Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Giving Texas Hold 'Em a new meaning
Brief stops off tollways could cost you.
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, October 22, 2006
So, you've gathered up the family to head to Dallas and decided to take those new Loop 1 and Texas 45 North tollways. But right after Parmer Lane, when you've already entered the pay-to-drive portion going north, a little one in the back seat says he's got to go.
Now.
Welcome to Central Texas' new pay toilet program.
The 41 miles of toll road opening in November and December, along with the other 30 miles due to open by the end of 2007, will not have service stations, stores or restaurants in the median, like many toll roads nationwide. So if you want something to eat or drink, or if nature calls, you'll have to exit and then get back on the tollway. And in most cases, that's going to cost you an extra 50 cents if you pay cash for tolls, 45 cents with an electronic toll tag.
When drivers get back on the tollway, they are still going to go through a main plaza for the express lanes and pay the same toll they would have paid had they not made a stop, on top of the extra entrance fee.
Rest stops in the median, which don't require drivers to exit, "are typical in long-haul toll roads like the (proposed) Trans-Texas Corridor, where there is nothing nearby," said Gaby Garcia, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Transportation's turnpike division.
But the three roads opening Nov. 1 and in December — an extension of MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1), Texas 45 North and Texas 130 — are essentially urban roads. The Loop 1 toll road will be just over three miles long, and Texas 45 North will be 13 miles from end to end. Texas 130 will be about 29 miles to begin with, 49 miles by the end of next year.
Generally, turnpike officials say, the toll points on entrance and exit ramps as well as on the express lanes are situated to assure that there are no free trips.
But there are a few places where you will be able to exit and then re-enter without paying an extra toll on a ramp.
That's true, for instance, at the points where Texas 130 crosses U.S. 290 and Texas 71, as well as at the confluence of Loop 1 and Texas 45 North. As it happens, at least two of those spots (U.S. 290 and the Loop 1/Texas 45 North intersection) are adjacent to developed areas that would have convenience stores and the like.
Most of the 21 places along Texas 130 where drivers will be able to exit, however, are on county and farm-to-market roads that have little or no development and thus little opportunity to address sudden needs.
Junior will just have to wait.
texas bump
I've got a question:
Did that railway through Beacon Hill just appear overnight, or was it perhaps already there when the current residents moved in?
This sounds an awful lot like the goofballs who build a house near an airport then complain about the noise and demand runway closures.
BS. Could spell it out. That's what they always say when they don't want to do a project. The railroad yard in Fairbanks needs to be moved to the south side of town. The railroad has grown so it is seriously impacting town and needs to be relocated. But they say they don't have the funds for that. Of course they don't, they haven't talked to Ted Stevens yet.
He is also Texas' go to man on freight rail.
The purpose of the bill was to help out some speculators in El Paso.