I've lived in my house in northeast Garland for a little more than ten years now, and in that time, I've seen a lot of change in the area. For the sake of simplicity, we could refer to the area at the time that I moved in as "Neighborhood 1.0," although it really was probably at version 1.5 before my arrival, with the extension of the Bush Turnpike from U.S. 75 to State Highway 78 about a year and a half before I bought the house; before that time, the area was miles away from any controlled-access highway and could only be reached via surface streets.
Version 2.0 began in October 2005 with the opening of Firewheel Town Center at the turnpike's temporary terminus (say that ten times fast!), and as I predicted in a blog post at the time, the presence of the New Urbanist center did indeed transform the area. No longer did we have to travel to Richardson or Plano to do the majority of our (non-grocery) shopping; the then-mayor of Garland marveled at how he could now purchase a men's suit within the borders of our city. And with that came two hotels, even more shopping, and restaurants of all kinds--a big relief from the days when my lunch choices were Subway #1, Subway #2 or Subway #3. (To this day, I'm still somewhat burned out on Subway, and while I still like it, I don't often go there unless it's someone else's idea.)
But the picture was always (literally) incomplete, as the turnpike came to (sometimes also literally) a screeching halt right in front of Firewheel. It's never been too much fun at rush hour, and it still meant that our neighborhood was landlocked to the south; a trip to I-30 meant going through the surface streets of Rowlett or the even more traffic light-ridden Centerville Road. But just like, after probably a decade of driving by a lonely sign that said "Future home of AMC Theatres," Firewheel finally came to fruition, we waited with eager anticipation for the opening of the Eastern Extension that would carry us to I-30 in mere minutes. We were promised an opening in the "last quarter of 2011," and the project was delivered on time...today.
So did I take a trip on the new road within the first hour or two of its opening? You bet I did! Some thoughts follow:
1) The new road is fast. Really, really fast. Having driven under, over and around it (sometimes in the same trip), it was amazing to watch the miles click by. (From the Lake Ray Hubbard bridge, its counterpart on Rowlett Road looked like a Hot Wheels track.) My teaching takes me from Rowlett to Sachse and back in the same day on several occasions during the week, and that trip's time just got reduced by three-fourths.
2) Some of the onramps were not open yet as of this afternoon; we had been warned as such, so that wasn't surprising. What was a surprise was that, while the entire southbound length of the project was open to I-30 today, the northbound part appeared only to be accessible north of Miller Road in Rowlett. So at the end of the journey, I had to wind back through Rowlett to take my trip home. I can assume that it will all be open at this hour, but you might want to check if you're planning to go that way from the south today.
3) While it's incredibly convenient, it does come at a price; the mainlane gantry costs $1.52 if you have a TollTag, and cash customers will pay an eye-popping $2.28. (I guess that will convince all the holdouts in the area to finally get a tag.)
4) We probably won't see the other benefit of this project until after Christmas, or maybe even at the beginning of next year, when rush-hour traffic resumes at full strength, but I'm betting that the new turnpike will have a positive effect on the nearby surface streets as well. Firewheel Parkway/Rowlett Road in particular should get a decent amount of relief, since quite a bit of the turnpike traffic will continue ahead on that road instead of being dumped off in front of Firewheel.
5) My only real gripe with this project--and the NTTA will hear from me about it soon--is the tolling of the on- and offramps at Crist Road. Because of the lack of a contiguous frontage road through the Bush/Highway 78 interchange, all traffic is routed onto the turnpike there, and the on- and offramps at Brand Road were (and still are) free. And while the ramps to 78 are themselves free, it is now impossible to rejoin the eastbound frontage road (or enter the turnpike from the westbound one) without paying. As a resident of the area directly affected by this--the only way I can exit to my house for free is either to loop around Firewheel Town Center or go too far west via the South 78 ramp and double back--I'm none too happy about this.
