h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have an appointment this afternoon at 3pm in far north west Austin, about 16½ miles from Fort Gosho as the crow flies, 22 miles on the road. By car it'd probably take around 45 minutes, maybe an hour if there's a hold-up along the way, which there often is. If I was driving I'd leave here around 1.30pm, to be sure (if it was 3am and there was no traffic at all you could probably drive it in 25 minutes because it would be almost all dual carriageway/freeway driving).

By bus (26 miles), which is how I have to do it, it's going to take me about two and a half hours, and bearing in mind that if I got the bus which would get me there immediately before my appointment I'd be cutting it so fine I might not have enough time to find this place (which I've never been to before), so I'll have to get the previous one.

So to be there and make sure I don't miss the appointment at 3pm, I'll have to leave the house at about 11.30

One ray of sunshine - on the way back it'll be the rush hour so some of the buses I have to take will be running a bit more frequently and the journey back, although in a crowded bus, hopefully won't take as long.

It could be worse - I was astonished to find there's a bus that goes that far out at all - I though I was going to have to take a $30 cab ride there and another one back

If you were in any other US city than Austin, I'd probably want to argue that traffic in Houston is worse.

I just looked up a list of cities by worst traffic and Houston is no longer in the top 10.

Austin is at #4.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/05/04/worst-traffic-cities/2127661/

Oh, did I mention that we're going to get our first measurable rain for more than two weeks today?

"60% Rain/Storms ... Strong/Severe"
"It's a SLIGHT RISK for severe weather across all of our area today, though I do believe we'll be on the tail end of the action. The greatest threats: large hail, damaging winds, and frequent lightning... even if only briefly"

And I'd better make sure I, er... go, before I go. If you get my drift

Hey, it's time for you to leave.

Go on. Git!

Shoo!

You got a bus to catch. That computer will still be here when you get back.

I can believe that about Austin being number 4. Despite the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people who have moved here in recent years, and are forecast to move here, they've built almost no new transport infrastructure and are still haggling and arguing about if or where to build any, and the bus service has (mostly) got worse. Luckily they've just introduced a new rapid bus that I can use today which will shave maybe 10 minutes off my journey, and certainly make it more comfortable. But it'll cost me extra If you want people to use the service, don't make it more expensive than other buses that run on virtually the same route.

I have to leave at 11.39 - about eight minutes from now

Well, you're definitely on the bus now, so right back.

And we're back

Five and a half hours since I left, five hours of travelling, 20 minuttes of looking for the place, 10 minutes of actual meaningful stuff

You could get from London to Manchester in five hours on the bus. You could get from London Paris in not much more than half that on the Eurostar*.

God's teeth and trousers, I have a very numb bum, and I can't remember the last time I needed a cuppa as badly as I do now

*How interesting. The Firefox spellchehcker, which doesn't recognise 'Firefox', recognises 'Eurostar'

And the brolly was not required

It would've been, if you'd left it at home.

No doubt

It did actually rain, and very hard, but only while I was on the bus.

For once, I think Cyprus has made a good move. They have centralised the main bus services and every journey costs €1.50. You can go 2 stops or 150km across the island and it costs the same. They are working on the premise that most people are tourists and do short journeys but it seems to be working well (locals can buy monthly or yearly passes for around 50c a day.)

And as for untimely rain, my Daddy gets married tomorrow, outdoors. May was booked as the weather is gorgeous EVERY day EVERY year. And then we look outside as the torrential rain batters on in, flooding drains and streets that look like rivers, suddenly there are a lor of people searching out their golf brollies!

Back in the late '80s, when I was in college, I went to Austin for a weekend and stayed with a classmate. At the time, he told me about a proposed ring road around Austin. There was some controversy about the properties it was going through and whether it would alleviate traffic or just profit the land owners in those previously undeveloped outer regions of Austin.

So, is there now a ring road? Or was that shot down by the voters as obvious corruption?

My suspicion is that Austin could have used a ring road network, but the one proposed actually was more about graft than traffic.

Kind of.

There's Loop 360 (Capital of Texas Highway) around the west side of town, 183 (which has Bob knows how many different names) to the north and east, and 290 aka 71 (Ben White Blvd) to the south, but they're not really a proper joined-up ring. Those would be sort of like the North and South Circular Roads in London - not exactly planned as a ring and fairly close in to town.

Further out there's 45 (a toll road), which is probably Austin's equivalent of the M25 (without the M25's car park-like qualities), and I think has been built since I moved here, but it only goes from about 11 o'clock to 7 o'clock.

I put the last two hours of the 24-hour day pass I bought yesterday to good use - I went back to the Indian grocer where I got the tea and bought some spices, seeds, tamarind paste, Indian bay leaves and asafoetida.

Bob almighty, I sure got some usage out of that thing, and Bob almighty, it sure is sweaty out there today

I'm beginning to think now I should have got some gram flour too. I don't have as much of it in the cupboard as I thought

I meant 24-hour bus pass, but you knew that.

Hmm... It could be the Ben White road. I have some inkling of recollection that fellow was talking about the south side of town. All I really recall is that it was through pretty much empty territory at the time and that it wouldn't help traffic as much as it would help developers and therefore cause more traffic.

Hmm. That part of town was getting pretty well developed by the late 80s. There are lots of those late 70s/early 80s-style apartment complexes around there, like this http://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=30.237453,-97.783478&spn=0.003064,0.004128&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=30.237453,-97.783478&panoid=FqcXVNL148oaj8v2uvAxJg&cbp=12,322.52,,0,4.68, and neighbourhoods of ranch houses (1950s/60s/70s?).

It could well be though - once you get much further south than Ben White you're into developments that are more 90s and 00s, like Circle C and Sunset Valley.