The $10 billion dollar plan to waste taxpayer's money (Houston)

When it comes to bonafides, Houston's streets and freeways are in my wheelhouse. Know what I mean, Vern? Yours truly made a living driving on these things-- about a million miles worth of experience.

Houston's city fathers of old were smart to develop a city out of a swamp, and make it a powerhouse. But these people today couldn't plan their way out of a wet paper bag. All the big projects are huge wastes of money, and probably get approved for no other reason than to spend taxpayer money to "solve" a problem. These people couldn't fix a bowl of soup.

Some of the ideas in this video are probably not too bad. There are two that may make some sense. One of these is to make the water run faster out of the area when it rains. Another is to build a retention pond to impound water for awhile while releasing it slowly over time. These could be done relatively cheaply, while not upsetting the region with massive public works projects that are pretty useless.

Merging the Katy Freeway with the North Freeway-Gulf Freeway is about the most idiotic ideas I've ever heard of . Only a professional money grubbing bureaucrat would love this idea. It will make matters worse, not better. It won't cure flooding. It won't cure traffic ills. It won't yield any benefits that justify such an massive amount of taxpayer money.

The problem with traffic has a lot to do with human nature. People clash with each other, and there's no way to coordinate traffic so that it can move the most efficiently. People are individualistic in their preferences and habits. This is not necessarily conducive to efficient traffic flow in a crowded downtown environment.

To deal with traffic in a congested and crowded area would be to take this clash of human wills (and nature) out of the picture. Self-driving cars can do this. The technology is here to do it. Let me tell you, a machine can coordinate better with other machines a whole lot better than a bunch of folks hunched behind their steering wheels, and going into battle in an "arena-like" atmosphere reminiscent of ancient Rome's gladiators.

It may be a mistake to bring computers into this, as I am somewhat leery of relying too much upon machines. But sometimes this makes sense. An intelligent use of machines would be a good thing. Unfortunately, people do not always act intelligently. The solution would be an auto pilot feature to traverse the freeways during rush hour. You could work it like cruise control.

In any case, it would be a lot more efficient to do a few sensible things like those I've mentioned, than to spend billions on digging up a large part of the city, and probably not solving the problem at all.

Why won't it solve the problem? Because the ones they've already done didn't solve the same kind of problems. But some ideas are good. Among these were the construction of toll roads. In this instance, a toll roll COULD be built that would help out the I45 traffic congestion problem. It already exists, but stops at the "Loop", which is a few miles from downtown. The idea would be to extend the Hardy Toll Road right into downtown Houston.

Since the toll road doesn't do this now, it must dump its traffic on the already crowded streets. Why build this toll road as an alternative, and then end it before it gets to its destination? That's why I'm not optimistic about this next boondoggle. Human beings don't necessarily make the best decisions.

One more thing: This "problem" with Pierce elevated. In my view, it isn't the problem these boondogglers say it is. If you don't like the way it looks, make a suspension bridge out of it. It might beautify the city a bit, and I wouldn't make an argument out of that one.

To sum it up, do the following instead: 1) Build the retention pond, but make it DEEPER. Deeper than what they're probably planning. Make the water a RESOURCE, not an enemy. 2) Sraighten out the bend in Buffalo Bayou, making the waters flow better. 3) Build out the Hardy Toll Road so that it goes into the Downtown area. 4) Do what it takes to get people to adopt self-driving car tech that could manage your car during rush hour traffic. It would take a lot of stress out of driving, and the traffic would move better.

Here's the video, in case your interested. The dude isn't much of a thinker. Anybody can just repeat what they've heard.