(no subject)

[dolari]

I really really really hate Austin traffic.

It usually takes 20 minutes to get here and 30 minutes to get "into" Austin. I left with plenty of time to get to the PO Box since there's a package waiting for me.

Traffic was much worse than expected and I hit wall to wall traffic MUCH sooner. No problem I thought to myself, I can take the next exit. Its only a mile away.

It took 25 minutes just to get to the exit., I had 5 minutes to get to the Post Office From about 6 miles away.

I didn't make it and ended up turning the trip to the PO Box into a "clean out the junk mail" trip.

AUSTIN I REALIZE YOU'RE A GREEN CITY BUT BUILD SOME DAMNED ROADS. Toll them if you have to but BUILD them. Don't throw them in the middle of nowhere where there not needed like 130 - PUT THEM DOWNTOWN!

Seattle is still INCREDIBLY green, and has loads of highways right through downtown! I drove through rush hour there without ANY problems. It should not take me 20 minutes (on a GOOD day to go 6 miles). Now I have to wait a week before I can come back. And next time I'm leaving at 2 instead of 3 becuase traffic is so damned bad.

Austin...I love you...but build some damned roads!

Maybe I wouldn't be so upset if I had AC in my pickup...

::turns around and heads towards Erin's::

Comments

[angharads-house.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the Austin post office closes really early. Back when we had a PO Box at the Inwood station (northernmost Manhattan), the box lobby was open six hours a day and they on;y had wicket service for three hours a day. The postal branch was regarded as a 'disclipinary' posting: the postal service stuck all their trouble-makers and nutcases in there. For two years I ran the monthly national membership mailing of a religious organisation that shan't be named (I left it in 1996, crankily) out of that post office. Dealing with them was an exercise in frustration, to say the least.

I surely do appreciate our strange little village with our equally strange postmistress. Think 'Cicely, Alaska' and you'd have it about right.

Anyway, happy hunting, and when you get to Seattle, there are always empty boxes available at the Greenwood post office (about 76th and Greenwood, on east side of the avenue).

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Post offices in the US close at 5. I left at 3. I'm leaving at 2 next Monday.

[angharads-house.livejournal.com]

They-close-at-five?

How in God's green earth do working people EVER get to the post office?

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

The person who invented the 9-to-5 work weeks needs to be strung up by his little toes while ferrets nibble his nostrils out.

[iqtech.livejournal.com]

There are other things that can be done to cut traffic. I've seen it work.

One powerful tool - get business to stop it with the "everybody must work 9:00 to 6:00 mentality. If they let part of the work force start at 7:00, another at 8:00, another at 9:00 and another at 10:00, they might find people are happier and the traffic thins out.

Another group that would be helped: techs. Why not let phone workers work from an office at home? Less office space required by the company, less traffic on the roads, happier people.

I agree that more roads are needed. My fear is that the only roads they will be willing to build are toll roads. Politicians will find a way to tax us not matter what.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

>I agree that more roads are needed. My fear is that the only roads
>they will be willing to build are toll roads. Politicians will find a
>way to tax us not matter what.

I don't mind toll roads, provided they are new roads and the tolls are used to pay for the road, like the DFW Turnpike.

But, sadly, I know that's not going to happen. The city just NEEDS roads, somehow. The fact that Austin's City Council has blocked the creation of new freeways downtown has crippled the city.

Here's the plan in the 60s for how downtown could have gotten around:

http://www.texasfreeway.com/Austin/historic/freeway_planning_maps/images/austin_1962.jpg

Only one of those freeways was built, the 360 "West Loop" and Mopac. It would have torn down a lot of businesses, but in the end Mopac DID help akthough the city is still a traffic nightmare.