Dear Intersection of Ben White and Interstate 35

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It has been decided that we just cannot go on like this, the two of us. Sure, you’re getting yourself together, cleaning up, getting off the construction junk and whatnot. But still, you remain the most worthless intersection in all of Austinland. Ten years running. No, you sit there and listen to us. Yes, that’s a joke, because we all know, like the case of orange-barreled traffic-herpes you are, you aren’t going anywhere anyway. Fucker.

Back in the day, when you were just a semi-thorough pain in the ass, we could handle your evil mood swings. Your filthy, deranged and unkempt appearance. The horrendously long waits at the lights that led up to a disaster where lanes would magically merge AND dog-leg without proper signage. A place where even bums would not bother to take refuge, for fear of their own safety.

No one paid you much mind. Sure, it was obvious that you were designed and plotted out by a four year-old with potentially severe down syndrome and a Lite Brite, but hey, who back then gave two shits? Why bother, right? You were WAY down south. Out there, away from where most people actually lived. Most of us were like, “Isn’t that in Buda? Let them fix it.”

But so much has changed since we first met. Austin molded all around you, in official form. And everyone in your immediate vicinity has made some real, honest efforts to change their ways. To get with the times. The Ben Whites on either side of you are starting to look better, and might even be completely navigable within the next year. I 35, rumbling above your broken-ass, is widening and cleaning up on both sides of you. In fact, everyone is going around you entirely, with Ben White and I35 going over AND under you, as well as interchanging between each other by avoiding touching you in any way. You’ve become the trailer home that just-won’t-fucking-leave. Long after the big development has come through. The shack amongst skyscrapers. The evidence that progress does indeed occur, but not everywhere. The lone holdout. The Appalachian foothill vote. That crazy backwoods coot who still thinks the south will rise again.

Yeah. That’s you. Not pretty, is it?

You know, we believe it a fair statement to say that ten years ago, getting through you was like passing an average, mature watermelon through an average, human colon. Today, it’s more like a potato through a bendy-straw. There has been improvement in aesthetics and potential through-put, but it’s been proportional to the incremental increase in traffic that isn’t bypassed or “wowed” by the appearance of watered and manicured grassy knolls behind the orange barrel parade you exist amongst.

No, we’re not letting your proponents convince us you’ve made any “real” improvements, because we aren’t stupid. We can read a clock. Twenty minutes in 1995 is still twenty minutes in 2005. And during rush hour, it still takes us twenty goddamn minutes to push that potato of traffic through your constipated, bendy-straw ass.

Ten years, millions of dollars, multiple construction contracts, and the threat of your flanks going all “Toll” on us, and here we sit: right where we started. You’re the longest running disappointment in our lives, besides our career path, to date. We just wanted you to know that.

So get your shit together kid.

But if, by chance, your flanks DO go “Toll” on us, then torch this letter so that our twice-daily, hour-total interactions aren’t so awkward. Yes, we’re fond of hedging. Sweet? Sweet.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By truecraig in Other on October 4, 2005 11:59 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Tyler Durden

10 years indeed. Ridiculous.

I recently moved to an apt complex near the Target at Mopac and ben white, on the way to Oak Hill, and even so, I will do anything in my power to avoid the I-35 ben white intersection. I treat it like it's radioactive. Even if I visit somebody in East Austin say, and coming back have to take oltorf all the way across town and mosey over to Mopac (Bless Thee MoPac!) I will.

I have found that the odds of some kinda of crap going on on/near/besides the I-35/ben white intersection, at any time of day, in any weather, any day of the year, are so high, I'm better off sitting through a bunch o traffic lights.

Jooley_Ann

Can you even call it Ben White? Cuz, like, I went down to drop off some HazMat the other day, and I never ever saw one single exit sign for Ben White. It was all, like, 71 or 79 or something. Totally threw me off & I missed my exit. If...there was an exit. I think maybe there was not.

I barely made it to HazMat in time. I must say, though, the people who work there are extremely nice. I had the van loaded with all sorts of cans of paint, polyurethane, stain, lawn chemicals.... *doink* Maybe that's why I never saw the exit?

truecraig

You asked!

Damn. Baited again. Tough guy.

A

easy, fella. I was just kidding.

truecraig

Nope. Consider the following about me:

1) I have no shame.

2) It is much, much easier for me to write whatever falls out of my head than it is to "scour the best of CL" for anything.

3) If I were to borrow writing ideas, I would (hopefully) borrow better. And if I did, I would certainly improve on it instead of drag it out like mine does. Theirs is (like I already said) more concise (ie: quicker to the point) and wittier (the hubcap thing is a nice kicker).

4) In a world of infinite possibilities and shared hatred for freeway systems, it is more than probable that yet someone else has written letters EVEN BEFORE the letter in craigslist.

But my work is only of and from my brain. I don't do derivatives. I can suck on my own.

A

No, nobody likes I-35. Except perhaps the contractors who get paid with our tax dollars to perpetually tear down and rebuild it.

So you really didn't shamelessly scour the best of CL for this article idea?

truecraig

Damn, A. Their letter was much more concise than mine. The "keeping of the hubcaps" was a nice touch too.

Does anyone like I35?

A

It's not just the intersection of Ben White and I-35 - it's the whole fuckin' highway that sucks.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/aus/80736475.html

omit

Let's add to that inappropriate signage for going east from I-35. Toll roads have been proposed and completed in the time it's taken the contractor's lazy ass to get Ben White done. Babies born when it was started are now exiting middle school.

truecraig

Hell yes it is!

http://austin.citysearch.com/profile/10211728/austin_tx/warehouse_saloon_billiards.html?specialty_id=105

Kat, I like how you think.

Kat

Sometimes, after I've sat through three lights and totally forgotten where I'm going, I consider giving it up and just going to the Warehouse and getting drunk. Is that place still there?