above, the overpass at Culebra was the first element of the planned expressway to be completed.  Due to the high volume of cross-traffic on Culebra, it was chosen for an overpass before Braun or other intersections.  Unfortunately, funding has not been available to complete any more of the ultimate expressway plan since.

What’s next?
In late 2003, the Texas Transportation Commission, at the behest of the governor and as a result of diminishing gas-tax purchasing power (a problem that continues to this day), ordered that all planned expressway projects statewide be considered for tolling in order to expedite funding for their construction.  Therefore, the Loop 1604 West expressway project was evaluated and determined to fit the established criteria for a toll project.  In 2007, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) opted to exercise their right under state law to assume the project from TxDOT in order to maintain local control of it.  As a result of the lawsuits stemming from the US 281 tollway brouhaha, ARMA decided to perform a new environmental and needs study for all of Loop 1604, including Loop 1604 West.  That study is ongoing and no major improvements can be made to 1604 until that study is done, which currently is expected to be in 2012 with construction on any improvements starting no sooner than 2015.

In the meantime, at the request of ARMA, Bexar County recently funded a study about implementing a “super-street” on 1604 from Braun to SH 151, like the one that will be built on US 281 this summer.  The results of that study are set to be announced within the next few weeks.  If approved, the 1604 super-street, like the one on 281, could be built fairly quickly and is intended to be a short-term band-aid until a permanent, long-term solution can be built.

Signals, warrants, and synchronization
Most of the signals that are on Loop 1604 today have been added over the past decade or so as a result of traffic demands.  As I mentioned earlier, traffic signals cannot be added to a roadway unless they meet a number of technical requirements (known as “warrants”), including through-traffic volumes, turning movements, intersection geometry, and crash history.  Engineers are reluctant to install signals on a road like 1604 unless absolutely necessary due to the interruption to traffic that they cause.  The signals on 1604 may be disruptive and annoying, but they do serve a legitimate purpose and were carefully considered before being installed.

Some folks will ask why can’t the signals be synchronized.  The problem is that the signalized intersections on 1604 are located at such distances that synchronization would not function as desired.  For synchronization to work properly, intersections typically need to be a half-mile apart or less to allow for the tight “platoons” of vehicles to be properly maintained through the corridor.  Vehicles must be within the scheduled timeframe (known as a “green band” or “green wave”) for a platoon in order to get a green at each successive signal.  The longer the distance between signals, the more likely the platoons are to disperse, thus negating the synchronization.

Another issue plaguing Loop 1604– and 281– is that during peak periods, there is simply too much traffic.  When traffic volumes exceed the roadway capacity, signal synchronization inherently breaks-down because traffic queues build-up at each intersection and those queues exhaust the green time that was intended for the platoon of vehicles coming behind them.  That platoon then gets caught entirely or partially by the subsequent red light, thus perpetuating the cycle until traffic volumes drop back below the capacity of the roadway.  In short, signal synchronization is not always the “magic bullet” that most people believe it to be.

It’s worth noting the traffic signals along Loop 1604 are managed by the City of San Antonio, so any complaints about their operation should be reported to COSA Public Works.

A problem of perception
Frankly, I think many complaints simply stem from misperceptions on the part of motorists and the perhaps unrealistic expectations those misperceptions bring.  First of all, the majority of folks living in the 1604 West area nowadays are new arrivals, having moved to the area in the past decade, and therefore don’t know what things were like before.  They’re making their judgements based on what they see today and not realizing that things once upon a time were much worse.  Are things perfect today?  Of course not, and there will always be room for improvement.  But the situation today could have been far worse than it is.

The second perception problem– which is the same one that plagues 281 north of 1604– is that many people consider 1604 West to be a “highway”, and so they believe it should function like Loop 410, I-10, or Loop 1604 north of Braun.  But those roads are all expressways, and the fact is that 1604 south of Braun is not a “highway” in that sense, but instead is just a regular surface-level divided highway.  As such, it is functionally the same type of road as SH 16 (Bandera Road), and I rarely– if ever– hear people complain that the signals along Bandera are incongruous.  A divided highway is not automatically an expressway, and just because other parts of 1604 are an expressway doesn’t mean that all of it is– that’s why there are the “END EXPRESSWAY” signs on southbound 1604 approaching Braun.  Just look at the Google Map of the area– notice that the thick gold roadway (which is how Google Maps denotes an expressway) ends at Braun and the yellow roadway that is used for 1604 south of there is the same as the one used for Bandera, SW Military, Austin Hwy., and other non-expressway state highways in the area.

So, to borrow Paul Harvey’s famous line, now you know the rest of the story.  I don’t expect an “I love the Loop 1604 traffic lights” Facebook page to be born as a result, but I do hope this has helped explain how the situation on Loop 1604 has evolved and why the folks responsible for the signals out there don’t really deserve to be the targets of road angst.

