Random Beaumont question

[Separation Scientist]

I was in Beaumont this past week and noticed the grove of pine trees at the I-10 and 96 interchange (near MCM Elegante) were cut down. Its a small triangular piece of property, with apparently no readily accessible entry point. I remember those trees were freshly planted there about 25 years ago. Any ideas why this was done? I am just curious, thanks. 

[5GallonBucket]

31 minutes ago, Separation Scientist said:

I was in Beaumont this past week and noticed the grove of pine trees at the I-10 and 96 interchange (near MCM Elegante) were cut down. Its a small triangular piece of property, with apparently no readily accessible entry point. I remember those trees were freshly planted there about 25 years ago. Any ideas why this was done? I am just curious, thanks. 

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[tvc184]

2 hours ago, Separation Scientist said:

I was in Beaumont this past week and noticed the grove of pine trees at the I-10 and 96 interchange (near MCM Elegante) were cut down. Its a small triangular piece of property, with apparently no readily accessible entry point. I remember those trees were freshly planted there about 25 years ago. Any ideas why this was done? I am just curious, thanks. 

Roughly the same thing that is currently underway at Hwy 69/Hwy 73 in Port Arthur….. cleaning up those nasty bottlenecks.  

[LumRaiderFan]

1 hour ago, tvc184 said:

Roughly the same thing that is currently underway at Hwy 69/Hwy 73 in Port Arthur….. cleaning up those nasty bottlenecks.  

That is a bad one.

[SmashMouth]

4 hours ago, 5GallonBucket said:

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Good info. Thank you. 

[5GallonBucket]

37 minutes ago, SmashMouth said:

Good info. Thank you. 

One of the news channels did a story on it a week or so ago.

 

supposedly starting this summer and lasting 5 years add that to the narrow lanes from 69 north of i10 to Lumberton.   Uggggghh

[SmashMouth]

7 minutes ago, 5GallonBucket said:

One of the news channels did a story on it a week or so ago.

 

supposedly starting this summer and lasting 5 years add that to the narrow lanes from 69 north of i10 to Lumberton.   Uggggghh

Exactly. Lol. I live in Lumberton… that’s why I was interested in it. 

[Separation Scientist]

I hated to see the planted trees go but obviously its for a greater cause. 

[baddog]

Whoever designed that two lanes down to one on Cardinal drive must have been on drugs. See a lot of frontage road construction in the projects. They really need to fix that one on the MLK exit heading south on Cardinal. 

[tvc184]

2 minutes ago, baddog said:

Whoever designed that two lanes down to one on Cardinal drive must have been on drugs. See a lot of frontage road construction in the projects. They really need to fix that one on the MLK exit heading south on Cardinal. 

I think things design 50 or more years ago probably didn’t anticipate the traffic problems. Even if they did, there would probably be huge pushback. To have a public hearing by the state and say, we are going to spend many millions of dollars because 50 or 75 years from now that might be traffic issues. 

I think this entire project is supposed to be over $300 billion. Imagine if they came back and said, we have changed it to $1 billion because in 2075 there might be traffic issues that we can’t anticipate….. realizing that a majority of people using such a future renovation project have not even been born yet. 

[baddog]

1 hour ago, tvc184 said:

I think things design 50 or more years ago probably didn’t anticipate the traffic problems. Even if they did, there would probably be huge pushback. To have a public hearing by the state and say, we are going to spend many millions of dollars because 50 or 75 years from now that might be traffic issues. 

I think this entire project is supposed to be over $300 billion. Imagine if they came back and said, we have changed it to $1 billion because in 2075 there might be traffic issues that we can’t anticipate….. realizing that a majority of people using such a future renovation project have not even been born yet. 

No sir. These roads have needed expanding for decades now. Just the traffic from the 60s to the 80s seemed to almost double. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure that traffic in the near future would be way more than what was built. Plus, it was all new construction back then, so the diversion of traffic would have been minimal. Adding lanes nowadays will create bottlenecks galore. I see nothing wrong with being a bit visionary. Two lanes down to one will back traffic up even with a light flow. What makes that situation even worse is the entrance ramp from 124 trying to merge while everyone else is going to one lane. Cardinal Drive was nothing but access roads for several years. When they constructed Cardinal Drive with the overpasses and tied into I-10, I think the planning department could have done much better.

[Separation Scientist]

13 hours ago, tvc184 said:

I think this entire project is supposed to be over $300 billion. 

I can't even imagine that. Maybe you meant 300 million? 

[tvc184]

2 hours ago, Separation Scientist said:

I can't even imagine that. Maybe you meant 300 million? 

Yes, million. I was just commenting on an Elon Musk thread and he was supposed to be worth over $300 billion. 