6) Some of the signage is a little questionable as well; the westbound Firewheel Parkway/Crist Road exit is also the exit to the even busier SH 78, but there's no sign saying that until right before the exit ramp. (I can see some people trying to make crazy maneuvers to avoid missing that exit; it seems like the SH 78 shield should have been atop the sign from its first appearance.) Also, one exit in Rowlett is to the Merritt/Liberty Grove Connector, a road which won't exist until mid-2013. Meanwhile, motorists trying to reach the current Liberty Grove Rd. from the south will find that they've already passed it if they take that exit.
7) But the best thing about this besides convenience and traffic relief is the potential for the future. As I drove past what now are empty fields in Rowlett and Sachse, I didn't think "emptiness"--I thought "sites of future growth." Just as the Bush extension to 78 brought us Firewheel and its surrounding amenities, so will this new extension bring development and its added tax base. There's already talk of a business park in the area north of Liberty Grove, and I've heard about plans for an "entertainment district" in Rowlett near the bridge over the lake. It'll be fun to see what pops up over the years.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. Our neighborhood just got a lot more connected today.
Showing posts with label Transportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Transportation. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Phantom Tollbooth (Modern Version)
When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was The Phantom Tollbooth, the story of a kid named Milo who had all kinds of unusual adventures when he drove his toy car through a magical tollbooth that he receives mysteriously one afternoon as a gift. But now, the title takes on a new meaning; as of today, there will no longer be such a thing as a "tollbooth" in the North Texas area, as the North Texas Tollway Authority completes its transition to cashless tolling.
It's not exactly a new thing; tolls on the Bush Turnpike has been all-electronic for over a year now, but it took a while for some of the older facilities, like the Dallas North Tollway and the Addison Airport Toll Tunnel, to get retrofitted. The big, clunky buildings that stretched across the highway have either had their cash lanes eliminated or been replaced by the new, smaller "gantries" that adorn the newer roads in the system. And while the NTTA went to great lengths to retrain its toll collectors for other positions in the agency, it still marks the end of an era in local transportation.
There's been pseudo-automation in the toll road industry for decades, of course, ever since the first coin-operated toll baskets were installed in, what--the '50s? As a little kid, I always liked the "throw in the basket" tolls more than the "pay the man" tolls, mostly because Dad would let me toss the coins in the former. But I wonder if anyone imagined even two decades ago that everything would be automated at this point in time. (Yeah, they probably did, and they also likely thought the toll plazas would be elevated to accommodate our flying cars, LOL.)
I guess my only question for the NTTA is if/when the big hulky plazas on the Bush will be replaced by gantries; as it stands now, there's a lot of excess concrete out there where the cash lanes used to be, and it's a little annoying that the onramps start out wide and narrow to a single lane to enter the highway. But I guess that will all happen soon enough.
So if you drive through a toll plaza today--not having to slow down at all to do so--think back for a moment and remember the folks whose jobs have now been assigned to the pages of history.
It's not exactly a new thing; tolls on the Bush Turnpike has been all-electronic for over a year now, but it took a while for some of the older facilities, like the Dallas North Tollway and the Addison Airport Toll Tunnel, to get retrofitted. The big, clunky buildings that stretched across the highway have either had their cash lanes eliminated or been replaced by the new, smaller "gantries" that adorn the newer roads in the system. And while the NTTA went to great lengths to retrain its toll collectors for other positions in the agency, it still marks the end of an era in local transportation.
There's been pseudo-automation in the toll road industry for decades, of course, ever since the first coin-operated toll baskets were installed in, what--the '50s? As a little kid, I always liked the "throw in the basket" tolls more than the "pay the man" tolls, mostly because Dad would let me toss the coins in the former. But I wonder if anyone imagined even two decades ago that everything would be automated at this point in time. (Yeah, they probably did, and they also likely thought the toll plazas would be elevated to accommodate our flying cars, LOL.)
I guess my only question for the NTTA is if/when the big hulky plazas on the Bush will be replaced by gantries; as it stands now, there's a lot of excess concrete out there where the cash lanes used to be, and it's a little annoying that the onramps start out wide and narrow to a single lane to enter the highway. But I guess that will all happen soon enough.
