TexasBred said:
Mike said:
Let me see if I understand this. No money for roads. Perry finds way through tolls and foreign investment to build roads. People do not want more road taxes yet stop the trans Texas Corridor. Still fussing about more roads.
Do I understand it? :lol:
Mike..that's according to "TheHouston Chronicle", a liberal rag of a paper. Post no. 1......Flounder....Texas A&M U. does not have a medical school.
2. Trans Texas Corridor. ALL highways are build on land that is purchased from property owners. In your state, my state and the others. Eminent Domain is nation wide but you ARE paid for what is taken. Any road in Texas is going to take up farm or ranch land. 3. Texas Highways. (The Corridor would ahve helped) but stalled traffic is a problem nowhere except int he larger cities and people live there by choice. We have some of the best highways in the country and new ones are being build and existing highways improved everyday. 4. Toll Roads...Get use to it...at least it allows visitors to pay a share of the upkeep instead of having a state income tax. 5. Al Gore....Perry supported him in the Democratic PRIMARIES only. Hell founder, you live here. You should not be so ignorant.
America's 24 Worst Highway Bottlenecks
Rank
City
Freeway
Location
Vehicles per day
Annual hours of delay (in thousands)
1. Los Angeles
US-101
US-101 (Ventura Fwy) at I-405 Interchange
318,000
27,144
2. Houston
I-610
I-610 at I-10 Interchange (West)
295,000
25,181
3. Chicago
I-90
I-90/94 at I-290 Interchange ("Circle Interchange")
293,671
25,068
Read more: America's 24 Worst Highway Bottlenecks — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0931285.html#ixzz1VVUgNTmz
snip...
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0931285.html
HERE IS FROM ONE OF REPUBLICAN'S FAVORITE NEWS SOURCES
Top Ten Deadliest Stretches of Road in America
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 By Maxim Lott
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,490940,00.html#ixzz1VVaxifKY
While Congress is busy hammering out the details of the $838 billion-and-counting economic recovery bill, the 50 states are already releasing their wish lists for the projects they want to see funded. Among those are numerous roads and highways that they want to see improved.
But where do you start? Which pothole do you fill first?
FOXNews.com analyzed data from crash reports over the last five years to determine which stretches of the nation's roads had the highest number of deadly accidents.
Not too surprisingly, the most populated state, California, had four of the top 10 roads in numbers of fatalities. And three of those top 10 were stretches of the same Interstate — I-10 in California and Arizona.
Eight of the top 10 were in Western states — California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas. The other two roads were in Florida. And all but the last road on the list were major Interstates.
If you live in the neighborhood, you probably already are aware of the danger that lurks ahead. If you don't, but you're planning on doing some cross-country travel, be alert:
SNIP...
5) 153 deaths: I-45 in Harris County, Texas
A man was killed last month when he was speeding and missed a turn on I-45 near Fuqua. The car rolled over at least twice and ended in a ditch, FOX 26 reported.
State officials say the sheer amount of traffic on the road is the main problem.
"[I-45] is a major traffic corridor through the city of Houston. Whenever you have more cars, you're going to have more crashes," said Mark Cross, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Transportation.
The Texas DOT has identified $3 million in safety improvements, such as signs and pavement markings, that it would like to see funded with federal stimulus money.
SNIP...
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,490940,00.html#ixzz1VVbaQpZ8
America's 100 Deadliest Highways May 31, 2010 6:48 PM EDT
With summer driving season here, so is the deadliest part of the year on the road. The Daily Beast crunches the numbers to determine the 100 interstates most likely to generate a fatal wreck.
