You know you live in Austin when you measure the distance somewhere in minutes, not miles. The time of day also is your deciding factor if you really want to go somewhere because the traffic is just horrendous.
Todd Hemingson says that the buses taking the toll lanes to get people to their destination faster will make people want to take the bus rather than drive themselves. Which will, in turn, reduce the traffic overall. That is great news and all, but if everyone suddenly wants to take the bus the buses will fill up and there will be an overcrowding. Just like it was a great idea to have a train that took people into and out of Austin. Don't get me wrong, the train does do that. The downfall to that is that there is only one track and it doesn't branch out into many parts of Austin. The MetroRail was a good idea, the outcome isn't as efficient and convenient as imagined. The buses will eventually have their downside, too. Once this lovely toll lane is added to MoPac. It all seems really great in theory, but will it live up to the expectations.
The toll lane is supposed to have a goal of keeping the traffic flow at at least 50 miles per hour. Sounds awesome, right? Until everyone wants to be in that lane and will pay the price it takes. The problem isn't just the roads here in Austin, it is the constant growth we have. Roughly 130 people move into Austin a day. In just one day. So, is building the new toll lane the best option?
Sure, adding more lanes to MoPac will be awesome for the commute but that doesn't change all these folks moving here.
I'm not saying that I have a better solution to the traffic problem (except to tell people to GO HOME), but I'm not entirely convinced that the one extra toll lane is going to help solve the problem completely. Austin grew too fast for the roads to handle this amount of traffic constantly on it.
It has been noticed that people prefer to drive themselves everywhere they go anyways. So, making the buses look more attractive to ride might be harder than Hemingson thinks. Hopefully there is some change soon because I don't think that any of us can handle the traffic much longer.