So if you drive through a toll plaza today--not having to slow down at all to do so--think back for a moment and remember the folks whose jobs have now been assigned to the pages of history.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
A Tag on the Bush Is Worth Two (Fifty-Six) in the Hand
Needing to run an errand in the Arlington area today, I was able to do something new: Traverse the George Bush Turnpike in its new entirety, including the recently-opened extension of State Highway 161. (I realize that the latter is not technically part of the Bush facility, but there's been talk of giving that name to the entire proposed outer loop system, possibly even uniting it all under the number of Loop 41, for the president which it honors--remember, it's named for the father, not the son.) The trip is very convenient, but, as i noted in a recent post, it comes at a (literal) cost, since the toll rates (mostly) went up.
As I said earlier, the new system is at least attempting to be more "equitable," as the rates do vary quite a bit depending on the distance between the on- or offramps and the nearest mainlane plaza. This makes for a confusing commute, but I suppose that it's a lot easier to do this now that nobody has to pay in cash anymore.
So here's how the tolls stack up for the entire length of the road (using a TollTag), from the beginning in Garland until the end of the tolled section of 161 just north of i-30::
And the thing about the looped nature of the road means that it's still possible to use it in combination with free roads for a lower fee while saving some time vs. using the free roads alone. (For instance, I could get to the same place--I-30 and SH 161, which was built over the footprint of NW 19th St. in Grand Prairie--by going through Rowlett and hitting I-30 west. I wouldn't spend a dime on tolls, but I'd also have to deal with downtown Dallas and the seeming interminable construction on I-30 west of there. At some times of the day, the I-30 traffic would be bad enough that using the tollway would seem to be a no-brainer.)
Perhaps sometime in the future, I'll do the one thing I didn't do yesterday (because of a lunch stop): Actually time the trip, and eventually do so on the nearest free route as well. I don't know for sure that the tollway would always "win" that competition, but from where I sit, anything that keeps me off LBJ Freeway as much as possible is a good thing.
And the road goes ever onward: Since I had a little time, I went ahead and followed the 161 service roads all the way to their terminus at I-20. Even though there are a few stoplights along the way, the mere presence of these roads will certainly take a bit of the pressure off Loop 12 and SH 360, and things will only get better once the mainlanes are completed. The slight interruption in downtown Grand Prairie (where drivers have to detour a block to cross a set of railroad tracks) is a bit of an annoyance, but otherwise, it's a straight shot now to I-20. I'm sure this will be a shot in the arm to the whole area, as most of the land through which it passes is undeveloped. (For an overview of the 161 project, go here.)
As I said earlier, the new system is at least attempting to be more "equitable," as the rates do vary quite a bit depending on the distance between the on- or offramps and the nearest mainlane plaza. This makes for a confusing commute, but I suppose that it's a lot easier to do this now that nobody has to pay in cash anymore.
So here's how the tolls stack up for the entire length of the road (using a TollTag), from the beginning in Garland until the end of the tolled section of 161 just north of i-30::
- Shiloh Main Plaza: $1.00
- Coit Main Plaza: $1.08 (sorry, but I still don't see the need for the extra eight cents)
- Frankford Main Plaza: $1.00
- Sandy Lake Main Plaza: $0.80
- Belt LIne Main Plaza: $0.46 (this was a pleasant surprise)
- SH 161 Main Gantry: $0.78
And the thing about the looped nature of the road means that it's still possible to use it in combination with free roads for a lower fee while saving some time vs. using the free roads alone. (For instance, I could get to the same place--I-30 and SH 161, which was built over the footprint of NW 19th St. in Grand Prairie--by going through Rowlett and hitting I-30 west. I wouldn't spend a dime on tolls, but I'd also have to deal with downtown Dallas and the seeming interminable construction on I-30 west of there. At some times of the day, the I-30 traffic would be bad enough that using the tollway would seem to be a no-brainer.)
