Driving on IH-35 in Austin?

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 09/17/2015 at 15:40 • Filed to: None

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You’re taking you life into your hands. This wreck !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Round Rock, just north of town. No word on the condition of the sedan driver. This comes amid a spate of wrecks lately in Austin. A pedestrian was killed by a Capital Metro bus yesterday, a man was killed and his son severely injured when they were run into by a man going the wrong way on SH-130 (where the speed limit is 85), another man was killed by a wrong-way drunk driver on IH-35 a couple of weeks ago. The list goes on. This wreck happened in a narrower portion of the highway, which is always congested. Did the truck driver simply not look in his mirror? Who knows? But it is getting increasingly dangerous to drive in this city as the population far outstrips the ability of the infrastructure to handle the numbers of cars, trucks buses and idiots.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 15:43

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Aside from anything else, I see no reason why this side of the highway needs to be closed.

Berang > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 15:43

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I thought trucks weren’t allowed in the left lane on 35?

Berang > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 15:47

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Probably so they could get the driver out of the car.

Sam > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 15:48

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Emergency crews may need to access the other side of the car. You can’t really do that when cars are driving by at 80mph+.

StingrayJake > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 15:48

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I used to live in Temple. I-35 from Waco to Austin is a scary place.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Berang 09/17/2015 at 15:53

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You need more than a lane for that?

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Sam 09/17/2015 at 15:55

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That doesn’t really need more than a lane. It looks the the whole highway is blocked off.

Still, I didn’t think of that...

haveacarortwoorthree2 > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 16:05

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Looks like cars are passing to the immediate right of the cop car, which is very close to the accident scene. What makes you think the entire highway is shut down?

ttyymmnn > StingrayJake 09/17/2015 at 16:05

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Once you get past Georgetown, it’s much better. They’ve finished most of the widening, though Belton is still pretty bad, particularly the intersection with US 190. The really bad part now is Temple, particularly the north side of town, where they’re trying to widen the road while still keeping it open.

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 16:07

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As I mentioned, that section is a real bottleneck. Note that there is no left shoulder on the near side of the Jersey wall. On top of the lanes narrowing, you’ve got lots of merging traffic. Even on a good day, traffic slows down a lot right there.

ttyymmnn > Berang 09/17/2015 at 16:10

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They’re not, but there is no left shoulder at this point, so the car was in the left lane and the truck was in the middle lane (I’m guessing). He must have moved left for some reason and didn’t see the sedan. For the most part, the trucks follow the lane restrictions, though all the tour buses that ply that route up from Mexico are not restricted from the left lane, and many of them speed and tailgate.

StingrayJake > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:10

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South of Salado was always our “OK, we can breathe” point. Belton and Temple both sucked.

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 16:10

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It looks like they had to extricate the driver from the rear left door.

ttyymmnn > StingrayJake 09/17/2015 at 16:12

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Speaking of Salado, did you hear about this one back in March?

http://www.kvue.com/story/news/loc…

EL_ULY > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:17

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here in Houston, 2 students(13 and 17 year old girls) were killed in a school bus wreck yesterday when it drove off a bridge. 2 other students and driver were seriously injured

Houston is growing way too quick as well. Supposed to top Chicago n population shortly and despite here being 600 sq/mi, it is already beyond packed

ttyymmnn > EL_ULY 09/17/2015 at 16:19

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I read about that crash. Very sad. My oldest son rides a bus, and they were late to school because of a wreck at an intersection on the way to school. HISD said the buses are safe, and that they hadn’t had a fatal accident since 2008. 2008?? Really? That’s not all that long ago.

EL_ULY > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:23

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right? What’s worse is that they found out the barrier on that bridge and/or the bridge itself got a ZERO score during an inspection years ago!

StingrayJake > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:24

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Yeah. Gotta know your haul height.

ttyymmnn > EL_ULY 09/17/2015 at 16:24

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That road was ate up when I was living there 25 years ago.

