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Papas Fritas writes:
"Michelle Rindel reports at AP that despite being two of the largest cities in the Southwest, Las Vegas and Phoenix are linked by a road that narrows to two lanes, hits stoplights in a Depression-era town and until recently backed up traffic over the Hoover Dam. An effort to improve what's now a 4 1/2-hour drive to cover the 300 miles of desert between Sin City and the Valley of the Sun with a more reliable road has heavy-hitting allies, including business leaders and the Republican governor of each state. 'Long-term jobs are created by our connectivity,' says Steve Betts, noting that the stretch would be the first piece of a new shipping route between Mexico and Canada.
That the cities aren't already linked by an interstate is a fluke of timing. The Phoenix and Las Vegas populations exploded just after the national road-building frenzy that started in the 1950s. The Las Vegas metro area, population 2 million, is 40 times larger than it was in 1950. The Phoenix area, population 4.3 million, has grown 13-fold over that span. Highway supporters won a key victory last year when Congress formally designated Interstate 11. The legislation provides no funding, but it allows builders to tap into interstate construction dollars. An interstate could link Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas as partners in a 'megaregion' that competes with other regions, and could open a trade route from Mexico to Pacific Ocean ports and Canada. Arizona and Nevada are currently losing much of that flow and its attendant development to Texas and California, according to Betts, chairman of CAN-DO, an acronym for Connecting Arizona and Nevada-Delivering Opportunities. Still, other critics worry that pushing further toward the interstate dream would contribute to urban sprawl and hurt the environment. 'The last thing we need is another freeway,' says Sandy Bahr, president of the Arizona chapter of the Sierra Club. 'We need to look for other transportation modes.'"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by evilviper on Saturday March 08 2014, @03:15PM
300 miles in 4.5 hours is 67MPH. That's pretty impressive for a road that's getting lambasted as a piece of junk, urgently in need of replacement. Assuming a perfect 75MPH speed limit the entire way, you'll only save 30 minutes, max. Meanwhile, the freeway speed limit in California is 70MPH, tops. The drive from LA to LV according to GMaps is 277mi in 4 hours 7 mins (or 67MPH) at best, and Friday-night (or the Sunday night return trip) traffic can EASILY add more than an hour to that time. And LA has many, many times more people... 10 million in the county, and at least 8 million more in neighboring counties along the route to LA. Where's the outrage for So. Cal? Where's the crazy plan to spend billions of dollars making a faster and more direct route for them?
I fail to see how those three aren't already linked, or how a just-slightly-faster road from Phx to LV would substantially change things.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Pooch on Saturday March 08 2014, @04:07PM
thank you! that was my first thought ... just how quickly do you want to be able to traverse the distance ... two hours ... one?
(Score: 0) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 08 2014, @06:09PM
First let me point out that I do not want that highway built. There is very little that highway could do that passenger rail would not do better.
However, Intel's largest wafer Fab in the US, is in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. You know those VLSI designers like to play the slots when Intel meets its quarterlies and they all get bonuses.
Presently most of them fly. That would be like me flying from Portland to Seattle. I mean that's just asinine when I can take the BoltBus for a dollar.
So what we have here are McDonalds and the other fast food joints, Big Tobacco, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Coors, Pabst and Budweiser lobbying for the highway, and Boeing, Airbus, United Airlines, USAir and so on lobbying against it.
Who lobbies for passenger rail? Railway work pays well but there aren't a whole lot of railway workers anymore. No one makes a fortune by investing in rail equities anymore.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday March 08 2014, @11:15PM
The road from Phoenix to Vegas does not only or even principally serve the e people that live in either city, neither does I5 only serve the needs of Portland and Seattle.
Rail is not an option, for so many reasons. If you haven't spent any time in Phoenix you couldn't possibly understand the difficulty of getting around in the spread out city, and the heat. Its not like hopping a bus or the LightRail in a dense city like Portland, or the 5 hour ride on Amtrak to Seattle, in addition to an hour on each end getting to the station and finding parking.
I've traveled that line often. Its a pain in the ass, because you end up having to get a car at either end, or spend more time trying to navigate either city's public transit system.
Its a 2:45 minute drive from my door Portland, and the only way I take the train is if the weather is really bad.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 09 2014, @07:22AM
I'm not saying one should take public transit to a hypothetical Vegas or Phoenix rail station.