Perhaps sometime in the future, I'll do the one thing I didn't do yesterday (because of a lunch stop): Actually time the trip, and eventually do so on the nearest free route as well. I don't know for sure that the tollway would always "win" that competition, but from where I sit, anything that keeps me off LBJ Freeway as much as possible is a good thing.
And the road goes ever onward: Since I had a little time, I went ahead and followed the 161 service roads all the way to their terminus at I-20. Even though there are a few stoplights along the way, the mere presence of these roads will certainly take a bit of the pressure off Loop 12 and SH 360, and things will only get better once the mainlanes are completed. The slight interruption in downtown Grand Prairie (where drivers have to detour a block to cross a set of railroad tracks) is a bit of an annoyance, but otherwise, it's a straight shot now to I-20. I'm sure this will be a shot in the arm to the whole area, as most of the land through which it passes is undeveloped. (For an overview of the 161 project, go here.)
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wait--Again??
I was just browsing the news, and I couldn't believe this one: There's been yet another wrong-way crash on the Dallas North Tollway. Like most of them, it's on the older section of the road between downtown and LBJ, and, like virtually all of them, it involved a suspected drunk driver:
My theories? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the "older" section of the Tollway has below-grade crossings, so the intersections with the offramps (since there are few true service roads in this section) look just like any other intersection; you can't necessarily see that the Tollway is below you. Does that cause people( (especially at night, especially while impaired) to automatically assume that they can turn left at any stoplight, and then do so? Sure, they have big DO NOT ENTER and/or WRONG WAY signs posted at the intersections, but do they need to be bigger? Transportation experts have said that the "cattle guard" method, where a wrong-way vehicle's tires would be punctured, don't work at freeway (or even offramp) speeds.
Is everyone missing something here? Is there a solution that nobody has thought of yet? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.
Isidoro Camacho of Dallas was driving a white Pontiac Sunfire and heading north in the southbound lanes for about a mile when he collided with a black Chevy Cobalt about 3 a.m., authorities said.Thankfully, this one wasn't a fatality. And granted, the biggest problem in a drunk-driving crash is, well, that somebody was driving drunk. But what is it about this section of the Tollway that causes this to happen so much more frequently than anywhere else?
The Cobalt driver, Holly Harding, 23, of Lewisville saw the Pontiac and was able to take evasive action to avoid a true head-on collison, said Trooper Lonny Haschel, of the Department of Public Safety.
My theories? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the "older" section of the Tollway has below-grade crossings, so the intersections with the offramps (since there are few true service roads in this section) look just like any other intersection; you can't necessarily see that the Tollway is below you. Does that cause people( (especially at night, especially while impaired) to automatically assume that they can turn left at any stoplight, and then do so? Sure, they have big DO NOT ENTER and/or WRONG WAY signs posted at the intersections, but do they need to be bigger? Transportation experts have said that the "cattle guard" method, where a wrong-way vehicle's tires would be punctured, don't work at freeway (or even offramp) speeds.
Is everyone missing something here? Is there a solution that nobody has thought of yet? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
These New Policies are Taking a Toll On Me
I've been a staunch defender of the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) in the pages of this blog, But I do have to say that I'm a little distressed by two recent developments.
First of all, the toll rates went up last week. I knew that was coming, but I didn't know the extent until I went through a main plaza on the George Bush a few days ago. (In fact, I was really confused at first; the rates at the ramp booth closest to my house--the one I use frequently when grocery shopping or visiting my friend one suburb over--actually went down when the changes took place.) Seeing the rate at the Renner plaza rise to a dollar for TollTag customers (from 70 cents) made me do something I'd never done before in the entire time I've used NTTA roads: Decide if the trip was really necessary or if I could go another way.
I'm also somewhat confused by the sliding scale at the different booths and plazas. I guess it makes sense that a shorter trip equals a cheaper toll, but I never expected a ramp plaza to almost equal the cost of a mainlane plaza in some places. And on my trip to Legacy a few days ago, I was very surprised to see that, while the Renner plaza costs a dollar to pass through, the Coit one is now $1.08. What's up with the extra eight cents? It seems like all the mainlane plazas out to be the same price, as they have been throughout the history of the system. (UPDATE: On a trip to Denton the day after this post, I noticed that the Frankford plaza is also a dollar, which makes the extra eight pennies at Coit even more of a mystery.)