#13, I-35 Texas
2004-2008 In-state miles: 504.15 Fatal accidents: 579 Fatal accidents per mile: 1.15 Total fatalities: 659
#14, I-45 Texas
2004-2008 In-state miles: 284.91 Fatal accidents: 325 Fatal accidents per mile: 1.14 Total fatalities: 388
#41, I-30 Texas
2004-2008 In-state miles: 223.74 Fatal accidents: 179 Fatal accidents per mile: 0.80 Total fatalities: 201
#68, I-10 Texas
2004-2008 In-state miles: 881 Fatal accidents: 502 Fatal accidents per mile: 0.57 Total fatalities: 591
#80, I-20 Texas
2004-2008 In-state miles: 636.08 Fatal accidents: 337 Fatal accidents per mile: 0.53 Total fatalities: 390
#96, I-44 Texas
2004-2008 In-state miles: 14.77 Fatal accidents: 7 Fatal accidents per mile: 0.47 Total fatalities: 7
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/05/31/deadliest-highways-ranking-the-100-interstates-most-likely-to-cause-a-fatal-crash.html
America's 50 Worst Commutes
Mar 7, 2011 8:36 PM EST
These are the highways to hell. For the second straight year, The Daily Beast ranks the roads with the worst rush hour gridlock. How does your commute rank?
More than merely expensive, long commutes are mentally debilitating. They're also completely, absolutely avoidable. With that in mind, The Daily Beast set out to determine, for the second consecutive year, which cities have the worst commutes—and specifically, which stretches of road within each city experience the worst congestion.
To find America's Highways from Hell, we started with newly released data from traffic-tracking firm INRIX, which culls data from 4 million vehicles nationwide using GPS units and a smartphone application.
We pared and ranked our top 50 worst metropolitan areas for traffic for 2010 using INRIX's Travel Time Tax—the percentage of time it takes to navigate the area's roadways during rush hour compared to uninterrupted travel periods. Los Angeles, no surprise, fared the worst, with a TTT of more than 35 percent. Then, using INRIX's analysis, we culled:
The worst corridor or bottleneck: A bottleneck is typically less than 3 miles long while a corridor is usually more than 3 miles. A corridor is a stretch of consecutive bottlenecks that experience significant congestion. While many larger metropolitan areas have corridors, smaller areas have only bottlenecks and experience relatively brief periods of congestion.
The rush-hour travel tax for the worst corridor or bottleneck: The Los Angeles section of the Riverside Freeway has one particularly bad stretch of about 20 miles. With a Travel Time Tax of 183 percent, it will take the average driver 183 percent more time to travel this stretch during rush hour than during uninterrupted travel periods. TTT is the price the driver pays for using the corridor during rush hour.
Average minutes per mile: At a rate of 65 miles per hour, driving a mile should take just under one minute. Not so on the Highways from Hell. A single mile on some of these roads can take more than four minutes to drive during the worst rush hours.
Do you drive one of America's Highways From Hell? Read on.
Read the Full List.
#14, Southwest/Eastex Freeways (US-59 Northbound), Houston
Worst corridor: Buffalo Speedway through I-45 Length of worst corridor: 4.8 miles Rush hour travel time tax on worst corridor: 202% Longest rush hour travel time on worst corridor 14 minutes Time per mile during longest rush hour travel period 2.97 minutes
Commuter Buzz: "There's a lot of congestion that we see between 59 and Bissonnet," Travis Younkin, director of Capital Projects for the Upper Kirby Management District, said last month. "There's a lot of Greenway Plaza traffic, H-E-B and Kroger do a lot of business there, and a lot of cars use Buffalo to get from the residential components in West U. to the freeway and farther north."
#19, North Freeway (I-35W Northbound), Dallas
Worst corridor: Rosedale St./Exit 49B through Western Center Blvd./Exit 58 Length of worst corridor: 9.5 miles Rush hour travel time tax on worst corridor: 157% Longest rush hour travel time on worst corridor 24 minutes Time per mile during longest rush hour travel period 2.54 minutes
Commuter Buzz: "With the heavy traffic we routinely experience on I-35, especially on the weekends, it has been trying on motorists. There have been lengthy backups even before football season," David Meuser, spokesman for the Oklahoma Transportation Department, told The Oklahoman last September in reference to football fans driving to Dallas.
#36, 1-10 Eastbound, El Paso TX Worst bottleneck: McRae Blvd./Exit 28A Length of worst bottleneck: .88 miles Weekly congestion time on worst bottleneck: 23 hours Speed of worst bottleneck when congested: 24.6 mph
Commuter Buzz: "Even if El Pasoans don't think traffic is an issue here, it really is. People deal with it every day," said Edgar Fino, a traffic engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation, as reported by the El Paso Times last September.
