Year: 2006

In order to avoid a traffic jam on I-35 last weekend, I made my way to Parmer by way of old McNeil Road in Round Rock. I don’t find myself around there often, but I’ve known McNeil for the past eighteen years. It’s a long straight stretch that with very little traffic tempts any car to ignore the posted 45mph. There is a quarry (which I’ve photographed on a few occasions), a small general store/post office of the sort one finds in small towns, and not much else.

As I was cruising along, I saw a gigantic traffic interchange in the middle of what was once open land. Old McNeil runs under this behemoth and continues along its merry way past the quarry and towards the new version of McNeil that is sort of an extension of Howard Lane.

Driving toward the new – and as yet unopened – interchange, I was struck by the fact that I had no idea what highways the interchange had been built to connect, and yet they come from three directions and meet in the sky above McNeil. I’m pretty familiar with north Austin, but what were these strange roads and whither do they go?

I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around the ongoing festival of road construction in north Austin for quite some time. Interchanges and new roads are springing up everywhere, and rather than research the issue at TxDot, I find it more fun to figure it out on my own. It’s like a mystery written in concrete or a game that you only play at those odd times when you’re transiting across the playing field on the way to somewhere else.

The McNeil interchange is a piece that I haven’t quite figured out yet. It appears that the highways leaving the mysterious interchange might connect 620, I-35, and possibly Mopac, all of which are undergoing extensive remodeling. Of course none of these highways have ever traversed McNeil. Perhaps one of the two new highways: TX-130 and TX-45 is involved, and when these roads open they will lead to this interchange, thus solving this piece of the puzzle.

I guess when all the construction is complete and all the new roads open, we’ll have to learn our collective way around north Austin all over again, which should provide a few weeks of missed turns and bad driving just to add to the sport.

UPDATE: An alert reader who knows every road in the area (that’s you, Dad) sent an email that explains the workings of the mysterious overpass in the sky. Those of you who enjoy mystery as a part of your drive should not read any further or you’ll find out that this is where all the roads go:

The interchange at McNeil connects the Mopac extension (toll) with SH 45 (toll) which runs from 183 and 620 (Lakeline area) to Tx 130 (toll) in Pflugerville near where you guys used to live via the new interchange at I35 and La Frontera. In addition, at 620/183 it will link to 183A (toll) which is the bypass around Cedar Park and Leander. TX 130 runs from north of Georgetown (near Walburg) to Seguin (eventually).

So there you have it.

Everywhere I’ve gone in the blogosphere this week, I find that everyone is weighing in on the Muhammed cartoon images that have sparked violent protests throughout the world. There isn’t much for me to say on this except: free speech – good, violence in the name of religion – bad, insulting people’s religions and beliefs – bad. I know that reads a lot like the assessment at Cosmic Variance, where there is some good commentary as well as interesting links on this subject, but what else is there to say?

Not much.

There is of course much to learn. I’ve been reading a series of excellent posts by Gypsy Scholar in which he discusses the issues surrounding the depiction of Muhammed. This is all very enlightening, to say the least. Dr. Hodges effectively refutes the notion that Islam does not allow renderings of the prophet and provides several examples of images of the prophet that came from Muslim artists.

There is also an excellent series at Perspectives of a Nomad that discusses some of the larger issues within Islamic society and its relationship with western society. Scottage makes the argument that we may be seeing the emergence of some new players on the world scene who are instigating this appalling violence. Afterall, as Gypsy Scholar points out, these images had been published in Egypt months ago.

One hopes that we can find ways to live peacefully together, since (I think, I hope) that is what most of us humans want. And what most religions appear to teach. Of course this really is more about the cancer of fundamentalism that can infect any religion.

So there it is, a gypsy and a nomad with lots of very thorough, interesting, and thought provoking writing on this subject that only now seems to be hitting the consciousness of the nonblogging American mainstream. I can’t help but wonder what those whose first inkling of this was yesterday’s cnn.com headline that said something to the effect of “Bush urges end to cartoon violence.” I agree. Bugs Bunny has been getting away with murder for years. Let’s give poor Mr. Fudd a break.