The other unnerving thing is the speed limit increase on most sections of the system to 70 mph. It's not that traffic is going too fast, but rather the opposite problem: Nobody's speeding up! I'll admit that, I'm generally in favor of this increase, as I was always having to stifle the urge to go 70 in a 60 zone in the first place, and, ironically, now that it is, I have to remind myself of that, since I seem to be on auto-pilot to do 60 after all these years.
But it was very hard to go 70, at least on the Bush this past weekend. I'm not sure how much of that can be chalked up to either the newness of the increase (everyone else is on autopilot at 60 like I've been) or the fact that the past two days were a Sunday and a holiday, respectively, but it's going to be hard to maintain the higher speeds if nobody else is doing so.
If you're an NTTA rider, feel free to chime in about either the increased tolls or speed limits and how they're affecting your commute.
First of all, the toll rates went up last week. I knew that was coming, but I didn't know the extent until I went through a main plaza on the George Bush a few days ago. (In fact, I was really confused at first; the rates at the ramp booth closest to my house--the one I use frequently when grocery shopping or visiting my friend one suburb over--actually went down when the changes took place.) Seeing the rate at the Renner plaza rise to a dollar for TollTag customers (from 70 cents) made me do something I'd never done before in the entire time I've used NTTA roads: Decide if the trip was really necessary or if I could go another way.
I'm also somewhat confused by the sliding scale at the different booths and plazas. I guess it makes sense that a shorter trip equals a cheaper toll, but I never expected a ramp plaza to almost equal the cost of a mainlane plaza in some places. And on my trip to Legacy a few days ago, I was very surprised to see that, while the Renner plaza costs a dollar to pass through, the Coit one is now $1.08. What's up with the extra eight cents? It seems like all the mainlane plazas out to be the same price, as they have been throughout the history of the system. (UPDATE: On a trip to Denton the day after this post, I noticed that the Frankford plaza is also a dollar, which makes the extra eight pennies at Coit even more of a mystery.)
The other unnerving thing is the speed limit increase on most sections of the system to 70 mph. It's not that traffic is going too fast, but rather the opposite problem: Nobody's speeding up! I'll admit that, I'm generally in favor of this increase, as I was always having to stifle the urge to go 70 in a 60 zone in the first place, and, ironically, now that it is, I have to remind myself of that, since I seem to be on auto-pilot to do 60 after all these years.
But it was very hard to go 70, at least on the Bush this past weekend. I'm not sure how much of that can be chalked up to either the newness of the increase (everyone else is on autopilot at 60 like I've been) or the fact that the past two days were a Sunday and a holiday, respectively, but it's going to be hard to maintain the higher speeds if nobody else is doing so.
If you're an NTTA rider, feel free to chime in about either the increased tolls or speed limits and how they're affecting your commute.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Your Money Isn't Good Here Anymore...
...at least if you're driving the President George Bush Turnpike. As of yesterday, the toll road was switched over to all-electronic toll collection, also known as ETC. (I understand that some of the portable signs that were flashing the message ALL-ETC BEGINS JULY 1 were confusing to some people who thought ETC meant "et cetera.") This means that it's no longer possible to pay tolls in cash on the highway; your choices are now either to get a TollTag (which is what the North Texas Tollway Authority wants you to do) or have your license plate recorded by the readers and get a bill for it later; this process is known as ZipCash.
While the NTTA has a brief explanation of ZipCash on its website, it doesn't answer the question of how frequently those customers will be billed. Elsewhere on the site, it states that ZipCash "will generate a mailed invoice after several transactions have occurred." I have to think that, when all is said and done, it's likely to be a monthly thing; it seems like it would be a ridiculous waste of paper, postage and workforce to send a bill any more frequently than that.
