Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                            Matt Dulin    Barrett Goldsmith    Zach Lee 
                Jim Parsons            Christian Schmidt           Blake Whitaker

Traffic

If life has taught us one thing, it's that people do stupid things sometimes. It's not always their fault, but it happens.

That's why people complain about things like the weather -- or traffic.

In Houston, neither of those subjects makes most people very happy, but they are facts of life -- and hardly subject to anyone's will.

So when people complain about the increased traffic that will surely result from the closing of Spur 527, which takes vehicles from the Southwest Freeway into downtown Houston, remember that people sometimes do stupid things.

The residents of the neighborhoods near the spur that will bear the increased traffic don't want the spur to close. No one wants 86,000 cars a day pouring through their neighborhood streets. But Spur 527 is 43 years old and already inadequate for the traffic that uses it every day.

Those residents think that delaying work on the spur until 2007 will ease the problem. In fact, they would probably prefer that the spur not be closed until 3007.

But wait -- let's think about it. Maybe waiting until 2007 really will help.

By then, construction on the Katy Freeway, West Loop and Kirby Drive really will be done (because Houston highway projects are always done on time). By then, the number of cars won't have increased beyond the current level. In fact, it will have decreased. Right. By then, Houston will have a mass transit system capable of moving large numbers of people at a reasonable price.

Of course, none of that is likely to happen. Not by 2007, and maybe never.

Of course people won't carpool. Of course Houston won't work to make mass transportation a viable option. Of course Houstonians won't try to limit their driving.

This is Houston, and those just aren't viable alternatives.

Instead, people will complain about traffic at the same time they argue against highway improvements.

Because people do stupid things sometimes.


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