Due to the lack of public transportation in Texas, traveling by car is a must for many commuters. However, with everyone rushing to various locations at the same time and multiple potholes in the roads, the commute from here to there is a hassle at times and even expensive.
To ease the commute experience, The Texas Transportation Corporation and the State of Texas will invest a total of $142 billion to reduce congestion and improve safety and connectivity.
“I think some roads are really badly set up, and I’m like who designed these,” junior Claire Graham said. “I think [the funding] is good, we need to fix the roads, but I do hope it’s not just adding more lanes cause I do think that won’t necessarily fix the problem.”
American Studies and AP US History teacher Whitney Schell has a different view of where the funds should be invested.
“It takes 40 minutes to get to school,” Schell said. “I think that’s because we do not have any other way of getting around the city besides using cars that it clogs up all of the lanes. I think that they need to expand the DART system: public transportation. Then you would be taking cars off the road, and so people who actually need to go long distances in their car are actually able to use the roads properly, and the people who are only going out for a short errand.”
$100 billion will be going towards the Unified Transportation Project, and $42 billion will fund development and routine maintenance.
“I think they should optimize the way the layouts are,” Graham said. “A lot of the problems are people getting into accidents when they’re getting on and off big highways, stoplights, and all that. So exits and entrances onto major roads need to be fixed.”
According to Community Impact, TxDOT Executive Director Marc Williams hopes that the project will improve safety and save lives on the roadway.
“There isn’t a day that goes by where there isn’t some sort of car accident,” junior Nolan Sow said. “I don’t know the cause of every single one, but usually it’s because everyone’s in a rush and there’s so much traffic. The stress of it all probably hinders everyone’s judgments, so I’m glad that the issue is finally being addressed.”
Schell sees another issue with the infrastructure of Texas.
“There are people who may be going half a mile down the road, but because there are no sidewalks, it’s dangerous to walk, there’s no public transportation, [so] they’re getting in their car to make that really short trip,” Schell said. “I should be able to walk to from my house, like to be able to eat or for entertainment, but I can’t because it is dangerous. And so many of our roads have so many lanes that it’s dangerous for me to cross the road. So instead of using that funding to add more roads or lanes, they should use that money to fund public transportation and pedestrian infrastructure.”