This is not the first time that an all-ETC tollway has been used in Texas; the Westpark Toll Road in the Houston area has been all-ETC since its opening (which meant that I wouldn't have been able to drive on it back in the days when the Houston and NTTA TollTags weren't configured to "talk" to each other yet; what a pain that was), and the tolled sections of State Highway 121 (is anyone calling it "the Sam" yet?) opened as an all-ETC facility in this area. But the Bush is by far the longest section of roadway to do this in the Metroplex at this point.
I should point out that I don't have a personal dog in this hunt; I've been a TollTagger since 1997, when I started using the Dallas North Tollway to get to church. (When I bought my tag, I asked if it was going to be valid on the George Bush when it opened a few years later, and the lady behind the counter said, "The what?") I've never had any problems with NTTA's customer service, and I was really happy to learn a few years ago that the toll collectors who were about to be displaced by the all-ETC switch were given the option to be retrained for other positions within the organization. And with this switch, I'll never have to gripe at someone in front of me who slows down in order to pay cash (I tended to refer to them as "those lame money people") anymore. But I do hope that the NTTA will be very careful to keep updated records of the registered owners of cars so that people won't be sent bills for tolls incurred by vehicles they no longer own. (WHen I got my new car last year, I was required to take the license plates from the old one and put them on the new one; I think that's a fairly recent state law, and it seems like that would solve quite a few problems of that kind.)
There is one glitch that has yet to be solved: The NTTA does not yet have an agreement with the state of Oklahoma to get drivers license information from pictures taken of that state's plates. So what happens? Well, Oklahoma drivers drive for free, at least for now.
While the NTTA has a brief explanation of ZipCash on its website, it doesn't answer the question of how frequently those customers will be billed. Elsewhere on the site, it states that ZipCash "will generate a mailed invoice after several transactions have occurred." I have to think that, when all is said and done, it's likely to be a monthly thing; it seems like it would be a ridiculous waste of paper, postage and workforce to send a bill any more frequently than that.
This is not the first time that an all-ETC tollway has been used in Texas; the Westpark Toll Road in the Houston area has been all-ETC since its opening (which meant that I wouldn't have been able to drive on it back in the days when the Houston and NTTA TollTags weren't configured to "talk" to each other yet; what a pain that was), and the tolled sections of State Highway 121 (is anyone calling it "the Sam" yet?) opened as an all-ETC facility in this area. But the Bush is by far the longest section of roadway to do this in the Metroplex at this point.
I should point out that I don't have a personal dog in this hunt; I've been a TollTagger since 1997, when I started using the Dallas North Tollway to get to church. (When I bought my tag, I asked if it was going to be valid on the George Bush when it opened a few years later, and the lady behind the counter said, "The what?") I've never had any problems with NTTA's customer service, and I was really happy to learn a few years ago that the toll collectors who were about to be displaced by the all-ETC switch were given the option to be retrained for other positions within the organization. And with this switch, I'll never have to gripe at someone in front of me who slows down in order to pay cash (I tended to refer to them as "those lame money people") anymore. But I do hope that the NTTA will be very careful to keep updated records of the registered owners of cars so that people won't be sent bills for tolls incurred by vehicles they no longer own. (WHen I got my new car last year, I was required to take the license plates from the old one and put them on the new one; I think that's a fairly recent state law, and it seems like that would solve quite a few problems of that kind.)
There is one glitch that has yet to be solved: The NTTA does not yet have an agreement with the state of Oklahoma to get drivers license information from pictures taken of that state's plates. So what happens? Well, Oklahoma drivers drive for free, at least for now.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Cruisin' the Sam?
Yesterday afternoon, I rode on the Sam Rayburn Tollway for the first time...sort of.
It's not that I hadn't been on the road before; far from it. I've driven it many, many times under its original name of State Highway 121, but this was the first time to be there since some of the new signs had been put up. The name-selection process for the tollway was discussed here in this post from February; I was all for keeping the generic "121 Tollway" name because everyone would call it that anyway, but I noted that the Rayburn name might be cool if we could get traffic reporters and the like to refer to it as "the Sam."
