Tag Archives: Texas Department of Transportation

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Fall colors? All we saw was green

980000010 a panoramic view of an active windmill and cattle fencing and water tank on the open grasslands of the panhandle near canadian texas

CANADIAN, Texas — We ventured — my sister, brother-in-law and I — northeast on Saturday to this lovely town in the far corner of the Texas Panhandle.

Our mission? To look at the “fall foliage” honored at Canadian’s annual “Fall Foliage Festival.”

Our findings? There isn’t any fall foliage to be seen. At least not yet.

The darn warmth that keeps lingering in this part of the world is the culprit.

Now, was the trip a total loser? Of course not.

Sis and her husband hadn’t been to this part of the Panhandle — the “pretty part,” as many of us like to call it. Our two-hour drive along U.S. 60 became quite scenic as we approached Miami and then motored into the Hemphill County seat.

I told my sis the story of the cockamamie idea that Texas highway planners had in culling many of the trees along the highway, citing some notion that the trees posed the a hazard to motorists.

I mentioned the reaction of residents of Hemphill and Roberts counties, which in effect was: You’ll cut these trees over our cold, dead bodies!

The highway department backed off and ended up, if memory serves, cutting down a lot fewer trees than it planned initially.

The fall foliage? Well, it’ll arrive eventually. The temperature will drop, as it does every year at this time.

I wonder if there’s any way to make the Fall Foliage Festival a movable event.

 

 

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Amarillo pushes its pedal to the metal

Amarillo’s City Council members — four of them at least — might need an intervention of sorts.

They’ve become suddenly obsessed with speed. I don’t get this decision in the least.

The council voted 4-1 to increase speed limits on Interstate 27 from Hillside Road to Bell Street to 65 mph. Brian Eades, a physician when he’s not making city policy, was the lone “no” vote. I feel compelled to mention Eades’s profession because — even as an ob-gyn — he has a keener sense, it seems, of the health risks involved in this decision.

Council member shouldn’t need to be reminded that the stretch of highway where it’s going to be legal to drive 65 mph isn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere. It remains a fairly heavily traveled stretch of highway. As Dr. Eades noted, “This is not a low-volume traffic area. I think they’re being too aggressive in setting faster speed limits to the public’s detriment.”

The Texas Department of Transportation recently boosted speeds to 75 from Bell to the southern city limits. That area, too, can see heavy traffic volume.

The city acted on a recommendation from my old buddy, Amarillo Police Capt. Jeff Lester, who said a 65-mph speed limit between Hillside and Bell would make for an easier transition to the 60 mph limits north of Hillside for motorists coming in from the 75-mph race track south of the city on Interstate 27.

Whatever.

I just cannot quite fathom this need to boost speed limits along an increasingly urban interstate highway.

As I’ve noted many times in the past, these speed limits aren’t being followed as it is. Post a 60 mph speed limit and drivers will push it to 65 or faster; 65 gets pushed to 70 and beyond; and 75 gets pushed to — gulp! — 80.

What’s the rush?

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Dangerous on-ramp discovered in Amarillo

A lot has been written, spoken, tweeted, Facebooked — you name it — over many years about the quality of drivers in Amarillo and the engineering of some of the traffic infrastructure around town.

I found a location this morning that deserves some comment here.

I hauled some goods to the Salvation Army warehouse and store about 11 a.m. The warehouse/store is at 27th Avenue just a little east of Llano Cemetery. I dropped the stuff off and headed west toward Interstate 27; I turned north to catch the freeway toward downtown.

I then discovered something that had gotten past me the many times I’ve driven along that stretch of road: The on-ramp is very short and is located quite close to a lane in which the motorists all have to exit the freeway to catch another on-ramp toward Interstate 40.

The traffic was heavy at that particular moment. I was driving my big Dodge pickup, aka Big Jake. I had to come to a complete stop on the on-ramp, as traffic was not yielding, meaning no one was moving into an inside lane to give me room.

Why is that? Well, they had to stay in that lane to connect to I-40. Therefore, I understand why they couldn’t yield to little ol’ me.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity for a break in the traffic. When one occurred, I had to pounce on the accelerator to get enough speed to merge into the traffic that was approaching. I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way as they (a) headed toward downtown or (b) sought to make the exit onto I-40.

As I was stopped at the intersection, I thought of my wife. Yes, I love her dearly and I think of her often, but this time I recalled a terrible accident in which she was rear-ended by a driver while — yep — she waited on an on-ramp to merge into traffic. That was nearly a year ago. She was quite lucky she wasn’t hurt more badly than she was — or worse. That on-ramp, just west of Georgia Street, merges into the westbound I-40 lanes. It, too, provides little time or space for vehicles to merge. She had to stop because the traffic was too heavy. Then she got clobbered — by an individual traveling at an estimated 60 mph.

I’m wondering at this moment if it isn’t time for the Texas Department of Transportation and the Amarillo Traffic Engineering Department to do a comprehensive study of the safety of some of these access lanes and on-ramps to determine what they can do to improve them.

Well?

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D-FW signage needs major upgrade

Good news has arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, according to the Dallas Morning News’s Rodger Jones.

The airport is getting better street signage.

Let me be among those to a offer major shout-out to anyone involved in improving the signage at the mammoth air complex that, even in the best of circumstances, is difficult to navigate.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/good-news-for-my-fellow-confused-dfw-airport-bound-drivers-better-signage-is-coming.html/

Earlier this year, I experienced a borderline nightmare trying to get into the place from somewhere — anywhere — on the ground.

It went something like this:

My wife and I drove to Allen to welcome our new granddaughter’s arrival into this world. Emma Nicole Kanelis was born March 6 at a hospital in Plano. I had to leave after three days to return to work; my wife was staying a few extra days to help with caring for our little angel while our son and daughter-in-law got used to having a newborn in the house.

My son offered to drive me to the airport. “Do you know how to get there?” I asked. “No problem,” he said with supreme confidence.

With that we headed west toward D-FW. Then the trouble began.

We couldn’t find our way to the terminal. We kept circling, looking for exits. Signs were guiding us up this and that overpass. We had hoped we’d see something — an off-ramp or a sign — that made sense of the confusion.

The place was under construction but the detour signs didn’t take us anywhere.

I think we made three, maybe four, passes on the highway before we stumbled our way onto a lane of traffic that took us — finally — to where I could get out of the car and hustle into the terminal.

I caught my plane back to Amarillo — for which I was grateful.

Jones’s blog, which is attached to this post, spells out nicely the confusion he apparently has experienced as well.

I cannot remember the precise highway we took from Allen to D-FW, nor can I recall the myriad loops we took trying to find our way into the terminal.

It’s good to know, though, that the state highway department is promising less-stressful travel to D-FW.