Left Turn Yield on Green... (Ingram, Malone: home, storage, law)

[Retired-&-going-back-2-CA]

Originally Posted by TexHwyMan

Sure there is. Give some specific examples and how you would change them.

I would remove yield signs where they are not needed. These create unnecessary bottlenecks and traffic jams. Perfect example would be the 1604/10 interchange. Each person has their own lanes. Why is there a yield sign? The traffic flow flow is interrupted because of this. Next up are the stop lights. Most are synched to go in a counter clock wise rotation resulting in an extremely long wait and build up at the light. Opposing left turn lights should go first, then opposing straight (north & southbound) and vise versa (east & west).

Here's what boggles my mind! Why in the world is an exit ramp designed so that exiting traffic runs directly into the people on the access road?

[TexHwyMan]

Originally Posted by Retired-&-going-back-2-CA

I would remove yield signs where they are not needed. These create unnecessary bottlenecks and traffic jams. Perfect example would be the 1604/10 interchange. Each person has their own lanes. Why is there a yield sign?

Actually, no they don't really have their own lane. There's only one location at that interchange where everyone truly has their own lane coming out, and that's on the entrance ramp to inbound I-10 (and where consequently there are no yield signs.) At all the other locations where ramps come together, either one lane merges directly into the other, or there is a short auxiliary lane that is not long enough to provide a safe weave, especially in heavy traffic. In those cases, the yield sign is required because someone has to be required to give way. The yield signs there used to be placed on the egress from the cloverleaf loop ramp rather than on the through collector roadway, but those were switched to the collector road several years ago to prevent the cloverleaf from locking-up in heavy traffic. Essentially, the backup from one of the cloverleaves (let's say the NE one) would eventually back-up to the point where it was blocking the egress from the SE cloverleaf ramp. That one would back-up and block the SW ramp, which would then back-up and block the NW one, which then finally would back-up and block the NE one. This would lock the interchange. The yield signs are placed to allow those cloverleaf ramps to have right-of-way to their egress to prevent that scenario.

Next up are the stop lights. Most are synched to go in a counter clock wise rotation resulting in an extremely long wait and build up at the light. Opposing left turn lights should go first, then opposing straight (north & southbound) and vise versa (east & west).

I assume you're talking about the signals at freeway access roads and intersecting surface streets. In this situation, a clockwise rotation for the signals is the most efficient. Did you even think about what you are proposing? Because of the short distance between the two signals, and since the two opposing left turns for each direction would have to cross each other's path, doing it your way would not work unless the signals let about 4 or 5 cars go before they turned red again (which is extremely inefficient). Otherwise, when the left turning vehicles headed in one direction (let's say westbound) got to the west intersection to turn left, they couldn't make that left turn because the eastbound left turning traffic would be coming though the intersection at the same time. That means the westbound traffic would then quickly back-up through the east intersection, thus blocking the eastbound left turns, which then would cause the eastbound traffic to back-up through the west intersection. See the problem?

The solution to this situation is something called a Single Point Urban Interchange (SPUI). Unfortunately, SPUIs don't work very well with frontage roads and therefore are not used with them.

The clockwise rotation is most effective because it does allow a short overlap between phases, whereas a counter-clockwise rotation doesn't allow any overlap.

Here's what boggles my mind! Why in the world is an exit ramp designed so that exiting traffic runs directly into the people on the access road?

That's typically an older design or a design for a low-volume access road (perhaps a previously low-volume access road.) Most newer exit ramps have their own dedicated lane on the access road, at least for a sufficient distance to allow a merge with minimal turbulance.

[TexHwyMan]

Originally Posted by Retired-&-going-back-2-CA

Opposing left turn lights should go first, then opposing straight (north & southbound) and vise versa (east & west).

Oh, and one other reason this isn't a better solution-- it still requires four phases, just like the current clockwise method does.

[RecovringKrspyKremeAddict]

What I cannot stand is when there are two left turn lanes running parallel to each other and a driver starts the left turn in one of the lanes and then in mid-turn decides to switch to the *other* left turn lane as if there are no other cars around anywhere! ARGH!!!!

[Retired-&-going-back-2-CA]

Originally Posted by TexHwyMan

Oh, and one other reason this isn't a better solution-- it still requires four phases, just like the current clockwise method does.

Have you driven on any other freeways or roads other than the ones in Texas? I'm telling you the designs here are very inefficient and dangerous!

[tekka-maki]

Sheesh TxHwyMan, you're like a bloody savant of all things roadway! Your explanation of the 10/410 interchange and street light definitions, i mean wheeeeww... I consider myself an excellent driver (don't we all, LOL) but definitely got lost/distracted halfway through your explanations... sort of like looking at the Tom Moreland Interchange. Do you work for DoT in an engineer capacity? Next thing you'll be analyzing and articulating the substrates of pavement that are conducive to accidents, lol.

[spursfan]

Originally Posted by RecovringKrspyKremeAddict

What I cannot stand is when there are two left turn lanes running parallel to each other and a driver starts the left turn in one of the lanes and then in mid-turn decides to switch to the *other* left turn lane as if there are no other cars around anywhere! ARGH!!!!

This happens every day at 281/1604....very annoying...I mean there is even freaking dotted lines there so it wont happen!

[tekka-maki]

Originally Posted by spursfan

This happens every day at 281/1604....very annoying...I mean there is even freaking dotted lines there so it wont happen!

Admittedly, I'm an offender (d'oh!) but mind you, I've never cut another drive off in the process... course that depends on your perception of cut off... I noticed folks here get a little more agitated than up North where it's customary for somebody to leave you a strong 6 inches of clearance. Sometimes the far left turn lane is so long and I really want to make the light so I'll approach in the outer left turn lane but veer over (after the turn) to merge onto 410. heheheh....

Since we're thread is about driving annoyances, how about another one. A car breaks down in a crucial position near the intersection that backs traffic up to unbelievable magnitudes and instead of getting out and push the car 10 feet to the side of the road, they just sit there. And I'm not talking about Delores, the 60 year retiree; I'm talking 2 or 3 strong armed kids... in the words of Garfield, arrrrrrrggghhhh!

[doss1]

Please don't honk at people that may be confused. I've seen too many people simply slam on the gas pedal because of someone behind them honking at them to to GO --and then get hit by another car. Let people take their time. If you honked at them to go, you can get a ticket for the accident, as well.

[TexHwyMan]

Originally Posted by Retired-&-going-back-2-CA

Have you driven on any other freeways or roads other than the ones in Texas? I'm telling you the designs here are very inefficient and dangerous!

Yes, of course I have. I have driven in 26 US states and DC and been a passenger in a car in another two. I have also driven or been a passenger in a car in 9 foreign countries (Canada and western Europe) and have perused pictures on the web of roads in countless more. And I have one of the web's most respected pages about the Autobahn. So yes, I'm quite familiar with how roads are built elsewhere and how those compare to Texas. Do we do things perfectly here? No, of course not. But nobody else does, either. Every place has their little idosnycracies and flaws. A lot of times what people would consider inefficient or dangerous is based on perspective and what they're used to. I see your user name implies that you're from Cali, and there are some goofy things they do there IMO, not to mention the fact that CalTrans has never replaced a guide sign in their history. But I digress...