Back Talk Far North Dallas

Dallas traffic: Farewell, and never again

Keri's traffic post below brought more than a smile to my face. It brought a long, thankful, "There but for the grace of God go I" sigh. I finished teaching my wine class at the Cordon Bleu at LBJ and Webbs Chapel last week, and with any luck, I'll never have to drive in Dallas traffic regularly ever again. Which is a good thing, since we apparently have the fifth-worst traffic in country. (Though it's hard to believe we're worse than Houston.)

So -- and trying not to be too cranky or Andy Rooney-like -- here are the top 10 things I won't miss about driving regularly in Dallas traffic:

Traffic near the Galleria: too clogged for an ambulance

I exited the Galleria's Banana Republic parking garage (the blue garage, I believe) last Saturday evening, and attempted that crazy right turn onto the LBJ feeder road. It's hard enough just to get onto the road; I had to wait for about 20 minutes for traffic to move forward. But those of us who are trying to turn left onto Inwood need to get into the far left lane, which is almost impossible.

I was able to make it, and was sitting about five cars back in the left lane for about a minute when I began hearing ambulance sirens. In my rear view mirror, I could see the ambulance coming up in the far left lane, but there were at least a dozen cars behind me, and cars stretched back all the way past the previous light at Montfort in the other two lanes.

Dallas drivers have a lot of faults, mainly that they're selfish, but they at least clear out when an emergency vehicle is trying to get through. The problem was, we had nowhere to go. And the light remained red for another two minutes.

More people are giving blood to pay for gas

Anyone who has to commute more than 15 miles to work will likely tell you gas prices are taking a bigger and bigger piece of their personal budget pie.
Now some people are turning that pinch at the pump into a prick of the arm.
More Americans are donating plasma so they get extra money for gas. WFAA Channel 8 recently ran an interesting story about the national trend that's now reaching Dallas. Apparently donors can give twice a week and get $20 to $60 per visit. You do the math and that could be an extra $160 to $480 per month.
I commute about 40 miles to work every day, but honestly, donating plasma never occurred to me. Riding the bus, however, has. I carpool twice a week to work now, which seems to be offsetting some of the rising costs for now–but if gas tops $15 (like some experts are saying it might), you'll find me on that curb, bus pass in hand.

$4 gas: When will it arrive?

I saw a couple of $3.91s on Sunday, but nothing like the picture. That's courtesy of Adam Morris at Lone Star Ball, taken in Houston at 610 and San Felipe near the Galleria.

We'll post a $4 gas sign if anyone sees one. Just send an email with the picture. No contest this time -- $4 gas is too depressing.

Technorati Tags: $4 gas,gas prices,gas stations

Regional Veloweb meeting today

If you commute less than 10 miles to work, consider yourself especially fortunate. The rest of us can tell you how much we've felt that weekly pinch at the gas pump, and it seems there's no relief in near sight.
A couple of us Advocate staffers have even toyed with the idea of riding our bikes to work in an attempt to alleviate our ever-rising gas budgets. Living a good 20 miles from the office, however, that's unfortunately not an option for me. Nope, unless I reach Lane Armstrong proportions, seems DART is probably a more realistic option for me.
But for rest of you who can feasibly make the trek to work––or for those of you who want to ride for environmental or health motivations––there's good news: Dallas is on it's way to becoming a more bike-friendly city.
The North Central Texas Council of Governments has been working to complete the Regional Veloweb. In a nutshell, this will be the mother of all bike trails.
The 644-mile Regional Veloweb will span throughout the Metroplex, connecting bike trails in several counties: Tarrant, Denton, Dallas, Collin, Rockwall, Kaufman, Johnson, Ellis and Parker.
As of now, about 100 miles of the Regional Veloweb are complete. That includes Katy Trail and Preston Ridge Trail.
If you'd like to learn more about the Regional Veloweb and when it'll be complete, you can do so online--or better yet, attend the information meeting today at 2 p.m. at the Center for Community Cooperation (in the Gulf-Rio room). There will be a brief presentation, followed by a Q&A session.

Darpa Urban Challenge begs the question: Will our cars drive themselves one day?

A few months ago the Department of Defense hosted the Darpa Urban Challenge, a competition for cars that maneuver a closed course without any drivers. Yes, these cars actually drove themselves. Am I the only one feels like this is page out of The Jetsons?
Apparently, it's not all that futuristic. The military hopes to use the technology in the not-too-distant future to keep more soldiers off battlefields. And a recent MSNBC story says we consumers could be seeing autonomous cars on our streets as soon as 2015.
And some of these cars might be able to find parking spots and park themselves. Now there's a thought: Imagine having your car drive you to the grocery store, drop you off curbside, and then having your car go park itself. And you thought it was hard remembering where your car was parked before.

Two weekends driving on Texas' interstates

Freelance assignments took me to Abilene and Austin the past couple of weekends, which meant driving more than 800 miles over a four-day period. This is worth noting not only because I don't drive much, but because it comes at a time when everyone is complaining about the high cost of driving.

A few thoughts culled from four days on the road:

Turning off the red light cameras for the wrong reason

The news that the city's red light camera program is in financial difficulty, some $4 million worth, is not a surprise. It's also not a surprise that installing red light cameras to raise money, as opposed to preventing accidents, is bad public policy. This is because you have to turn the cameras off if they don't generate enough income, which defeats the entire purpose of the program.

Which the city is contemplating doing -- most likely through some sort of rotation program, so that motorists won't know which ones are working and which ones aren't.

A less generous sort than myself would take this opportunity to say I told you so. But I'm not that kind of guy.

I will, however, note that there is a time-honored and respected method for financing desirable city services, like installing red light cameras to prevent accidents. One either raises taxes or cuts other services to pay for it. This is, however, apparently beyond the intellectual ken of most of the members of the council.

Or, as The News story quoted the president of a group called the National Motorists Association: "They're in between a rock and a hard place, and when the money goes away, the cameras go away. Probably the only way they can sustain it is to raise the violation rates, despite all the protestation that this is about safety and not about revenue."

Dallas, get ready for a snowday

Well folks, seems lighting can strike twice: We Dallasites are bracing for our second March snowfall.
I just drove down 75 at it was packed at 3 p.m. with other commuters who were also trying to make it home before the snow hits. Just as I reached Richardson, it began to sleet. I also spotted a few city trucks sanding the roadways. If you’ve got a commute on 75 or 635, get ready for a doozie and consider taking side streets.
Denton's already seen about 9 inches (the most in North Texas since 1924), but we’re only supposed to get about 3 inches. Bridges and overpasses are also expected to freeze, so be careful out there tomorrow morning.
DISD, RISD, SMU, and UTD officials have all canceled nighttime activities and could very well call off classes tomorrow. If you’ve got kiddos, you can sign up for school closure alerts online so you don't have to keep your eyes glued to the TV.
Everyone stay warm out there tonight and enjoy winter’s last hoorah—this is Texas after all, so you know by next week it’s going to be 80 degrees and sunny.

And the winner is...

Texans have voted and a new state license plate has been deemed the winner. There were five candidates in the running, but ultimately the Lone Star Texas design took the cake with more than 455,000 online votes.

These new plates also have a six digit combination on them. That's because our population is growing so rapidly that by the end of this year, the department will be out of the alpha-numeric combos we currently use. This week members of the Texas Transportation Commission will approve the design, but you won't start spotting these new plates on the roadways until January 2009.