EL_ULY > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:27

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i’m almost positive these streets are in the same condition just like when you were here lol :]

-my suspension and tires

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > haveacarortwoorthree2 09/17/2015 at 16:31

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It just looked like that to me... you're probably right

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:32

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No shoulder really scares people. I can believe that.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:34

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Looks like it. It looked to me like the whole highway was shut for what should have been a 1-lane job. After many second looks after the comments I’ve been getting, I must have been wrong at first :/

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 16:36

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There’s another major north-south artery in Austin that was constructed with three lanes. Now they’re widening it and adding a fourth lane (a toll lane, since all new roads in TX are toll roads; don’t get me started) but also narrowing all the existing lanes. So the lanes will be hella narrow, and there will be no shoulder. God forbid should you need to change a tire.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:39

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This is one of those reasons I never sit next to trucks on the highway. If there is traffic in the left lane and a truck on the right, I will go the same speed as the truck while in the left lane and wait for traffic to clear. Then I will gun it and clear the truck. Not taking the chance of just not being seen.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:41

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One thing that really gets me nervous are those uber-narrow construction lanes on the highway... not so much because of the width as the fact that they appear to have been painted by apes (quite wobbly), they set the temporary concrete barriers actually on the line, and people in front of me freaking on them.

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 16:41

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This is the section of hwy where the accident took place. Very narrow lanes, merging/exiting traffic, only small shoulder on driver’s right. Safer for everybody to just close it.

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 16:43

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When they narrowed the lanes, they painted black over the original lane dividers and painted new ones with cheap white paint. In the rain, with both the old and new paint reflecting light, it’s practically impossible to know where the lane is.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 16:49

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We had some like that up here. The old highway was concrete, so even when the old lines were scratched off, they were still visible. Combine that with the temporary paint they use while they’re doing construction, which wears off fast, and the fact that they had already scratched the lines off and redirected traffic a couple other times...

In the rain you basically just uessed and hoped everyone else guessed the same

Opposite Locksmith > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 17:40

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Yeah 35 is insane. I can see it from my bedroom window!

facw > EL_ULY 09/17/2015 at 17:49

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Yeah, didn’t look like the bridge rail did anything at all to stop the bus from going off. It’s hard to stop a bus, but it had only been bumped by a car, seems like it still should have been going mostly forward.

facw > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 17:50

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My experience living in Austin was that you should be prepared to die of old age, if nothing else, if you get on I-35 around rush hour.

ttyymmnn > facw 09/17/2015 at 17:53

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My wife drives from Pflugerville to UT (and back) five days a week. She’s built of sterner stuff than I. But the problem isn’t that it stops, it’s that it gets going and then stops again. That’s when all the nasty rear-enders happen. If they had built SH 130 as as bypass, not a f**king toll road, people might actually use it, especially the trucks. But it’s too expensive, and too far east, to do anybody any good.

facw > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 18:06

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Austin definitely needs more mass transit on the North-South axis. The one rail line is a good start I guess, but it sort of dodges UT and much of downtown. I lived in South Austin, and it made no sense to me that they had a freight line running through all these residential neighborhoods into downtown. Why not convert that to passenger and build a freight bypass that doesn’t go through the heart of the city?

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 19:34

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Speaking from experience it’s entirely possible that driver needed to be airlifted off the highway in which case, yes you absolutely have to shut down both sides of the highway to land a helo

bubblestheturtle > ttyymmnn 09/17/2015 at 20:35

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This just means it is a Thursday on I-35.

bubblestheturtle > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 20:37

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FD needs to work that side as well. Besides, drivers have a tendency to blow past and the shoulder is not enough.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero 09/17/2015 at 21:24

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Good point.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > bubblestheturtle 09/17/2015 at 21:28

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I was thinking the whole highway was shut...vI have been well corrected on that one :)

Samsonite24 had a good point, too—they may have needed to put in a helicopter.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/17/2015 at 23:09

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There’s a section of I-55 just south of my home town that is always getting shut down for hours due to crashes that need airlifts. So now im just used to that method of thinking