But is anyone really using that name? While I saw a fair amount of Rayburn signs pointing toward the highway (using the same design of the new signs that have popped up along the George Bush recently), all the big green freeway signs leading to 121 still have the old "121 TOLL" signs on them (perhaps that's the next phase of the changeover?). And I have yet to hear the name Sam Rayburn come out of the mouth of a single traffic reporter (maybe Eric can enlighten us on whether there's any concerted effort to use the new name); so far, it's been all-121, all the time.
So we'll see if this name will stick. It's confusing enough that, while most Metroplex freeways have both a number and a name, the numbers are the only things that usually appear on the large green freeway signage. (How confusing it must be when someone from out of town is told to go north on Stemmons and east on LBJ, when all the signs say 35E and 635, respectively.) The only exception seems to be the local highway, which usually gets called the George Bush or the Bush Turnpike, though some will call it by its pre-toll name, Highway 190, or its erroneous counterpart, I-90, which is very far off. (I mean that literally; I-90 is Interstate 90, which runs from Washington state to Massachusetts. And here's a piece of trivia: The original house where I lived as a newborn in Cleveland just escaped becoming part of I-90 by two or three houses.) And to make things more complicated, the service roads for the Bush are still technically Highway 190, while the mainlanes are the Bush. And I assume that the same will take place on 121, where the mainlanes will be the Sam Rayburn Tollway and the service roads will remain 121.
So what do you think--will the new name catch on at all? (I still think that "the Sam" has potential.) Or will it be 121 forever, new signage notwithstanding?
Something constructive: The coolest part of my drive on "the Sam" actually took place on the part that's not tolled; the new section from Business 121 to FM 2499 is now a freeway! I shudder to think of all the time I spent sitting in traffic at the two stoplights that interrupted 121's freeway-ness; the one at Sandy Lake had tons of traffic coming in and out of Grapevine Mills, and the one at Freeport Parkway was often pointless, because we would have to stop even if no cross-traffic was there at all. The two new bridges have now alleviated that problem, and it was great to sail over those two intersections without interruption. (And how smart it was of somebody to decide to go ahead and build half of the freeway--two lanes in each direction--now, to end that bottleneck, rather than wait until they could afford to pay for the whole thing. Well done, folks!)
This is pretty "tweet" of them: I only joined Twitter a few days ago, but one thing has already impressed me a great deal: They've postponed a scheduled maintenance outage time that was supposed to take place within a few hours so that Iranians protesting the (likely tainted) presidential election that took place in their country can continue to use the service as a vital communication tool--a near-necessity in a country that's known to censor some pretty big swaths of the Internet. They've rescheduled the outage for tomorrow afternoon, which is in the middle of the night in Tehran.
It's not that I hadn't been on the road before; far from it. I've driven it many, many times under its original name of State Highway 121, but this was the first time to be there since some of the new signs had been put up. The name-selection process for the tollway was discussed here in this post from February; I was all for keeping the generic "121 Tollway" name because everyone would call it that anyway, but I noted that the Rayburn name might be cool if we could get traffic reporters and the like to refer to it as "the Sam."
But is anyone really using that name? While I saw a fair amount of Rayburn signs pointing toward the highway (using the same design of the new signs that have popped up along the George Bush recently), all the big green freeway signs leading to 121 still have the old "121 TOLL" signs on them (perhaps that's the next phase of the changeover?). And I have yet to hear the name Sam Rayburn come out of the mouth of a single traffic reporter (maybe Eric can enlighten us on whether there's any concerted effort to use the new name); so far, it's been all-121, all the time.