[thetragichippy]

20 hours ago, tvc184 said:

I think things design 50 or more years ago probably didn’t anticipate the traffic problems. Even if they did, there would probably be huge pushback. To have a public hearing by the state and say, we are going to spend many millions of dollars because 50 or 75 years from now that might be traffic issues. 

I think this entire project is supposed to be over $300 billion. Imagine if they came back and said, we have changed it to $1 billion because in 2075 there might be traffic issues that we can’t anticipate….. realizing that a majority of people using such a future renovation project have not even been born yet. 

It amazes my wife and I that while the population of Beaumont and Port Arthur has not changed much, the traffic has gotten ridiculous.  When Port Arthur was in it's prime, and into the 80's, I don't recall the traffic like today......weird

[tvc184]

43 minutes ago, thetragichippy said:

It amazes my wife and I that while the population of Beaumont and Port Arthur has not changed much, the traffic has gotten ridiculous.  When Port Arthur was in it's prime, and into the 80's, I don't recall the traffic like today......weird

You are correct.  This traffic has not been going on for 40 years.

I believe that it is entirely a response to the massive energy sector projects we have going on in the area. For the first 20 years of my career, we would post off-duty jobs on a bulletin board and we were restricted to shift or assignment because there was so little to do to make extra money that we had to struggle to find off duty jobs.

We don’t even post jobs on a bulletin board anymore. We have had area projects where we had to hire over 100 off-duty police officers in a single day to work traffic. My police department with almost 130 officers could not even come close to getting enough officers to work those jobs. We went to outside agencies, even from other counties to help us with traffic.

I believe you’re correct that this problem has not been here for that long. Maybe for the last 10 to 15 years but certainly not 40 and 50 years ago and the population has not really increased.

[tvc184]

47 minutes ago, thetragichippy said:

It amazes my wife and I that while the population of Beaumont and Port Arthur has not changed much, the traffic has gotten ridiculous.  When Port Arthur was in it's prime, and into the 80's, I don't recall the traffic like today......weird

Looking at Wikipedia, Jefferson County had 245k people in 1960. Now it’s around 252k, more than 60 years later. 

[tvc184]

Orange County has gone from 83k to 85k since 1980.

Hatdin County has increased 15k since 1980 but only 1,590 people since 2010.

The 3 counties that might directly have an effect on traffic, have increased only about 4,000 people in the last decade.

[baddog]

11 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

Looking at Wikipedia, Jefferson County had 245k people in 1960. Now it’s around 252k, more than 60 years later. 

In 1960, momma didn’t drive and Daddy didn’t buy Junior a car. He had to work and buy his own. lol

[tvc184]

1 minute ago, baddog said:

In 1960, momma didn’t drive and Daddy didn’t buy Junior a car. He had to work and buy his own. lol

Keep trying.

As Hippy pointed out, those traffic back ups on Cardinal and Eastex areas haven’t been happening for very long. Maybe those women just got jobs and cars in the last 15 years?

I grew up in a fairly poor family and my mother had a car and job as did my grandmother going back into the 1960s. I don’t think we were an anomaly. 

[baddog]

Keep trying????? Take the three lanes the other side of Winnie down to two and see what happens. 

[Separation Scientist]

1 hour ago, thetragichippy said:

It amazes my wife and I that while the population of Beaumont and Port Arthur has not changed much, the traffic has gotten ridiculous.  When Port Arthur was in it's prime, and into the 80's, I don't recall the traffic like today......weird

Simple reason believe it or not, multitudes of contractors drive into Jefferson Co. from Baytown, Pasadena, and Houston, then go home at night. For example at the I-10 and HWY 146 intersection, there used to be an abandoned gas station. That parking lot would fill up with dozens, possibly a hundred or more Hispanic contractors and carpool to Beaumont, with their cars jammed in and parked in any available space. At night, they came back and the parking lot emptied out. So, they, and the ones who drove directly in daily, contributed to traffic in Beaumont and PA, but did not increase the population.  

[baddog]

55 minutes ago, Separation Scientist said:

Simple reason believe it or not, multitudes of contractors drive into Jefferson Co. from Baytown, Pasadena, and Houston, then go home at night. For example at the I-10 and HWY 146 intersection, there used to be an abandoned gas station. That parking lot would fill up with dozens, possibly a hundred or more Hispanic contractors and carpool to Beaumont, with their cars jammed in and parked in any available space. At night, they came back and the parking lot emptied out. So, they, and the ones who drove directly in daily, contributed to traffic in Beaumont and PA, but did not increase the population.  

Good point. Another thing that keeps Beaumont’s population in check is suburbia.