What do you get for the price of admission? Well everyone who travels the Hardy Toll Road does so for a lot of different reasons but most seem to be related to time. Whether you choose this pay as you go route to save time on your daily commute, or you believe this is the fastest way to IAH you probably made the right choice here. My original intent was the latter of the two since I don't live in or around Houston, but I do fly in rather often on business and don't have the patiences or understand the logic that its okay to sit in traffic for hours each day. Houstonians are infamous for speaking of how long it takes to go somewhere rather than how far it is and the answer always comes with a disclaimer depending on the time they start driving. It's rare a day goes by when I'm in town that someone isn't explaining to me why they are late to an appointment or why they need to leave early, it seems to be an acceptable way of life in this concrete jungle. I personally can't allow infrastructure to control that much of my life. I've always insisted on managing my own time which allows me to experience more of life and creates the balance that helps keep me productive and efficient for my work life and stress free for the part of my life I haven't leased out. Any stress I feel is usually self-inflicted which allows me to turn it off.
So the reason I travel this route has absolutely nothing to do with time, it's for the chance to experience the cultural art from across the country, specifically on the canvases provided by Union Pacific Railroad, which is commonly referred to as "Graffiti Benching" I am a huge fan of the graffiti artwork painted on the sides of the freight cars and with the train tracks splitting the median of this toll road there are times when there are some pretty amazing works of art on display. I particularly like the work on the "holy rollers," or the car carriers named for the small holes in its metal walls, which would allow paint to penetrate and damage the autos unless the artist (also referred to as "Vandals" by the authorities) posses exceptionally skills. The true artist are very aware that by leaving the train car's identification numbers visible and avoid damaging any freight their work will be displayed much longer before being sand blasted off and lost forever. There always time to enjoy the finer things in life and the benefits always outweigh the consequences. read more