Posted by Twelvebit (Victoria, United States) on 2 October 2007 in Transportation.
I find stops like this one very aggravating because they are becoming so frequent and are made without good reason. In this case there was plenty of available road space to route traffic around the very small area in which the work was taking place --a method used successfully many times on any number of similar roads I have traveled. Instead, using this method, they block all traffic in both directions and wait for it to pile up before leading one line of cars around the work area with a "pilot" vehicle. In this photo the "pilot" vehicle is seen cresting the road in the opposite direction.
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Very nice perspective and angle. I have also realized that road works in Texas are extremely slow. For example, here in Ft. Worth, they have doubled the left lanes so two car can make left turn at once. The construction has been done for almost 4 months, but the orange cones are still in place and city refuse to open the lane and free this major road of rush hour traffic.
2 Oct 2007 2:49pm
@Amir: Thank you. At the risk of being political again, the "contracting" business is notoriously corrupt. I once met an engineer who told me he quit TXDOT because their relationship with contractors was so corrupt he couldn't stand to work there. He had numerous stories of contractors cheating the state with official acquiescence. In my own personal experience with contractors, both in the military and in civilian life, I have encountered only one that I didn't know to be crooked (he may have been, but in his contacts with me, I saw no evidence of it). My cynicism leads me to suspect that the situation you describe was the product of some kind of cost-plus contract where payment was tied to how long "X" number of lanes were out-of-service.
It is aggravating as heck, but theres prob some law that states (when doing road construction please make sure any one whom is traveling this route gets purely fed up & angry through your work zone area so they drive like a mad man and will surely give you the finger to make sure you have just as pleasant a day as they are now having) or the law might be more like... Have construction so may feet away from bla bla bla
2 Oct 2007 4:53pm
@Rabbit: One possible reason is some kind of safety rule, but I'm more inclined to suspect a cynical explanation, as I've worked with any number of contractors and I've never seen one yet that gave a damn about worker safety. My guess would be that the contractor gets paid extra for doing it this way. There is probably some bidding clause where the contractor gets paid disproportionately more if he claims that he has to shut down traffic and use pilot vehicles.
Thats so annoying, and it always happens that roadworks suddenly appear at the most busyest times of the day, or you come across a road that is coned off, but no-one is doing anything to fix anything.
Anyway, you captured a cool shot and great angle too
3 Oct 2007 7:32am
@Richard Irwin: Opps, I forgot to use the reply icon once again. Thank you. There are often coned off roads here where no work is being done. In most states, traffic fines are increased --usually doubled-- in "work" areas. The plus side in this state is that the law reads: "fines doubled WHEN WORKERS ARE PRESENT."
Thank you. There are often coned off roads here where no work is being done. In most states, traffic fines are increased --usually doubled-- in "work" areas. The plus side in this state is that the law reads: "fines doubled WHEN WORKERS ARE PRESENT."
3 Oct 2007 7:44pm
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NIKON D801/80 secondF/16.0ISO 100202 mm (35mm equiv.)
roadworktrafficstoprepairgonzalez
12 Bit Photo
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12 Bit Photo