Just wait till Grodinsky tries the Spur 527 Deathramp
Chronicle transportation columnist Rad Sallee recently wrote about a colleague's harrowing experience with the downtown Allen Parkway/I-45 ramp:
Houston Chronicle food editor Peggy Grodinsky, who didn't use a car when she lived in New York City, finds driving in Houston "terrifying."
"I wanted to bring up a particular highway merge that (excepting being mugged at gunpoint some years back) is the single most frightening thing that's ever happened to me," she said.
That brought to mind a dozen locations, but the ramp Grodinsky was talking about is downtown, connecting Allen Parkway to southbound Interstate 45.
"You must merge from the left (seems an extraordinarily dangerous design to begin with)," she said. "This is after you've barely completed a tight circle, you've no view of the rushing 70-plus mph traffic, and did I mention that the merge lane is nonexistent?"
"I nearly died when I did it last week, and I think the truck driver (who didn't slow down one jot) was ready to kill me, since he hadn't actually hit me." When she told friends here, they responded in one voice — "You have to gun it."
Sally Wegmann, transportation director for TxDOT in Houston, agrees the ramp is a problem. She said TxDOT will consider installing a sensor that could flash a warning message to freeway drivers when a car is coming up the ramp.
"It's an old, old design," Wegmann said. "I wish I could tell you I could fix it, but the fix at this point in time would be to close it, and there are people who do use it.
Sally Wegmann is no Janelle Gbur!
TXDOT spokesperson Janelle Gbur would surely have stated that not only is the entrance ramp in question perfectly safe, but once upon a time TXDOT painted a new stripe to make it even safer!
Seriously, the Allen Parkway/I-45 ramp is a bad one, but the brand new ramp from Milam/Richmond to Spur 527 (Deathramp 527) is no better (and may even be worse). Unless, of course, Janelle Gbur is describing it.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/02/06 10:53 PM | Houston Transit | Print | Comments (7)
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