This came in from Xavier Miranda:
Brutus,
A couple of suggestions to alleviate the congestion expected during the exit closures:
City and Sun Metro officials should consider establishing temporary HOV lanes on Mesa, wherein buses and carpool vehicles are given priority during the rush hours. Dedicated lanes would result in Brio/buses running on 20-30 minute intervals. Perhaps, if fares would be reduced during this period, ridership would also be encouraged.
EPPD should monitor Mesa, and switch the direction of high density lanes in order to encourage flow during peak hours.
Just my two cents.
Thanks,
Xavier Miranda
El Paso Grassroots
elpasospeak 
HOV needs a much wider thoroughfare than Mesa in order to work. It is hard enough to get El Pasoans to car pool.
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A lot of the traffic on Mesa is westsiders doing a quick shopping trip or going to the post office. This solution would just make it more difficult for folks who have been inconvenienced for two years. Right now the empty buses coming out of the unused transit terminal are clogging the Mesa intersection by pulling out on yellow and red lights to make sure they run on time just in case a rider actually shows up at one of the stops. Discounting won’t change behavior (most of us have no desire to walk to a bus stop and add 30-60 minutes to an already frustrating trip—and doing the park&ride option means driving through the main area of congestion to get to the transit center) and prioritizing the rights of empty buses will simply frustrate the drivers who need to get somewhere much faster than buses can support.
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Xavier must rarely use Mesa. Mesa doesn’t have enough lanes to set aside a dedicated HOV lane. Fewer people carpool than use buses. More bad decisions will not increase Brio ridership. Face it, people in Texas and El Paso love their independence and their freedom and their wheels.
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Afternoon,
Unfortunately, I commute on a daily basis to El Paso High School from the Coronado area; and I’ve experienced the gridlock. On the only occasion I saw the PD re-direct southbound Mesa lanes to accommodate for northbound flow, proved to be beneficial.
One lane dedicated for buses during rush hour would also make difference.
Don’t assume the majority of commuters would not be up for a Green/Progressive ideas.
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Xavier, why are you not car pooling or taking a bus now on your daily commute? I love it when folks recommend solutions they don’t embrace themselves. If all the green, progressives organized their own grass roots effort to share a ride or take the bus for their regular commutes, we wouldn’t have gridlock on Mesa because there would be less traffic. It wouldn’t require an HOV lane, just a social media effort to promote ride sharing match-ups or folks making a decision to take the bus. Imagine, folks getting together and saying: “we have a problem, but instead of calling on government to solve it for us, let’s see if we can fix it ourselves by changing our behavior.”
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Dream green
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How about not closing so many exits all at once? Hmmm…
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FYI, the GO10 Project website states that the work will be completed in the next 5 months! It’s been 4 years of construction/traffic/headaches and poor planning. It’s almost over!
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Six months ago they were promising it would be over by Black Friday. I don’t trust the website. I’ll believe it is over when the orange barrels disappear.
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HAHAHA you think it’s almost over? Check out the I-10 Connect project coming up!!!
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