Sounds like a horror movie title or maybe a line from a country song.
It's the new overpass at JBS Parkway and Business 20 (AKA Highway 80 or 2nd Street) in Odessa, TX. Could this be the "$24.6 million bridge to somewhere?"
The stop light is right at the top of an artificial hill and requires drivers to stop on a slope. Is this a common Texas highway phenomenon? Some locals were screaming bloody murder about this overpass when it was proposed, but they were helpless to stop it. It looks like motels make up the predominate industry in the vicinity, and one hopes the drivers will have access to them without driving a block or two out of the way to find an entrance.
Hopefully, the roadways will get shut down during ice storms, otherwise vehicles stopping at the light might just slide back down the hill.
Click the link to see a short OAOA.com video of the scene under construction. And here's a link to a pre-overpass Google Map overhead view.
Thanks to RP for the heads-up.
And they were thinking....what?
Posted by: Janie | July 21, 2009 at 08:38 PM
We went over a couple of weeks ago and don't see the point. This is a waste of money!
Posted by: Dede | July 21, 2009 at 08:51 PM
If the objective was to simply get traffic across the tracks safely, they could have simply built a North-South over- or underpass and not disrupted the East-West flow of traffic.
Most likely, somebody's brother-in-law's construction company needed a serious shot in the ass.
Damn, it sure makes me proud to be a redneck Texan when boondoggles like this get pushed thru & built.
Posted by: Rob O. | July 21, 2009 at 08:55 PM
Janie, Dede and Rob O, there certainly does seem to have been a lapse of logic in the design. There are overpasses elsewhere in the region that appear to achieve the desired result but without the disruption that this one will cause. Yeah, what were they thinking?
Posted by: Geo | July 22, 2009 at 06:51 AM