Monday, September 16, 2013

TxDOT Hates Me

Seriously.  I'm beginning to take this personally, TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation).  First, you tear up University Drive and make it so bad during your ongoing widening improvement that it's not safe to run on.  I don't need to run on it on my own, but as the person who has to map out the long run routes for my running club, you took away a really convenient option and made my job more difficult.  And seriously, how long is this going to take to finish?  We were dealing with the same construction last year during running club, and it's nowhere near completion!

Then, you repave the road outside of my subdivision (thank you, the potholes were getting pretty bad).  But when you restriped the road, you took out the left turn lane into my neighborhood!  I saw it coming, too - before the actual paint goes on the road, little colored tags are put in place...and I mentioned to Jeff that it was odd to see only yellow tags and no white tags (which is what color the turn lane would be).  Sure enough, the painters came and created a painted island, meaning that legally, vehicles have to stop in a traffic lane in order to turn left into the neighborhood.  On a road where the speed limit is 60 MPH, and where drivers aren't expecting anyone to come to a halt there BECAUSE THERE USED TO BE A TURN LANE.  Naturally, I created my own turn lane in the painted island, because no, I'm not going to be a sitting duck out there due to TxDOT's mistake.  Jeff called TxDOT and they confirmed that their contractors were wrong in eliminating the left turn lane and it would be corrected...in a couple of months.

Then, when we were driving to the park where we meet for running club last Saturday morning, we realized that an intersection we'd be running through was suddenly under major construction - it went from two nice, wide lanes (plus a turn lane) going each direction to one very narrow lane each direction.  Seriously???  I cannot reroute around this!  I had to caution our runners that if a car approached while they were in that section, they would probably have to stop running and jump off the road.  Fortunately, we run so early in the morning that there isn't a lot of traffic, but for crying out loud, I'm already feeling like a mother hen toward our runners when they cross major intersections; I don't need this mess, too!

TxDOT, I'm not even going to get into the fact that you are changing up all the on- and off-ramps to the highway, and began with the ones to our neighborhood.  Ramps closed, the feeder road narrowed down to one lane...ugh.  It's enough to make me even more of a hermit than I already am, because leaving my neighborhood means getting into instant gridlock.  I know that this all has to be a terrible coincidence, everything converging at the same time around my subdivision...or IS it? 

15 comments:

  1. I'm glad I don't work at the TxDOT :)

    I do understand your annoyance, it's not much different here in Holland. They closed the main road to our village for over 2 months which wasn't really necessary, one road could have been open. Gave a lot of irritation to everyone.

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  2. ahhhh see?
    and i was REACHING THIS WEEKEND for a reason to be glad Im in TX NO MO" thank you :-)

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  3. I decided to run a route I hadn't done in a while last week because I knew they'd been working on the sidewalks, which had been in very bad shape. Well, the sidewalks were great, but the entire road had been drilled for repavement and as the cars were tearing by, the amount of dust kicked up was just awful! Honestly, I should have been wearing a surgical mask, it was just that bad. As soon as I got home I called our Public Works Dept. to find out when it would be paved because I wanted to avoid that road until it was finished.

    Someone needs to come up with a mapping tool that would show the construction areas! Are you listening Map My Run?

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    1. That is an excellent idea, to have Map My Run note construction areas. Bikers would appreciate it, too!

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  4. Yep, don't get me started on construction in our area - luckily I've finally found back roads to get to work that aren't under construction, but it was taking me 50 minutes to drive 15 miles to work - and the roads are 55 mph!

    Hope you are having fun in Florida!!

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  5. What? Did TxDOT (LOL, I thought this was going to stand for another new internet thing that I didn't know about) suddenly inherit a lot of money from their rich relative? Because when I lived in Texas it seemed like they never ever repaired the roads And I always thought that was because they didn't collect state income taxes.

    That no turn lane is a bummer. CaDOT is not much better. Our church had to pay like $100,000 for a turn lane to be put into our property!! Or maybe it was $400,000. Anyway, a lot more than a poor church had on hand.

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    1. There does seem to be a lot of funds going toward our roads lately...maybe Texas came into a windfall? I'm LOLing at you wondering if TxDOT was some new-fangled internet thing!

      Holy moly, that was a lot of money for a turn lane for your church! :(

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  6. Now I know why all the Houston roads are crappy. Oh wait, that's a local agency's issue. Sorry kiddo! Here's to hoping your route gets better soon or that TxDOT workers put mimosas in their coolers so you can refill your water bottles.

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    1. OH! Now that would be a good idea...mimosas along a long run route. We should totally do that ourselves! ;)

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  7. Mind if I cut and paste this as a letter to PennDOT?

    A couple of months?? Are they kidding? Hell, I'll come out with a paint brush and white paint and do it myself...if I can stay at your house :)

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    1. Honey, you can stay at my house and you don't even have to bring a paintbrush!

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  8. Sounds like everyone's DOTs are kinda dotty.

    SO frustrating when things that should be quick take for freakin' ever!

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  9. There has been so much construction around here it is crazy! In tiny town, there is 1 main road that goes through the towns. Then they rip of that road and it sends all kinds of traffic on roads it doesn't belong on. Lots more traffic on what used to be safe bike roads for us. Ugh. Of course, they have to cram all construction into the warm weather months here.

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  10. How frustrating, sounds like a crazy mess! Hope it's all fixed and cleared up soon!

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