Both cites are spread out enough, and land is cheap enough that both cities could have Amtrak stations with big parking lots, somewhere towards the edge of each city but also close to arterials or just off a highway offramp.
So in either city, one would drive no more than ten minutes to get to Amtrak. The train is not a whole lot faster than a car, but you don't need to drive, you're not weary when you arrive, you can hang out at Websites of Ill Repute for the entire trip provided they assign you a seat in the right place, and there is no particular limit on your luggage.
Note that my above example spoke of wealthy Chandler and Phoenix residents flying to Vegas to gamble. Those people aren't that concerned about getting there so quickly, about parking, they don't need a car once they arrive because they have the cash to rent one or pay a taxi.
I expect you live in Tacoma or so but from time to time, work in Portland. I myself live in either Portland or as now, in my mother's basement in Salmon Creek.
(Well, actually she doesn't have a basement I live in her luxurious, tastefully appointed guest room, with my O'Reilly books and Linux boxen all over the place.)
I'm completely willing to accept that gentlemen such as yourself really do need to drive.
There are all kinds of reasons that those who travel for their work, really must drive, as did I when I worked in Silicon Valley, Maine, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
But in Vancouver BC, not only did I not own a car, I never felt the need even to rent one, nor to even take a taxi.
That wasn't so much because of the excellent public transit but because of the population density. There are highrises all over the place, not just in Vancouver but in neighboring cities like Surry.
The key to successful public transit is high population density, so where you put a bus or train stop, there's lots of people who find it convenient to walk from their homes to that stop.
That's why Portland has the bus and light rail.
Vancouver has the C-Tran buses, but the Salmon Creek Park-and-Ride is quite cruelly designed not to serve the needs of actual Salmon Creek residents such as myself who do not own cars.
It is for me a HUGE PITA to live in Salmon Creek. I like it here but from time to time I really do need to go somewhere else. I cannot get to Portland and back on Sundays, I can't stay past four in the afternoon on Saturdays, and the last bus from Portland to Salmon Creek leaves portland at 7:30.
The Salmon Creek Park-and-Ride was designed specifically to serve the commuters who live in Ridgefield, Battle Ground and the like, and who also work in Portland. If you time it just right, there is ample parking, and for a seven dollar day pass, or a monthly express pass with a significant discount, you can get to downtown Portland from Salmon Creek in twenty minutes.
But for me to have any hope whatsoever of remaining self-employed, I'm going to have to move to somewhere in Portland, Beaverton or Gresham.
I like downtown Portland, but I was born in Spokane, my Mom lives in Salmon Creek, and I have discovered the state of washington to be fucked up beyond all repair.
In much the same way that I'd rather become a Canadian citizen someday - I would be by now had my ex not divorced me - I came to realize that my country needs me, so I am back in the US, pissed as hell and writing Walls Of Text all over creation then snail-mailing them to my congress critters.
In much the same way, I'd rather live and work in the Pearl District, but downtown Vancouver looks just like downtown Detroit: lots of vacant storefronts, no pedestrians on the sidewalk, the only really prosperous business are hard liquor bars, lots of homeless folk but no soup kitchens nor shelters.
So if my current press release plan works out (see my sig - a week from Monday or so), I'm going to lease an office in downtown vancouver, then pay a living wage to some Clark Country residents, provided they get to our office on public transite.
Care to elucidate?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday March 08 2014, @10:56PM
Significant sections of the road are four lane. Its only the two lane sections that slow down traffic during some periods to sub 60mph.
As for comparing it to California, that is a pointless exercise. The amount of disruption and seizing of heavily built up property in California make just about any development outrageously expensive. You can't make the case that no road can be built anywhere in the US until California gets their pet projects.
Vegas to Phoenix is largely desert, and most of the four lane is already marked out and surveyed in those few sections that are not already four lane. Actually finishing the road would be crazy cheap compared to a similar project in California.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Sunday March 09 2014, @02:42AM
Los Angeles to Vegas is mostly desert, too. It's only the first 40 miles that's through urban sprawl... but there are already multiple parallel freeway routes that span that particular stretch of it. The 10, 60, 210, 91, etc.
It's the other 237 miles through mostly desert and vastly less populated areas, where there is no alternative route, and one accident or brush fire shuts the whole thing down.
Considering the 4-billion dollar price tag getting slapped on it, I find that quite hard to believe.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.