Links of interest:

• Texas Highway Man: Loop 1604
• Texas Highway Man: Loop 1604 Tollway Project
• OnTheMoveBlog: Loop 1604 Super Street to be studied
• WOAI-TV: ‘Superstreet’ planned for Loop 1604 on Northwest Side
• More for 1604 (enviro study)
• Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices: Traffic Control Signal Needs Studies
• Wikipedia: Green wave

Here is the topic schedule:

Saturday February 20, 9:30 – 11;30 AM – Ox, mule and horse drawn transportation.

Saturday February 20, 1:30 – 3:30 PM – Railroads; 1850 to the present

Saturday February 27, 9:30 – 11:30 AM – Public transportation, streetcars, jitneys and buses

Saturday February 27, 1:30 – 3:30 PM – Private transportation, from the bicycle to the present.

1925 Baldwin steam locomotive at Pearl Brewery

Question:  How do you return a long dormant steam locomotive back to active passenger service in 2010, with all the heightened concerns about safety?  Answer:  Very, very carefully.  This ain’t 1964.  Way back then early Texas Transportation Museum members including one Dave Wallace, acquired the 1925 Baldwin 0-4-0 steam locomotive from New Braunfels where it had sat idled in a shed since being retired around 1928, brought it to San Antonio, placed it on tracks adjacent to Pearl Brewery, simply filled the boiler with water and fired it up.  While it didn’t explode, it sent out enough smuts and soot that those same volunteers ended up cleaning car windshields for several blocks around.

The locomotive, called #1 by the electricity generating power station, was then used regularly for several years before the museum was offered forty acres of the old Northeast Preserve adjacent to the international airport and relocated.  Faced with a green field site, it took museum volunteers time to lay tracks and build structures to accommodate the delightful small steam switcher, specially designed to move and empty one loaded coal car at a time on rails with tight curves and limited access.  Once #1 was brought to the Wetmore Road location it was only run very briefly.  The museum had acquired a 1942 diesel electric switcher which was far easier to operate and maintain and #1 was relegated to that treacherous location, the wish list.

There it languished, staying in the top ten but never making it to the top of our priorities.  In the early 2000s, the museum embarked on a long term rejuvenation program.  Lacking any funding from the city, county, state or federal governments, we would have to rely on our own resources.  We looked hard at our facilities and, working with a small budget to begin with, began to upgrade as much of the museum as circumstances would allow.  The public noticed and each year we attracted more and more visitors.  More visitors meant more revenue which was in invested in further improvements.

We also began attracting new volunteers.  They could not understand why we were ignoring our best asset, the item which had caused the museum to be formed in the first place and the one with the biggest potential to draw in even more visitors, not only from San Antonio but across the state and beyond.  We crunched all the relevant numbers plus began researching what new regulations, restrictions and legal requirements we would have to follow.  It began to appear that the time was finally right to dust off #1 and bring it back to life.

The key thing was finding volunteers not only with enthusiasm but also the necessary skills to make the project happen.  In this we were very fortunate.  Several remarkable men were ready, willing and able to get started.  We also still had Dave Wallace who had acquired #1 for the museum back in the early 1960s, plus access to the volunteers who had operated it in the 1980s.  This was 2004 and things were looking good.  After about a year’s worth of work we even managed to have it move again under its own power for the first time in a long time,

Under pressure, 2004

However, just as with old automobiles with which I am more familiar, you get the thing running in order to find out what’s wrong with it.  It became apparent that 20% of its sixty-four flue tubes would need to be replaced.  Appropriate tubes were ordered from a steel foundry in Pennsylvania and partially installed.  But flaring, sealing and beading the small bore pipes required a very specialized tool and one could not be found.  As a result the project stalled.  Our volunteers were disenchanted with this turn of events not to mention exhausted from almost two years of hard effort and decided to take some time off and focus on other things.

Meanwhile the rest of the museum was going from strength to strength.  Somehow the temporary delay began to stretch out.  Once again #1 fell from pole position on our wish list.  At a certain point it became apparent that we had successfully undertaken pretty much all the low cost projects we could and now we needed to tackle the big ticket items that would take more in the way of capital investment than hard work by volunteers.  Despite the economic downturn in late 2007 our own resources were in relatively good shape.  It was time to take the plunge and take on serious debt if necessary to bring #1 back into service at last, on the basis that this would be a catalyst for other much desired projects, such as extending our mainline and building a museum quality display building.

Our first piece of major good fortune was finding the Holman Boiler, conveniently located just around the corner from the museum.  This was after checking with at least a dozen other outfits who would hardly give us the time of day.  Holman was not only enthusiastic about working on our steam locomotive they said they had access to the appropriate sized boiler flue beading tool.  Our next piece of luck was in acquiring the museum’s first ever major grant in its forty-six year existence.  This was given by the Brown Foundation out of Houston expressly for the purpose of getting #1 going again.

And so it came to pass last Saturday that I found myself atop the diminutive locomotive tightening bolts on its steam dome along with Ben Bennett, one of the folks instrumental in moving the project to this point, and Bob Owers, who deserves the lion’s share of the credit for where we are today, which is very, very close to a successful hydrostatic test and a state issued boiler certificate.  With these in hand we can get boiler insurance that will allow us to operate the locative in public.  There is still quite a bit of work to be done but the dream is about to become reality: Live steam passenger service is coming back to San Antonio!