Saturday, 19 April, 2003
Driving to Baton Rouge
MapQuest says it's 548 miles from Austin to Baton Rouge. Why does MapQuest always insist on routing you along Interstate highways? Had I followed their directions, I would have spent an extra 90 minutes in the car between here and Houston. I can understand avoiding minor roads, but good state highways ought to be considered. Funny thing, I seem to remember MapQuest doing a better job a few years back. Maybe they just hid the "give me the shortest route" option.
I-10 in Louisiana, from the border to Baton Rouge is terrible. There are potholes, uneven areas where the potholes have been filled in, and rough pavement along the entire 150 mile stretch. There is also a lot of construction equipment in areas where they're working on the roads. Signs along the route advertise the amount of state and Federal funding that's going into road improvements. They're spending $50 million on repairs over that stretch of road. I realize that roads are expensive, but over $300,000 per mile for repairs seems excessive.