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VinnyVincent

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Posts posted by VinnyVincent

  1. 2 minutes ago, Ross said:

    290 required far more work than 288 just to get ready. There were right of way issues and acquisitions, and the need to keep the freeway open while building the new lanes, which requires massive amounts of extra work. It's a good thing you weren't here when I-10 East was being rebuilt in the 70's and 80's, because it made 290 look like a cakewalk.

    HCTRA would have had the same issues as TxDOT did on 290 with a contractor going bankrupt and being removed from the project. That set that particular stretch of road back by about a year, as the issues were resolved with the bonding company and the search for a new contractor.

    I understand that 290 was more work to clear and get ready. What I am saying is that even AFTER it was all cleared and "ready"...the process to simply level out the road has taken them longer than the 288 crew to level and pave the road. A lot longer.

     

    You drive by the 288 construction zone and it's actively being worked on with a decent staff of workers.

    In contrast 290 seems to have empty equipment sitting there for weeks at a time and overall the whole operation just seems totally unprofessional and amatuerish compared to the 288 job.

  2. 7 hours ago, IronTiger said:

     

    I'm sure 290 wouldn't be an issue if they had right of way ready to go from day one. Or if they didn't have to rebuild the entire highway as part of the project. Or if while doing that they also had to keep 7 lanes or so open for the freeway. Or if the highway was sunken and they didn't have to build new overpasses. Or if.........you see where I'm going, right?

    No I don't really see where you are going. See unlike some of the "experts" commenting on these threads; I actually live/commute not just in Houston, but on 290 and 288 daily.

    Even AFTER they had 290 ripped up and started paving... it's taken them longer to simply flatten out the surface than it has for the 288 crew to pave the entire road.

     

  3. Oh and taking a train is just stupid. By the time you find a way to the station and wait for the train to show up, you could've sat in traffic and not paid to use the road(although that is rapidly becoming less of an option with the proliferation of tolls)

  4. 4 hours ago, cspwal said:

    Just making the existing freeway wider isn't as effective as adding the express lanes.  It would be nice to know if they did explore making the express lanes free and rejected it because of price, or that they were just wanting to copy/paste the Katy managed lanes on to 288 

    Get real. Have you overheard any of the discussions our officials have regarding road construction?

    The idea of making a non-tolled road is not even remotely on the table. 

     

    IMO they all need to be replaced with their kind of thinking.

    • Like 1
  5. 25 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

     

    It's clear for anyone interested in looking at the facts.

     

    https://communityimpact.com/houston/cy-fair/news/2016/12/19/north-houston-association-calls-on-harris-county-to-use-more-toll-road-revenue-on-mobility-projects/

     

    https://www.hctra.org/reports#overviewsection

     

     

     

    With regard to the $120 Million + transferred from HCTRA to the county every year, of course specific projects cannot be identified on which THAT particular money was spent.  The money goes into the county's mobility fund, which is spent every year on roads, bridges and other non-toll mobility projects.  There is zero reason to assume it is spent to build more toll roads. 

    What makes you automatically assume it was spent on non-toll projects? I'd say there's zero room to assume that it's NOT being spent on toll roads considering the lack of oversight and public interest.

  6. 47 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

    "Transfers consisted of transfers out of $124,031,107, which was for funding a county thoroughfare

    program to increase general mobility."

    I'd like to know exactly what that money was spent on because I don't doubt that it was used to build more toll roads.

     

    It also seems that no one here is even sure as to whether or not HCTRA clears a profit. These are all some serious questions that need cleared up before we just go slapping down superhighways all over the place and paying insane tolls.

  7. And if they absolutely had to just build a super highway right down the center, why not one more lane in each direction and a "managed lane"(toll road) in the center? That seems more moderate to me. At least have something to encourage car pooling, but no, no...it's just a straight up three lane reversible toll road.

     

    It's just really beyond me how people pay 1.75 every few miles on BW 8, but they are somehow too broke to simply add a single lane in each direction on 288. Instead they had to opt for a three lane super highway. 

  8. 11 hours ago, cspwal said:

    The free lanes aren't going away; they are adding additional capacity and tolling it to pay for it and control congestion in it.  How well those two will work will remain to be seen.

     

    288 was always designed for something like this in mind (at least inside 610) - with local lanes serving the area and express lanes going to downtown

    Highway_401.png 

    Here's an example from Toronto.

    Considering the profit they make on BW 8 alone, I just don't see how it's not possible to slap some concrete down on the land that was already cleared and paid for years ago and call it a day. We wouldn't have to build any toll booths or maintain any equipment. No billing department. No customer service. No nothing except for a road that everyone can drive on.

    How is tolling the new lanes really helping traffic overall? Wouldn't it be far more efficient to not build/maintain a toll road?

    Lets say they build three tolled lanes, but it costs 5-10 dollars to go any good distance down 288 now, so there's 3X less traffic. Could we not have just added one lane in each direction and gotten the same traffic relief? Something tells me the cost of doing that is doable with tax dollars, where of course building a super highway down the center is not feasible or currently necessary.

     

    I do realize that 288 was initially designed to have express lanes with less exits/on ramps going down the center. 

    Express lanes does not mean TOLL road. Were tolls even a concept when 288 was initially designed?

  9. On 11/12/2016 at 2:48 AM, werdserf 99 said:

    Then they're idiots in that regard. I guess they have more pressing issues than this,a peripheral need that stems from the growth they want.

     

    No foresight at all.

     

     

    No they're not idiots, we are for continuing to elect them. Instead of figuring things out the easy thing to do is just keep building toll roads since people like you and me are stupid enough to believe their story about how there's no other way to fund the road.

  10. On 11/12/2016 at 6:05 PM, Ross said:

    The lege is full of idiots who do not understand the role of government. All they understand is that their rich donors do not want to pay any taxes, and the non-rich think roads appear magically, without any money changing hands.

    Well money does change hands seeing how we've paid for BW8 more than seven times over, but the only new roads appearing are somehow more toll roads.

    So if we pay tolls on a road that been paid for, in order to have money to build new roads, why are all new roads tolled?

  11. On 11/11/2016 at 6:24 AM, DNAguy said:

     

     

    Sidenote: Is there a more mind-boggling bad stretch of freeway in Houston as 610 between 288 and 45/225?

    Yes. The entire stretch of hwy 290 between BW8 and 610.

    I drive both 288 and 290 Daily and 290 is far worse. No comparison.

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