So we'll see if this name will stick. It's confusing enough that, while most Metroplex freeways have both a number and a name, the numbers are the only things that usually appear on the large green freeway signage. (How confusing it must be when someone from out of town is told to go north on Stemmons and east on LBJ, when all the signs say 35E and 635, respectively.) The only exception seems to be the local highway, which usually gets called the George Bush or the Bush Turnpike, though some will call it by its pre-toll name, Highway 190, or its erroneous counterpart, I-90, which is very far off. (I mean that literally; I-90 is Interstate 90, which runs from Washington state to Massachusetts. And here's a piece of trivia: The original house where I lived as a newborn in Cleveland just escaped becoming part of I-90 by two or three houses.) And to make things more complicated, the service roads for the Bush are still technically Highway 190, while the mainlanes are the Bush. And I assume that the same will take place on 121, where the mainlanes will be the Sam Rayburn Tollway and the service roads will remain 121.
So what do you think--will the new name catch on at all? (I still think that "the Sam" has potential.) Or will it be 121 forever, new signage notwithstanding?
Something constructive: The coolest part of my drive on "the Sam" actually took place on the part that's not tolled; the new section from Business 121 to FM 2499 is now a freeway! I shudder to think of all the time I spent sitting in traffic at the two stoplights that interrupted 121's freeway-ness; the one at Sandy Lake had tons of traffic coming in and out of Grapevine Mills, and the one at Freeport Parkway was often pointless, because we would have to stop even if no cross-traffic was there at all. The two new bridges have now alleviated that problem, and it was great to sail over those two intersections without interruption. (And how smart it was of somebody to decide to go ahead and build half of the freeway--two lanes in each direction--now, to end that bottleneck, rather than wait until they could afford to pay for the whole thing. Well done, folks!)
This is pretty "tweet" of them: I only joined Twitter a few days ago, but one thing has already impressed me a great deal: They've postponed a scheduled maintenance outage time that was supposed to take place within a few hours so that Iranians protesting the (likely tainted) presidential election that took place in their country can continue to use the service as a vital communication tool--a near-necessity in a country that's known to censor some pretty big swaths of the Internet. They've rescheduled the outage for tomorrow afternoon, which is in the middle of the night in Tehran.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
What's in a Name (Toll Road Edition)
Most people don't get the opportunity to help name a road, especially one as big as the over half-completed State Highway 121 tollway. But the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) is seeking public input on its name at the moment, and they have a few ideas:
So if it were up to you, what would you name the tollway? I know it sounds generic, but 121 Tollway works for me; I think that's what I've been calling it anyway. I'm OK with naming it for Rayburn, too, especially if they nicknamed it "the Sam." Agree or disagree, feel free to hit "comment" and chime in.
Blowing out two hands' worth of candles, but no thumbs: Happy birthday to my nephew Noah, who's eight today. He may have had to go to school on his special day, but...there was cake! (The unusual story of how I was first notified of his birth is found here.)
A legendary congressman, a historic regional railway or a familiar, if bland, state highway number. Those are the options proposed by the North Texas Tollway Authority for renaming the road from Coppell to McKinney formerly known as State Highway 121.If you're behind in your Texas history (or not from Texas but still reading this for some reason), Rayburn was a longtime U.S. representative who was speaker of the House for 16 years, and the Interurban was a longtime railway connecting Denton and Waco, with major stops in Dallas and Ft. Worth (ironically, it was made obsolete by the rise of the passenger car).
The NTTA is asking for public input on the names Sam Rayburn Tollway, Interurban Tollway and 121 Tollway.
Don't like those choices? They'll also take suggestions.
Agency spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt said board members want a name that brands the road as well as differentiates it from non-tolled highways. But they also considered that using 121 in the title would provide existing name recognition, she said.
[...]The NTTA's naming policy, adopted last fall, encourages names that reflect geographic location, infrastructure or historic sites or posthumously recognize an individual for lasting public contributions.
So if it were up to you, what would you name the tollway? I know it sounds generic, but 121 Tollway works for me; I think that's what I've been calling it anyway. I'm OK with naming it for Rayburn, too, especially if they nicknamed it "the Sam." Agree or disagree, feel free to hit "comment" and chime in.
Blowing out two hands' worth of candles, but no thumbs: Happy birthday to my nephew Noah, who's eight today. He may have had to go to school on his special day, but...there was cake! (The unusual story of how I was first notified of his birth is found here.)
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