One of us has a good sense of timing. . . .
Ben Wear of the Statesman has conducted an, uh, "experiment" to determine whether SH 130 is faster than I-35 even in rush hour traffic. His conclusion, based on what he admits is an unscientific sample of one: I-35 is faster.
He and a colleague both started north of Georgetown at 7:15 a.m. She took I-35 through Austin to FM 1327 south of town. He took the new toll road. He had to get on FM 1327 for the last few miles since SH 45, which will connect SH 130 to I-35, hasn't been completed.
She won. She drove 43.3 miles in 45 minutes. He drove 54.8 miles in 54 minutes, nine extra minutes. Ergo, I-35 is faster (and cheaper).
Wear admits traffic may have been unusally light on I-35 that morning. I think that's a bit of an understatement, but I'll leave that to others to pick apart.
I have another problem with his analysis, though, one that makes me think he's trying to stack the deck against the toll road. It's a subtle thing, but it's annoying.
Wear's colleague describes a fight through stop-and-go traffic from Round Rock to Cameron Road, through one traffic snarl after another. Wear describes a zip down the Autobahn. Here's his description:
The drive on Texas 130 is predictably uneventful and stress-free. With only one car visible about a quarter mile ahead and none in the rearview mirror, I set the cruise control to 70 mph.
I will have to tap the brakes only once in the next 46.8 miles of toll road. Much of the time there are no cars within 100 yards of me, and I see less than two dozen 18-wheelers the whole trip. The view is mostly of cows, green fields and old farm buildings.
Wear still lost the race. By nine minutes. See? I-35 kills SH 130 even though you get to fly down SH 130 at 70 mph.
But Wear only describes the first 46.8 miles of his trip, the part where he zipped along at 70 mph. He doesn't really talk about the last 8 miles.
Here's an algebra question: Ben drives his Taurus 54.8 miles in 54 minutes. He averages 70 mph for the first 46.8 miles. What is his average speed for the last 8 miles?
Be sure to show your work.
Answer: 34.6 mph.
34.6 mph is hardly highway speed. I average 34.6 mph on South Lamar when I hit the lights right. I'll bet that's slower than Wear's colleage averaged from Round Rock to Lady Bird Lake. And 8 miles was a pretty significant chunk of the trip. Wear doesn't really discuss the part of his trip where he had to slow down to a (relative) crawl, though.
That 8 miles makes a difference. If Wear had averaged 70 mph along the last 8 miles (as he almost certainly would once SH 45 is completed), the race would have ended in a dead heat. And that's with his colleague making nearly 60 mph through Austin at rush hour. If you factor in the probability of duplicating that feat -- to three significant digits, it is zero -- then SH 130 is faster. It's certainly a lot more predictable.
I'll grant his implicit point, though: People will switch to 130 only if it minimizes their costs. The SH 130 route costs $6 in tolls ($24 for trucks) and an extra half gallon of gasoline (for a car). SH 130 has to save a lot of time to justify that cost. If the goal is to get traffic to switch from I-35 to SH 130, we're tolling the wrong road.
