Let me tell you guys about something that I'm up to that is gaining some very big fans! I have been commuting on Interstate 35 East between Dallas and Denton, TX for the better part of 20 years.

First, it was going from the suburbs to various school events, mostly marching band stuff. Then it was to Denton and the University of North Texas for my undergrad degree. Then I moved to Denton and began commuting to Dallas for work. So I've gone both ways at both times of day...morning and evening, north and south.

A bit of history you probably don't know and definitely don't care about! I-35 E between Dallas and Denton is also State Highway 77. Prior to the construction of the Eisenhower System of Freeways in the 1950's, State Highways dominated non-local roadway traffic. Unfortunately, State Highways were not built to move traffic, but to pave roads! Here's what that means.

In Texas, for example, most of our original State Highways went directly through the County Square. Not a good idea! Here is the center of commerce and politics and law and order for the entire county, and it is also the center of road travel, too. Not too bad if you are going from the sticks (country) into town or from one County Seat to the next.

But imagine if you are traveling from Denton through Dallas and Austin on down to San Antonio. Impossible! You have no fewer than 4 of these County Squares to go through.

Imagine Austin traffic during rush hour!

Or imagine taking your local freeway and plopping a Wal Mart Supercenter and the County Jail down in the median side-by-side.

Paints an ugly picture, huh?

Well, fast-forward to the Eisenhower Freeway plan. Our modern freeways, in theory, only constrain the driver to stop when they need gasoline. You can travel from Shreveport to Dallas to San Antonio to Houston to New Orleans and back to Shreveport, and theoretically, the only times you would have to exit would be to take the ramp from I-20 to I-35 to I-10 to I-55, and to exit for gas.

Well, fast-forward again to the 21st Century. The Eisenhower plan did not take into account the growth in Interstate commerce dependent on this system of freeways, nor did it take into account the rise of the automobile as a commuter vehicle. Well, now we have these two problems, and we have to deal with them!

Well, that's exactly what I'm doing!

I-35 E from Denton to Dallas is actually very indicative of several other freeways in the Dallas-Ft Worth region, and others state-wide, and in other national metropolitan regions. So the problems are pretty well universal, and so are the solutions.

And they won't cost an arm and a leg, either! Now, re-designing a freeway and re-building it are pricey, but what I am proposing deals with very little new pavement, by comparison.

For example, my plan involving the approximately 35 miles from just north of downtown Dallas to Denton calls for only one new entrance ramp being built.

That's it! Oh, and a whole bunch of new concrete barricades. You know, the kind that separates construction lanes from traffic lanes? Lot's of those.

The plan is very simple, really, and has been verified as very observant and extremely accurate. And I suspect based on those assessments that it actually will be as good and effective as I am billing it to be.

The basic premisee is this: That freeway traffic should be treated as paramount, even if at the expense of crossing streets, side streets, and service/access roads. On my alpha stretch of freeway, there is a recurring problem present known as the "Diamond" formation.

Now, when I heard diamond formation, I thought baseball and wedding rings. No such luck.

A diamond formation in freeway terms refers to the presence of an entrance ramp to the freeway and an exit ramp to the service road, in that order, between each major crossing street.

The problem is this: That traffic is getting over into the right lane to exit the freeway at the same time that the entering traffic is introduced to the right lane. This causes massive back-up in the right lane which causes additional back-up in the other lanes.

Try this in your communte tomorrow morning--see if you can find even one instance of this in your morning commute tomorrow. Inbound or outbound--same problem!

As it has been explained to me, access to anwhere from anywhere seemed to be the goal of this design. Unfortunately, somebody didn't carry out to the extreme levels of traffic that we have today their model used to justify such an inferior design.

My proposal for I-35 E is simple. I am proposing that selective entrance ramps and exit ramps be closed and blocked off. In the case of closed entrance ramps, traffic will be re-directed to the next entrance ramp. For exit ramps, they will simply be re-directed to the previous exit ramp.

The reason for this order is simple: This forces traffic off the freeway before introducing new traffic to the freeway. Simple idea, right? Freeway? Free-flow of traffic on the way to its destination?

The idea is so simple that it is missed by millions of drivers every day. Think about it. You have the same back-up at the same place nearly every day, but it is a different car each day, and almost always within 100 feet of the same place each day, right? Same on your freeway as mine!

But we choose to shoot the birdie, talk to our fellow drivers, and quite frequently shout obsceneties at them as if it were their fault that some engineer in 1956 designed a freeway that is complely outdated now. Hmm.

Well, be of good cheer! For somebody is doing something about the situation!

I am in contact with the Texas Governor's office, the Executive Director's office of the Texas Department of Transportation, the local government coalition, and even my Congressman, whom I will be meeting with next week. The local government group's traffic division is very impressed with my suggestions, and I anticipate additional meetings between TXDOT, the locals, and myself in coming weeks.

I am also contacting the Department of Transportation in another state regarding a metropolitan area that ranks in the 10 largest in the nation and has a reputation as one of the worst in traffic delays in the nation! I hope to discuss applicability of my plans to their local freeways.

That's where the Congressman comes in. And if things progress, don't be surprised to hear about yours truly on the nightly news testifying before the Transportation Committees of the Congress of the United States.

And if that happens, don't be surprised to see drastic reductions to your commute time and traffic delays PDQ after that.

Well, except for the whole bureacracy thing. Still have to cut through that, huh?

Best wishes to us all. And if you catch me in line at Starbucks, feel free to offer to pay for my Grande Caramel Macchiato. I'll let you, and even say, "Thank you!"