COMMENT OF THE DAY: OUTSIDE OF THE LOOP ON TRAFFIC “Nothing confuses a non-Houstonian like traffic reports in H-town: ‘There’s an accident on the east loop north at 225, traffic is backed all the way from the south loop east to the west loop south.’†[HEYZEUS, commenting on Comment of the Day: Isn’t East of 59 and 288 Inside the Loop Too?]
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No kidding. Sometimes the naming system throws even Google Maps for a loop (no pun intended). Many a soul has found themselves looking for a restaurant or hardware store, only to be faced with an industrial yard or office building instead.
Agreed. Also, trying entering W Sam Houston Pkwy N or N Sam Houston Pkwy W into your GPS. You’ll end up like the proverbial flying Dutchman, doomed to circle the beltway into eternity, or at least until your EZ tag balance runs out.
And we don’t even want to get into the semantics of the Eastex Freeway v. the Southwest Freeway (or is it the Lloyd Bentsen Freeway?), the same game which is of course repeated for every highway that bisects the city. Oh well. Houston is not alone. There’s a spot in Austin where First Street intersects with First Street, before one becomes Guadalupe and the other becomes Cesar Chavez – truly the nexus of the universe.
Hell, I’ve been driving here for 30 years and I’M still confused.
There is a great car chase scene in the movie Brewster McCloud where one of the officers calls in on the radio that the suspect is traveling the West loop south to the South loop East.
Heyzeus, thanks for the warning about Austin. If my wife ever goes to that intersection her head will explode. It won’t be pretty. Streets with multiple names are one of her biggest pet peeves. There’s at least one little section of a couple of miles somewhere in Central Texas where the highway is signed “XX North, XX South, XX East” on the same piece of road.
Marmer, there’s an even better example of that in Austin, and nobody who lives there can keep it straight.
As you travel into Austin on 290 (the northwest freeway!), as it crosses 35 it becomes RM 2222. Which is also Koenig Lane. As you travel west, it becomes Allendale Road as well as Northland Drive. All still technically RM 2222, of course. Finally, once you’re all the way out to Lake Travis, it becomes Bullick Hollow road. It’s an amazing amalgam.
This isn’t Rocket Science. I’m sure and out of towner with a map and half a brain could quickly deduce this information. You act like you have to be a Cardiothurasic Surgeon with a PHD in Astrophysics to extrapolate this Calculus. This is such a stupid article.
And Austin is simple to navigate. Are you people serious? I guess your head would explode if you went to Paris. Give me a break
@Shannon:
It sure seems that you don’t like much of anything that anyone says on here.
Why do you bother to read Swamplot?
You need to calm down girl, have a drink and put your feet on the table.
Who needs to navigate Paris? You just tell the taxi driver where to go.
Am I the only one that thinks those traffic reports are worthless anyways? I don’t know why they even bother. They either go too fast or tell me about the traffic I am already stuck in.
@Shannon
Your sense of humor must not have been installed at the factory. I feel sorry for you. Yes, we can get around our respective cities just fine, with or without a map. The ever changing nomenclature of these roads are just a tiny source of humor. Good luck enjoying life.
Traffic reports are worthless. I used to work at a well-known (and now defunct) Houston radio station that played 80’s music. We usually played a pre-recorded traffic report (“all the freeways are clear”) for the first two updates of the morning; after that, all the reports were hopelessly expired by the time they made it to air.