North Texas at top of list of state's worst roads

DFW AIRPORT - More than a fourth of Texas' 100 top transportation challenges are in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and two of the worst roads include two sections of Interstate 35W north of downtown Fort Worth, a report released Thursday concluded.

In all, 26 of the 100 biggest transportation challenges in the state are in North Texas, based on factors such as road conditions, congestion and cost of improvement, according to a report released by TRIP, a Washington-based organization that favors increased highway funding.

Local and national transportation advocates used the report's release Thursday to call on the Texas Legislature to increase highway funding to avoid stalling the state's economic growth.

"The consequence of not making these improvements is severe," said Carolyn Bonifas Kelly, associate director of research for TRIP, a Washington-based organization supported by insurance and construction companies and other businesses that favor increased highway funding.

Gathering at Dallas Fort Worth Airport's headquarters, officials from TRIP, the Texas Good Roads and Transportation Association and other groups called for lawmakers to embrace new funding sources. The state currently relies on motor fuel taxes and money borrowed through bonds to pay for its roads.

"Now, when TxDot does its budget and takes $2 billion off the top for debt, that's money that's not going to these projects," said Lawrence Olsen, executive vice president of Texas Good Roads. Among the local projects listed on the report's top 100 Texas transportation challenges:

Interstate 30 from Jefferson Street to Loop 12 in Dallas - a corridor that will be addressed in the Horseshoe project recently funded by the Texas Transportation Commission. Late last year, the commission selected a developer, Pegasus Link Constructors, which committed to performing $798 million worth of work in the corridor. That area is often used by motorists arriving in Dallas from the Arlington area.

I-35W from Texas 183 (28th Street) to U.S. 81 (Decatur Cutoff) in north Fort Worth - a project that is being addressed in the North Tarrant Express development project. Work is expected to begin this spring on the reconstruction of existing lanes and the addition of two toll lanes in each direction - but the goal of adding free lanes and continuous frontage roads will not be achieved for more than a decade under current spending plans, officials said.

U.S. 75 from Texas 190 (Bush Turnpike) to Interstate 635 in Dallas County. State officials said the proposed addition of managed lanes will be the subject of a corridor study over the next couple of years. However, the improvements aren't currently funded. I-35W from Interstate 30 to Texas 183 (28th Street) in Fort Worth -- also part of North Tarrant Express. This area also will get a makeover, with the addition of toll lanes, but new free lanes won't be added in the near term.

During the current legislative session, lawmakers are being asked to get serious about providing better long-term funding sources for transportation. Rider Scott, executive director of the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition, said a growing number of citizens want the state to find funds to fix the crumbling roads.

Among the suggestions is that the state stop diverting transportation funds to other projects, which could generate about $1.2 billion per year. Another idea would be to dedicate sales taxes paid on automobile purchases to the state's Fund 6 highway fund, rather than the general fund, raising another $3 billion

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Source: Star-telegram (Dickson, 1/17)

Do hybrid cars kill you with silence?

This summer, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration will begin creating guidelines for the minimum amount of noise a car engine can emit -- at lower speeds hybrid and electric cars cause too many accidents.

The first time you get into a hybrid car, it can be quite eerie.

Not merely because of the peculiar sanctimoniousness of its owner, but because when it comes to a halt, there seems to be no engine sound. At first, you think it's stalled. Then you realize that cannot be. So your innards have to train themselves for this odd sensation.

However, it seems conclusive now that this little lamb's silence is proving to be somewhat injurious.

As a very fine analysis in Slate tells me, at speeds under 35 mph, hybrids and electric cars are 37 percent more likely to hit pedestrians and 66 percent more likely to hit cyclists than normal gas-guzzling machines.

However, the hybrids' silent factor has become so difficult that the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration is being forced, by this summer, to begin creating rules that will stipulate the minimum noise enjoyed by any car on the road.

Yes, oh newly minted Facebook millionaire, your new Tesla may have to be a little noisier.

It's odd that the auto industry seems to have been very slow in adopting a little noise. Honda patented a simulated noise generator in 1994.

And yet nothing happened, other than quite a few accidents.

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Toyota began in 2010 to create a little almost cartoonish noise (video embedded below), one that now exists in the 2012 Prius.

But perhaps the most fascinating attempts in this area come from Audi and the development of its 2012 R8 eTron electric sports car (video embedded above). Audi worked with a music composer for three years in order to come up with a sound that some might find reminds them of, well, a sports car.

By 2017, every hybrid and electric car will legally have to have a noisemaker installed. I wonder if some car maker will come up with an entirely new noise. Somewhere between say, the Batmobile and the collected works of Kraftwerk. Now that would be fun.

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source: CNET (Matyszczyk, 5/19)

GM recalls three big crossover models over bad wipers

General Motors is recalling about 50,000 large crossover SUVs to fix a windshield-wiper problem.

The recall affects 2011 and 2012 Chevrolet Traverse, Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia vehicles registered in 28 cold-weather states and Washington, D.C. Federal safety regulators say ice and snow can build up and restrict movement of the wipers. That can make the wiper arm come loose and malfunction.

GM says dealers will fasten the wipers tighter than factory specifications to stop the problem from happening. The company says the loss of wipers hasn't caused any crashes or injuries. GM will send letters to owners and start the recall later this month.

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source: USA Today (Woodyard, 4/13)



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Texas man crushed by big-rig makes miraculous recovery

DALLAS -- They may be small, and gingerly taken, but Greg Meece isn't taking baby steps as he walks out of UT Southwestern's Zale Lipshy hospital.

For everyone involved in his recovery, every step forward is a giant leap.

"When I was brought in here two weeks ago," says Meece, "I was an incomplete quadraplegic. And I'm going to be walking out of the hospital today."

Two weeks ago, Meece was driving on the Dallas North Tollway when an 18-wheeler lost control. The truck slammed into the concrete divider -- and landed on-top of Meece's car.

Other drivers rushed to help. But Meece was so badly crushed, doctors didn't know if he would ever walk again.

A surgery, fusing one of his own ribs to his neck, stabilized his spine.

"Never. I never doubted," says Donna Meece of her husband's recovery.

Still, she is astonished her husband rehabbed to quickly.

"I was thinking, 'We'll be here for months,'" she says, "Two weeks? I'm shocked at 2 weeks, I really am. But every day I knew he was getting better and better.

"It's a miracle," says Greg, "It's amazing. It's almost beyond words."

Greg Meece was in a rental car the day of the accident.

He says he is very frugal -- and always pays for a small, compact car. That day, he says he splurged an extra four dollars for a mid-sized car. As he walked out of the hospital, upright and able-bodied, he says it was the best four bucks he ever spent.

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source: WFAA (St. James, 3/9)



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