Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2005 - 5:33 a.m.

The Freeway Needs an Enema

I really feel sorry for all the New Yorkers that have to walk to work today, 5, 10 or more miles to work, in the freezing cold, uphill, both ways, with no shoes....

Seriously though, I often gripe about the traffic management (an oxymoron) in Houston, in that there is a serious lack of alternative to driving your own car to work. We have Metro buses, but those are so inflexible that only those working right in the downtown area can use them. The HOV lanes are barricaded with concrete walls so that they are one way only channels into downtown. The general public can only use them if they are going into downtown as they do not have open access to the lane to get on and off of them as they need to but must enter the lanes in one location only (way out from downtown), and exit the lanes where they dump all vehicles about two miles from all the downtown entrances. We have no rail system, save for a useless 5 mile-ish trek between downtown and the football stadium. There are so many people living here, and most live in the outer suburbs (because that is where they can afford to live) that most people commute 20 or more miles into work. The work on the freeways to expand them to multiple, freeflowing lanes has not kept up with the rate of growth in the outer areas which results in serious rush hour traffic jams. Several years ago I lived exactly 13 miles from my front door to my office building downtown. It took me approximately one hour to get to work every day. I remember one Friday evening taking an hour and a half to get home, and there were no accidents. As it is now, if I didn't have to take Travis to my mother in law's each morning, it would take me approximatley 40 minutes to get to work. But, because I have to drive the outbound way to get to her house, and because the freeway there is only 2 lanes, the trip from her house into work (approximatley 25 miles) takes and hour and a half. Getting BACK to her house in the evenings can take an hour and a half to two hours. The freeway for a good chunk of that drive is 5 lanes across, but bottlenecks down into the two lanes. Then there are two other lanes merging into it, so you can imagine the horrible stoppage it creates. In total, I drive 80 miles a day round trip (400 miles a week), and spend approximatley 20 hours a week making that commute.

Of course there is construction going on ALL THE FREAKING TIME to expand the freeways, which causes more problems in addition to the ones that already exist.

The freeway needs an enema.

Quasi Christmas Song Virus du Jour: "So Long, Farewell" ~ From "The Sound of Music"

Useless Trivia du Jour: Peter Weller, aka Robocop, is a professor of Roman and Renaissance art and architecture at Syracuse University, and is currently working on his PhD of same.