interstate 10 by Nahim Fadul

Interstate 10 is like a straight enormous snake connecting from Baytown to Houston and to many other places that drivers would love to travel to. It has four lanes on both sides; so many people can travel to their desired destination to and from their hometowns. It’s an important symbol of Baytown, since without it, how would people get to this wonderful city that is Baytown? Visitors wouldn’t come and visit if it weren’t built for that purpose.

           There are many good and bad things about Interstate 10. One of the good things about having interstate 10 in Baytown, is that we can have eighteen-wheelers to come into our city to provide the residents living in Baytown the supplies we need to not only to provide for ourselves, but also to personalize our living areas. Helping family members come visit their loved ones from other states and cities is another great thing about the interstate (thank God that it’s not as enormous as the one in Dallas, since it gets people lost and confused by the many lanes).

            But one of the bad things about it, is that when it was built, it had destroyed Texas Avenue from all its businesses. Many largely known companies, like Sears and JCPenny, were located in Texas Avenue, but weren’t getting enough business; so they decided to go near I-10 so that they could get more business from people traveling to and from I-10. Many family businesses went out of businesses went out of business in as little as two years thanks to Texas Avenue’s renovation of the shopping stores, since no one goes there to shop anymore. Before interstate 10 was built, there was a higher percentage of drug trafficking; which is the travel of drugs moving to and from the places that make them, to the drug dealers in which they can sell them.

            Interstate 10 is an important symbol of Baytown, even though it has its ups and downs; it’s unique in its own way, no matter how people look at it. There are positive and negative remarks all around Baytown, but it’s the people’s own opinion. 
             MONT BELVIEU- the texas department of transportation met with residents and county leaders Tuesday to discuss a proposed a 28 million dollar construction project on interstate 10 in west chambers county.

The state highway department plans to widen i-10 from four lanes to six lanes between Highway 146 and FM 565. The state also wants to convert frontage roads along that stretch of interstate from two-way access to one-way access and the Grand Parkway.

More than 30 people attended Tuesday’s meeting, where they were able to view plans and ask questions of state engineers.

Department of Transportation engineer Charlotte Warner said the decision to make the frontage roads one-way was made based on safety statistics.

“it’s strictly a safety issue,” she said.

John Sudela, assistant area engineer, said that although I-10 has 10 times the traffic of the frontage roads, the frontage roads have as many as six times the number of accidents, when compared by percentage, as the main interstate.

Warner said that many of the comments made by citizens Tuesday were positive.

“I don’t think this was a big surprise to anyone,” she said.

Chambers County Commissioner Bill Wallace said he was eager for the project to begin in his precinct.

“My half I’d like to see started tomorrow,” he said. “It’s something that needs to be done now.”

Mont Belvieu Police Captain Virgil Blasdel said the construction would eventually benefit traffic in the area.

“It’s really going to help us at the intersection of (Highway) 146 and (Interstate) 10,” Blasdel said. “Having a dedicated right turn lane will really help with traffic flow.”

Blasdel said he was concerned about the change in traffic on high frontage roads from two-way to one-way.

“The only thing we’re going to have to ask the citizens to get used to is the access roads’ switch from two-way to one-way,” he said.

Blasdel said that, hopefully, with enough public awareness, there will be few problems when the switch is made.

Jim Josey, president and chief of the Beach City Volunteer Fire Department, said the one-way access roads could affect their response times to accidents in the area, but it should be beneficial in the long run.

“I think it’s going to be something we’ll have to deal with,”Josey said. “If it causes less accidents and improves traffic flow, then that helps us.”

Chambers County resident Dot Schaeffer has lived near I-10 for more than 30 years. She said one-way access roads would take a little bit of adjustment.

“I would rather they not change the feeder roads because it will be very inconvenient,” she said. “But,  you can’t fight progress.”

One business owner expressed some concern about the one-way access roads, Damon Webb of Beaumont is co-owner of D.J. ‘s West, a restaurant and rest stop that’s being constructed at the intersection of I-10 and FM 30180.

Webb said that although he would still be able to get customers from I-10, he was afraid he would lose customers from Mont Belvieu because they would not be able to easily access his business.

“People from the schools and from the city couldn’t get to us,” he said. “The city is what I went after.”

However, Webb said the Department of Transportation has indicated that it would be willing to work with him on the problem.

“They’re been great,” he said.

Contract negotiations are expected to begin on the project in February, and actual construction could begin in April or May, Warner said.

Construction is expected to take three years.

The state highway department is soliciting public opinion on the project.

Written statements can be mailed to: Charlotte Warner P.E., TxDOT, Area Engineer, 209 Layl Drive, Liberty, Texas 77575. Statements will be accepted until October 1.

                                                        
Cook, Matthew. "The Big Fix." Greater Baton Rouge Business Report. N.p., 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.  

 Whenever I drive on interstate 10, it feels like I’m driving on top of the spinal cord of a snake because the interstate is so long, it feels like a never ending lane of nothingness (even though we all know that that’s not true, it just FEELS like it). The roads are really smooth like the snakes’ skin and that is how it feels when driving on it; with curves and bumps galore, how could it not feel like that? I tend to bump my head on the ceiling of the car because of it!

 Every time I go to Houston, the interstate has so many people driving their cars, it’s as if the cars are the blood vessels inside of the blue veins of a giant, named Baytown’s, body, while the roads are the veins, connecting towards one another and letting the ‘blood’ flow more evenly and smoothly. When I see eighteen wheelers, coming in and out of the ‘veins’ of interstate 10, they go to the ‘heart’ of Baytown. That’s where it distributes the ‘proteins’ the ‘body’ (which is the city of Baytown) needs in order for the body to function. The eighteen wheelers are the proteins needed in this giant mass of a city. Without them, how could the ‘lipids’ (which are the people coming and going to and from Baytown), go through? The eighteen wheelers are the source of protein, which contains ‘carbs’ (which is like the food and other necessities we humans need in order to survive).

Interstate 10 is very important in the body of Baytown, since without it, how will we function? We’d just be nothing but a whole bunch of carbs, proteins, and lipids without a purpose in the world! I’d say it’s important, since how can I take my girlfriend shopping to the outlets and Galleria Mall without it? She’d leave me if I didn’t take her shopping every once in a while! (Pray for me, Mr. Deskin, that my wallet will NOT be empty anytime soon).