#37, US-83 Southbound, McAllen-Edinburg-Mission TX Worst bottleneck: US-83 Bus Length of worst bottleneck: .70 miles Weekly congestion time on worst bottleneck: 5 hours Speed of worst bottleneck when congested: 28 mph
Commuter Buzz: "It's a very densely-used interchange, and you're going to have those peak hour congestion problems," said Texas Department of Transportation district engineer Mario Jorge of the roadway. "The question is at what point do we spend to fix it, but first we've got to find the funds."
#38, 1-90 Westbound, Cleveland Worst bottleneck: Chester Ave./Exit 173 Length of worst bottleneck: .23 miles Weekly congestion time on worst bottleneck: 17 hours Speed of worst bottleneck when congested: 15.9 mph
Commuter Buzz: Add a dash of rain, and the road can act like "a section of ice," Brian Beal told The Cleveland Plain Dealer, describing the hazardous pavement sealant that was applied to parts of Interstate 90 last winter.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/03/08/50-worst-commutes-americas-highways-to-hell.html
Open Letter to Rush & Hannity: Steer clear of Rick Perry
Written by Terri Hall
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Note: Sean Hannity went on a tirade against toll hikes in New York and New Jersey. Then in the same show praised Rick Perry as a conservative. Rush has been on the Perry bandwagon along with Glenn Beck. Either these guys don't vet a candidate's conservative credentials before they back 'em or they're going along with the establishment that truly fears an outsider they can't control, like a Ron Paul type of candidate.
Dear Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck,
There's something you've got to know. I'm a Texan, and Rick Perry is the BIGGEST toll-tax happy Governor in the nation. He's trying to turn every single lane of a highway near my house into a tollway and make us pay TWICE for what's already built and paid for. He's doing it all over Texas with over 500 toll projects being contemplated RIGHT NOW, while he tries to tell America he's cut taxes.
Even worse, he's trying to sell-off our public highway system to foreign companies in public private partnerships or PPPs (right out of the the Agenda 21 playbook). PPPs are sweetheart deals with massive taxpayer subsidies (that socialize the losses and privatize the profits) and charge us 75 cents PER MILE to access our PUBLIC roads.
On one road in DFW that translates to $13/day in new taxes or over $3,000 a year MORE per year just to get to work. Meanwhile, he signed a budget that INCREASED diversions of our state gas taxes to non-road uses (fuel taxes are supposed to be Constitutionally dedicated fund only for roads, so he's violated the Texas Constitution!). That same budget was 'balanced' using accounting gimmicks putting payments to Medicaid and schools into the next budget year to get them off this budget's books and make it look 'balanced,' plus he's amassed a whopping $31 billion in road debt in just 5 years -- meanwhile State spending has nearly doubled on Rick Perry's watch...yet he claims to be all about upholding the Constitution and purports himself to be a fiscal conservative.
And all this is aside from his biggest albatross....the Trans Texas Corridor. It was to be a 4,000 mile network of toll roads 1,200 feet wide (that's FOUR football fields wide - would have bisected whole communities and displaced 1 million people on just the first corridor) and the biggest land grab in TX history forcibly taking 580,000 acres of private Texans' land and handing it over to a foreign company in one of these PPPs for a HALF CENTURY. Texans rebelled and the legislature finally repealed it, but Perry still lists it as one of his many accomplishments.
If you don't like the unaccountable taxation of toll roads (in the hands of unelected bureaucrats no less), then you won't like Rick Perry. Steer clear. Then there's his corporate welfare slush funds, the HPV vaccine mandate (as a pay-off to campaign donor Merck and its lobbyist, a former Perry staffer Mike Toomey), his weakness on illegal immigration and securing our borders, the revolving door between his aides and those doing business with the state, steering public money and high level appointments to his campaign donors, and the list goes on and on. Perry's rhetoric doesn't match his record.
If you want more info, we Texans have formed a grassroots organization established to fight this stuff: www.TexasTURF.org.
http://texasturf.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
