Link to WOAI story here.
Well these poor souls can join the club with 281 users stuck with manipulated stop lights by TxDOT. No matter how many people complain and ask for the lights to be timed better, or for the original overpasses promised to be installed, they sit on it, back it up worse and wait for people to scream FOR a toll road.
That’s only until the motorists figure out how awful the toll roads in the hands of private companies are (even worse than what TxDOT cooks up). Read this blog post with an email exchange of a toll road user in Austin who’s NOT happy with how they force people onto the tollways and then have to pay up to a $1.50 PER MILE for movement. No one will get ANY congestion relief from now on unless they pay a toll. Period…That’s how they’ve designed it from now on. Never mind that you pay handsomely in gas taxes for highways already…that’s going to become the politicians play money once they build up these toll road slush funds. Former State Rep. Carter Casteel even said as much during her stint on the House Transportation Committee, “We need a road slush fund.”
Unless WE THE PEOPLE stop them…which we’re GOING TO DO!
Drivers Get Answers on Traffic Headache
By Walker Robinson
WOAI
Feb 21, 2007
Traffic in one area on the northwest side creates a backup of nearly a mile each day, and drivers there told News 4 WOAI they are tired of it. The traffic backs up on Braun Road and Loop 1604, and viewers contacted News 4 WOAI to find what is being done.
Even though there are overpasses at Bandera and Culebra roads, there are several traffic lights between them. It causes a lot of stop-and-go traffic, News 4 WOAI found.
People who live near the intersection at Braun and 1604 said the light there is especially short.
“You get stuck,” one driver said. “It just takes forever if you’re back there. The traffic is backed up behind you.”
“It takes a long time,” another driver said. “I think they need to do something about it.”
There are plans to build an overpass at Braun as part of the 47-mile toll road system, according to Texas Department of Transportation officials.
TXDOT officials are still studying the 1604 toll project, and there is no timetable to begin construction, officials said. So, the light is not moving anytime soon.