Costly Highway Kills an Illegal?

Mass hysteria in Boston and the National news outlets ensued this week after a chunk of the Big Dig tunnel in Boston, MA fell and crushed a car killing a women. Now that the "Oh my goodness, we paid how much for shoddy construction!?" hand waving and teeth gnashing is over, it's been reported that the victim's body will be shipped back to Costa Rica. There has been no information on whether she was in the country legally or illegally. Very interesting. Don't get me wrong, she didn't deserve to be killed because she may possibly have been here on the sly. I'm just saying, it would be interesting to find out.

Also, regarding the Big Dig accident, the ceiling panels that fell were not installed in the main tunnel because they were deemed overly expensive and unnecessary. The section of tunnel where they are located connects the main tunnel with the Ted Williams Tunnel that runs to the airport. Apparently it was one of the pieces built earlier than the audits that showed the huge cost overruns on the project. Which explains why the panels were not used on the rest of the construction. So the engineers will undoubtedly be removing all the remaining panels due to safety concerns and sending them off to a landfill. I just love to see my tax dollars spent so wisely. Let the finger pointing and litigation begin.

BTW, I'm still all for Annexing Mexico.

Access to medical care in Houston is all wet

I'm really bummed out by all this continuous rain since I like to do outdoorsy things and hate mud. The mosquito issue I'll save for another day. However, all this rain and minor street flooding has shown some problems with access to the Texas Medical Center. The Medical Center is vital to the city on a day to day basis, but in an emergency getting there is could be a life and death issue. Unfortunately, there is no really direct highway access to the Medical Center and all ambulances and visitors (except life flight) must travel a fair distance on surface streets. The recent rain has shown that in many cases the Medical Center can become a island. Numerous streets surrounding the Center flood and block traffic at the slightest amount of rain. Even the MetroRail is stymied by street flooding in the Med Center. Shouldn't access to the Medical Center be a top priority when flood control and street improvement budgeting is done each year? I realize millions are spent on flood control for the Med Center each year, but who cares if you can't get there?

Here are locations that are repeat offenders for flooding, if you know of others please list them in a comment or send me an email.

Holcombe at Grand Blvd
University at Main

No longer zip77077

Well, it looks like I no longer reside in zipcode 77077. I'll continue to watch the goings on from my lair hidden deep within the Katy prairie.

I can't wait to hypocritically bemoan traffic and sprawl while contributing to it.