Transcription
So earlier this year, I spent around 4 months in the great state of Texas. Now, Texas is quite the unique place. It definitely has its own culture and way of doing things, particularly when it comes to traffic and transportation. So, on this video, I want to talk about 10 of the strangest traffic-related things I've discovered while traveling around Texas.
Welcome to the channel. I'm M Mike, civil engineer turn full-time traveler. Like the video, subscribe if you love it, and let's talk about the Lone Star State.
The first thing on this list is the frontage roads. Frontage roads are these access roads that parallel most of the freeways around Texas. You may have seen them in other states, so they're not entirely unique to Texas, but no other place builds nearly as many as Texas does. I did an earlier, more in-depth video on frontage roads that I'll link in the description, but generally, these were built to provide access along the frontage of highways, hence the name frontage roads. As you notice with freeways without frontage roads, any business that sits adjacent to the freeway does not have direct access to it, usually reserving most development for the crossing roads near the exits. But with frontage roads, you'll often see development lined up and down the freeway. Here in Texas, frontage roads do have their pros and cons, which I go over in more detail on the frontage roads video in the description. So, we'll move on to the next Texas traffic oddity, and frontage roads lead us right into number two, and that is the good old Texas turnaround.
You know how in most states, if you're on a freeway and you want to turn around, then you get off on your exit, drive over to the other side, and exit back onto the main roadway, and that's that? That's just if you so happen to be near a simple diamond interchange. Well, in Texas, with these frontage roads, there's something called a Texas turnaround. These are U-turn movements that you can find off almost all frontage roads where they intersect the crossing road in Texas. You don't have to wait or wonder where your next chance to turn around is. You can just get off on just about any frontage road and know that at some point, you can ride on a fancy old Texas turnaround to reach the other side of the road or to make that U-turn back onto the freeway. The Texas turnaround is actually a very unique part of the Texas frontage road design that you don't find on the frontage roads in other states. I haven't quite been to every state just yet, but so far, I haven't seen anyone else use the Texas turnaround along their frontage roads like here in Texas.
Number three on the list are the double turns on yellow lights. Now, in other states, everyone has seen an intersection where one can make a left turn after yielding to oncoming traffic on a flashing yellow arrow. This is called, uh, permissive yellow. Well, Texas takes it to another level. Texas is the only place so far that I've seen where there's a flashing yellow arrow that two lanes of traffic can turn onto. When I first saw this, I was hesitant to make that maneuver, as it just didn't feel right and kind of didn't feel safe. But after seeing many of the locals do it, I realized it's just a normal Texas thing. One thing I've noticed about intersections where multiple lanes can turn left at the same time is that often drivers ignore the dashed line that guides them onto their lane and will often just turn left into whatever lane they feel like, that's even when they have a green arrow. So, even after being here for a while, I'd recommend being extra cautious if you choose to turn along with other cars on that double yellow arrow. The other thing I questioned was just how well the car in the outer lane has the visibility to see when the coast is clear to make that turn, with how far he is from view of the oncoming traffic. Makes me wonder what the crash statistics have been on this feature. So far, I've only seen it in the surrounding Dallas area, so I'm not sure if other parts of Texas utilize it.
Number four is the high speed limits. Out in Texas, you're going to encounter the highest speed limits in America, bar none. In fact, the Texas 130 toll road in the Austin area has the highest posted speed limit in the Americas at a whopping 85 mph. The speed limit was raised this high to encourage through travelers to use the toll road over Interstate 35 through the city, though it has had limited results. Out in West Texas, you can find speed limits up to 80 mph on Interstate 10 headed towards El Paso, as well as in some other rural parts of Texas. This makes sense, as there is absolutely nothing out there for miles and miles. Most other interstates reach 75 mph between cities in Texas, such as I-35, I-20, and I-45, whereas in most other states, you're likely to see 65 or 70 mph at max on rural interstates. One thing that will shock you is the speed limit on rural two-lane roads. Texas posts them at 70 mph. Now, to be honest, 70 is probably the speed that a lot of drivers move at along these roads, even when it's posted at 55 or 60 mph. But when you're about to pull onto a two-lane road, just that wind that you feel as a car blows past you, probably doing something like 75 or 80, is wild. I probably wouldn't risk driving on one of these roads at night, so I've only done it during the day at this point.
Then there's the urban freeway speed limits. Usually, the speed limits on interstates or other freeways are lower than in the rural areas due to the higher traffic counts and more frequent entrance and exit points. Well, when I first got to Dallas and hopped on the Central Expressway, I saw something that I hadn't seen anywhere else: a 70 mph posted speed limit on a busy urban freeway. Yep, that's right, 70 mph is the speed limit on one of the busiest freeways in Dallas. The locals take that speed limit seriously, too, and treat it more like a minimum speed sign rather than a maximum. If you come to Dallas for the first time, I recommend you staying in one of the two right lanes.
