$2.80 gas? Party on, Texas!
Monday, May 22, 2006
In our second installment of "Odd Things to Do When Gas Costs $2.80 a Gallon," this week we bring you the possibility — make that near certainty — that daytime speed limits on two West Texas interstates will be raised to 80 mph this week.
I say near certainty because even though the Texas Transportation Commission won't vote on the new limit for Interstate 10 and Interstate 20 until Thursday, the Texas Department of Transportation already has somebody making the signs. And they're setting up an unveiling out near Fort Stockton on Saturday with state Rep. Pete Gallego, an Alpine Democrat who carried the 2005 bill that makes this possible.
Apparently, Texas has been annexed by Montana, home of the unfettered Ford F-150.
No, not really. This is, in fact, the doing of the Texas Legislature, which really, really liked Gallego's bill. In its trip through two committees, the full House and full Senate, it passed by a combined vote of 187-0.
"That gave us a pretty good indication they wanted us to look at this," was the wry evaluation of Carlos Lopez, the Transportation Department's director of traffic operations.
But, wait, doesn't a higher speed mean more gasoline used per mile, more traffic accidents and worse injuries when there's an accident? Well, yes, on the gas at least.
The speed limit on this 521 miles — west of Kerrville to east of El Paso on I-10 and, on I-20, from Monahans to the interchange with I-10 — is already 75 mph. In 1999, the Legislature passed a bill allowing that higher limit in 105 rural counties, and the state had already OK'd it for about 1,650 miles.
Gallego said the number of fatalities has stayed level or gone down on these parts of I-10 and I-20 since that change.
And the cars' predominant speed already is 76 mph to 79 mph. Lopez says an 80-mph limit just recognizes reality in a land of widely spaced towns.
Those two highways are four lanes of typically straight, flat pavement, generally with fewer than 10,000 cars a day (about 5 percent of the daily count on Interstate 35 in Central Austin).
"It's a long distance down the road from Alpine to just about anywhere," Gallego said, adding that he got a standing ovation at a community meeting a couple of weeks ago when the speed limit change came up.
Two thoughts on this: If you really want people to go 75 mph, then maybe you ought to lower the speed limit to, say, 70. Then, to avoid a ticket, people will go 75. And if you do raise the limit to 80 mph, won't people just start going 85?
Lopez said there's some validity to that second question. When the agency ran surveys a few years back, when it was considering raising the limit to 75 mph, people were driving two or three miles per hour slower than they are now.
As for an artificially low speed limit, Lopez didn't think much of that idea.
"If government sets that policy, people still have to feel it's a reasonable speed," Lopez said. "If not, they'll just disobey it."
So the inmates, it appears, are running the asylum. Or at least the Legislature.
Monday, May 22, 2006
In our second installment of "Odd Things to Do When Gas Costs $2.80 a Gallon," this week we bring you the possibility — make that near certainty — that daytime speed limits on two West Texas interstates will be raised to 80 mph this week.
I say near certainty because even though the Texas Transportation Commission won't vote on the new limit for Interstate 10 and Interstate 20 until Thursday, the Texas Department of Transportation already has somebody making the signs. And they're setting up an unveiling out near Fort Stockton on Saturday with state Rep. Pete Gallego, an Alpine Democrat who carried the 2005 bill that makes this possible.
Apparently, Texas has been annexed by Montana, home of the unfettered Ford F-150.
No, not really. This is, in fact, the doing of the Texas Legislature, which really, really liked Gallego's bill. In its trip through two committees, the full House and full Senate, it passed by a combined vote of 187-0.
"That gave us a pretty good indication they wanted us to look at this," was the wry evaluation of Carlos Lopez, the Transportation Department's director of traffic operations.
But, wait, doesn't a higher speed mean more gasoline used per mile, more traffic accidents and worse injuries when there's an accident? Well, yes, on the gas at least.
The speed limit on this 521 miles — west of Kerrville to east of El Paso on I-10 and, on I-20, from Monahans to the interchange with I-10 — is already 75 mph. In 1999, the Legislature passed a bill allowing that higher limit in 105 rural counties, and the state had already OK'd it for about 1,650 miles.
Gallego said the number of fatalities has stayed level or gone down on these parts of I-10 and I-20 since that change.
And the cars' predominant speed already is 76 mph to 79 mph. Lopez says an 80-mph limit just recognizes reality in a land of widely spaced towns.
Those two highways are four lanes of typically straight, flat pavement, generally with fewer than 10,000 cars a day (about 5 percent of the daily count on Interstate 35 in Central Austin).
"It's a long distance down the road from Alpine to just about anywhere," Gallego said, adding that he got a standing ovation at a community meeting a couple of weeks ago when the speed limit change came up.
Two thoughts on this: If you really want people to go 75 mph, then maybe you ought to lower the speed limit to, say, 70. Then, to avoid a ticket, people will go 75. And if you do raise the limit to 80 mph, won't people just start going 85?
Lopez said there's some validity to that second question. When the agency ran surveys a few years back, when it was considering raising the limit to 75 mph, people were driving two or three miles per hour slower than they are now.
As for an artificially low speed limit, Lopez didn't think much of that idea.
"If government sets that policy, people still have to feel it's a reasonable speed," Lopez said. "If not, they'll just disobey it."
So the inmates, it appears, are running the asylum. Or at least the Legislature.
