Ben Wear's Great Race

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. 

Comments

[DSK]

I think 7:15am is definitely the wrong time to run that test. I'd run it starting at 4:45PM, maybe 5PM.
My unscientific observation is that I-35 is significantly worse in the evening rush than the morning one. You've got more truckers on the road and a few hours of the effects of the afternoon's problems piling up.
I'd have also run the test northbound.
I'd also extrapolate the time of SH 45 SE porition based off the average speed of the SH 130 leg, rather than count the time on FM 1327.

[Sal Costello]

130 toll road was the most expensive road project in Texas history at a cost of $1.5 Billion dollars.

It was built as a primer for the TTC. Kirk Watson's Prop 1 from the year 2000 diverted $67 million city bond dollars (promised for Austin freeways) into SH 130 and 45N toll roads.

http://corridornews.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-paying-to-take-texas-130-to-save.html

Also read...TIME magazine's "The Next Wave in Superhighways,
or a Big Fat Texas Boondoggle?" from 2004:
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2006/07/time-magazine-story-on-gov-perrys.html

[sal costello]

Oopps, wrong 1st link above...here is a partial money trail for 130 toll:
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2007/07/millionaire-senator-kirk-watson-is.html

[sal costello]

Oopps, wrong 1st link above...here is a partial money trail for 130 toll:
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2007/07/millionaire-senator-kirk-watson-is.html

[M1EK]

Sal, cut it out. The money was intended for SH45, Loop1(N), and SH130; all of which were publicized in every single media outlet of note for months and months and months as being "Austin's first toll roads".

You're not going to find fertile ground here for misrepresentations.

[dquack]

I live in Pflugerville and teach at Texas State-San Marcos several days a week. With little traffic, I prefer I-35. At 6:15 a.m. it takes about 50 minutes to go from the Grand Avenue exit to the Aquarina Springs exit. Even when I leave campus at 5 p.m., it takes about 70 minutes to get home. However, it has taken up to 2 hours and there is a lot of stop and go in the evening. I've taken SH 130 and love it. I can set my cruise control on 75mph and not tap my breaks. It's stress-free and I love it. My plan is to take 35 when the traffic is light (meaning early mornings) and 130 when 35 traffic is heavy.

[Tim]

I live right off 71. I take 130 to 290 when I need to head out of town to Houston. But it's pretty much purely for psychological reasons. It's nice to whiz along for $1.50 and avoid the bottleneck at the river.

That said, we recently went out to Brushy Creek for a race at 6pm on a Wednesday. Google Maps had the toll road route as taking almost an hour (130 to 45 to 183A). We made it up I-35 to 183 in less than 45 minutes even with a bit of stop-and-go traffic.

[Dog]

I take I-35 from Slaughter to HWy 290 E every morning. Usually I leave around 6:45am and get to work 20 minutes later. I've taken it at 8am and still made it to work in about 30 minutes. If time is money, then SH130 still loses. Frankly, I think the toll roads are just big money grabs. The state should have made the investment in public roads (ie: non-toll) a long time ago so we wouldn't have to stoop to toll roads.