11:09 AM CDT on Monday, May 8, 2006

By Kelly Hawes / The Daily News

GALVESTON — The Texas Department of Transportation recently turned down a request from the Galveston City Council to set aside an emergency lane on the new causeway.

Bill Babbington, the department’s area engineer, said the issue was one of volume.

“The main thing is it’s an evacuation route,” he said. “If you choke that down to two lanes, you’ll have less capacity to get people off the island.”

The fact is, he said, that a two-lane bridge would be hard-pressed to handle even a normal day’s peak traffic.

“A single lane is capable of handling about 1,500 vehicles an hour,” Babbington said. “We’re far exceeding that now during peak hours.”

For those concerned about what to do in the event of a breakdown, Babbington did offer some advice.

“What we’ve been advising people is to do the same thing they should do anywhere,” he said. “They should just stay in the vehicle until help arrives.”

Of course, if the car will move, he said, it could be a good idea to drive it off the causeway to the nearest shoulder.

“That’s what I would do,” he said. “If it was me personally and I had a flat tire, I’d keep driving until I could get it off the pavement.”

Sgt. Ronny Phillips of the Galveston Police Department agreed with that advice.

“Turn on your flashers and work your way over to the right-hand lane and just keep moving until you can get to a real shoulder,” he said.

He also agreed with the advice about staying with the car.

“At least you’re afforded some protection if you’re inside the vehicle,” he said. “There is no answer I can give you that will keep you completely safe.”

Phillips said breakdowns on the causeway were fairly common.

“Anyone who listens to the scanner knows we have stalled vehicles up there all the time,” he said.

When both northbound and southbound spans are finished, each will accommodate five lanes, three traffic lanes sandwiched between two emergency lanes. That second span is not set to open, though, for more than two years, and in the interim, there will be no emergency lane.

Did anyone think of that during the planning process?

“That was looked at,” Babbington said. “The thing we considered, though, was that the existing causeway didn’t have a shoulder to speak of, so we didn’t see that we were losing much.”

Babbington believes the lack of a shoulder also has had an impact on motorists’ perception of the causeway’s outside railing.

“Traffic is using the future shoulder for a travel lane at this time,” he said. “Therefore the car’s proximity to the rail creates the perception of it being too low.”

He said the railing is actually 33 inches tall, three inches shorter than the railing on the old span.

“The thing to remember, though, is that no rail is too tall or too short,” he said. “These railings are crash tested, and they’re rated according to those results.”

The railing on the causeway passed all of the required tests.

“It meets all crash safety guidelines for this application,” he said.

The fact that motorists can get a good view of the water is intentional, he said.

“We are encouraged to use open railings over water to enhance the views and the rider’s experience,” he said.

Others have criticized the lack of a view afforded by the wavy barrier on the inside of the new causeway.

“The center barrier is our standard single slope railing that is 42 inches tall,” Babbington said. “The wave pattern adds another 10 5/8 inches.”

That again is intentional, he said.

“All of our center barriers are taller,” Babbington said. “We have found that traffic behaves better because there is less distraction from the oncoming traffic.”

Other motorists have questioned a seeming lack of support at the peak of the new causeway. They’ve noticed more beams toward each end of the span and fewer beams in the middle.

“What you have there is two different kinds of construction,” Babbington said. “The portion in the center is what is called segmental construction, which allows us to have a lot longer span.”

He assured doubters, though, that both methods were tried and true.

“This is nothing experimental,” Babbington said.

The bottom line, he said, is that the new causeway is safe.

“The Texas Department of Transportation’s concern for safety is our highest priority,” Babbington said.

Not all of the questions related to the causeway have involved safety. Some motorists, for example, have noticed some paint on one section of the center barrier.

“We’re just trying a couple of different things,” Babbington said. “Ultimately, most of that barrier is going to be tan, and we’re going to have some kind of design at each end.”

That won’t come soon, though.

“We’re going to wait until closer to the end of construction,” Babbington said.