At number five, we have I-69. I-69, I-69, got to love this highway, but in this case, not the full or the main I-69, but I-69C. What's so unique about this route? Well, I-69C is the only C route on the interstate hallway system. I-35 splits off into I-35E and I-35W right here in Texas, and again in Minnesota, but nowhere else besides Texas is an interstate split into three routes: I-69E, I-69C, and I-69W, East, Central, and West I-69. These routes are branches of the future NAFTA Super Highway I-69 that will theoretically exist one day between Texas and Michigan. Texas is working hard building its part, but don't expect to see movement from nearby states, Louisiana, nor Mississippi, anytime in the next few decades. I-69C heads down to the Rio Grande Valley area around McAllen and crosses over into Mexico via US 281. I had a chance to visit this area earlier this year in June, and Texas has definitely got a lot of construction going on here. In other states, these highways would have probably just been given three-digit auxiliary numbers, but here in Texas, they march to the beat of their own drum.
At number six on the list, we have super wide highways. Now, if you haven't heard already, Texas has built the world's widest highway in the Houston area. This is known as the Katy Freeway, which carries Interstate 10 between the suburban city of Katy and downtown Houston. At its widest point, the Katy Freeway reaches a whopping 26 travel lanes, which includes frontage road lanes and express lanes down the center of the highway. Now, the Katy Freeway has been much maligned and criticized by some for being extremely overbuilt and inducing additional travel demand in the area, a concept that we'll discuss in a later video. But the wide highways in Texas doesn't end at the Katy. While in most states, it's rare to see a freeway with more than four general purpose lanes on each side for a long distance, Texas has plenty of freeways that match or exceed this capacity. Again, in Houston, I-69, the Southwest Freeway, and US 290, the Northwest Freeway, both boast a massive amount of travel lanes that make Atlanta's downtown connector look like just another highway. And not to be totally left out, you do encounter some unusually wide highways in the DFW area, such as I-35E in certain sections and the I-635 Loop. But overall, Houston is not only the king of massive highways in Texas, but also the United States as a whole.
For number seven, we revisit a feature that's associated with the frontage road. Recall how frontage roads serve as sort of an access road that runs alongside the main highway. Well, in some cases, the good folks of Texas just don't feel like waiting for their exit to get off the highway and onto the frontage road, like you can see this driver doing here in Austin off I-35. He says, "Screw waiting at traffic, I'm going to make my own exit." This is what they call a "texit." Texits don't only apply for getting off the highway and onto the frontage road, but you may also occasionally find Texans driving off the frontage road and onto the main highway. You can usually tell where a texit is common by looking for a beaten or worn path alongside the highway. Use the texit at your own risk.
At number eight are fire lane markings. When you go into a park in Texas, you're going to see something that you don't really see in other states. You're going to see these strange red painted lines that sort of outline where you can and can't drive and where you can and can't park. These are fire lanes to denote the restricted areas for fire trucks and other emergency vehicles. Now, in other states, this is sort of an understood thing that you'll rarely find actually painted around the parking lot, at least not on this scale. However, in Texas, every parking lot, no matter how large or how small, usually has these red painted fire lines all over them. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think it's pretty cool that Texas explicitly shows drivers where they're allowed to and not allowed to drive in the parking lots. Maybe other states should adopt this Texas habit.
At number nine, we have the FM or Farm to Market highways. If you drive around Texas, you'll notice the typical hierarchy of highways that other states have. You have the interstate highways at the top, which Texas has decided to do their own thing and label it as IH-35, for example, rather than just saying I-35 like everybody else. US highways are still called US Highways like all the other states. Texas uses this square-shaped shield to denote their state highways, and they also operate on their own program by calling them SH-130, for example, rather than just saying State Route 130 or Texas 130 like the other states would. And under that, they have yet another highway called the Farm to Market roads, or FM for short. Farm to Market roads are highways that are maintained by the Texas DOT and were built primarily to serve rural parts of the state. They gave these rural areas paved two-lane roads and helped connect some of the more isolated parts of the state with the rest of its highways, giving ranchers and farmers a better way to get their goods to the market. In a few areas, you might see RM routes or Ranch to Market routes, but these basically serve the same purpose and are part of the same system. Over time, as some towns grew, some of these FM routes gained additional lanes, and some even upgraded to freeways. So, basically, when you see the FM shield for a route in Texas, you can expect it to be at least two lanes and paved, regardless of how remote of a part of the state that you're in.
And the final Texas roadway oddity that you will see in the state is the sheer number of loop highways. Now, loop highways are certainly not unique to Texas. You can find interstate belts, arterial belts, and various other types of loop highways all over the United States and even the rest of the world. However, Texas probably has more cities with loop roads than any other state. Houston, of course, is king here with its not one, not two, but three loops around the city. Dallas has a few looping highways, as does San Antonio with multiple belts. San Antonio sort of looks like a baby Houston in its layout, and the state capital of Austin is, of course, way behind the curve, but does plan to eventually have a full 10-beltway around the city. But where Texas stands out is how so many smaller towns have loop roads. In most cases, these aren't interstates, some aren't even freeways, but they do serve as loops, usually carrying a loop designation on the state route sign. Waco, Laredo, Tyler, Amarillo, El Paso, Lubbock, and more. Some of these are simple two-lane roads, while others are full-blown freeways. No other state has built loops around so many of its towns like Texas, and they are not done yet. There are several more loops either under construction or being upgraded as we speak.
And all right guys, there you have it. 10 Texas traffic oddities that I encountered while traveling around the state. Have you been to Texas and experienced any of these things? Have you seen some of them in other states? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for watching. See you on the next one, coming soon to a town near you.