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Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

practical.engineering

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Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#231

Post by Kon-Peki »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #180
hoten wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houston native here. I still guffaw when I see a massively lifted truck (but with a pristine bed, no scratches - so not even a work truck). Everything's bigger in Texas, including egos.

> Everything's bigger in Texas, including egos. Crucially, Texans are highly aware of "everything is bigger in Texas" trope and take pride in it. My favorite example is that everyone knows that Texas State Capitol is taller than United States Capitol (92.24m vs 88m)... But nobody will ever tell you that Texas State Capitol is only 6th tallest state capitol. Source: lived in Austin for 2 years. https://en.wikipedia.or…

> My favorite example is that everyone knows that Texas State Capitol is taller than United States Capitol (92.24m vs 88m)... But nobody will ever tell you that Texas State Capitol is only 6th tallest state capitol.

I guessed Nebraska, but was wrong. It’s Louisiana. Both finished in 1932, oddly.

The Texas State Capitol wasn’t the tallest state capitol finished in 1888 - that would have been Illinois - but it certainly was the largest. Indiana also finished their capitol in 1888, but was the shortest of the three. Weird how they seem to bunch up, as if there is some sort of “let’s build a capitol!” movement that takes hold from time to time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGg5rfBfWT4

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#232

Post by heartbreak »

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #159
DidYaWipe wrote: post #139

"the worst symbol of our car-obsessed culture" Nothing against the article, which covers an interesting topic. But this refrain gets tiresome, the railing against our "car obsession." We have a big-ass country. We like to move about it. Many of us don't want or need to live on top of each other. That is all.

I'd just love some zoning changes that would allow light commercial in the middle of some neighborhoods so I don't have to drive miles to get a cup of coffee. Could be as simple as adding more pathways between neighborhoods so I don't have to ride my bike on a busy street and almost get hit by someone on their phone. Its not that we're obsessed with cars, its that cars are the only option for reasonable, safe transpo…

> I'd just love some zoning changes that would allow light commercial in the middle of some neighborhoods

This describes reality in Houston, and I do not get the impression that you’d like Houston at all.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#233

Post by AnthonyMouse »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #164
xyst wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In reality having a car and traveling lots of miles every day is the cheapest variant for most people. Realistically, it's the _only_ way to get around the US.

That's because the US is built that way. In turn because every city that's not New York has just expanded horizontally with hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of detached house-driveway-backyard-frontyard suburbia. In most of the Old World, cities have existed for centuries—if not millennia—and were built for the human foot, not the car tyre. Hence most European and Asian city centres are dense, mostly walkab…

> But then in the 1950s, Americans collectively decided that public transport was useless and they bulldozed through their city centres, ripped up the trams and railways, and splatted veritable plates of highway spaghetti right through the middle of their cities

The causality for this was mostly the other way around. There was a lot of empty land around the cities -- unlike most of Europe or Asia -- so once cars became available people started moving there because they could get more space for less money and still commute into the city by car for work.

The real problem is that the people who did this didn't want the city encroaching on their suburban space, but that space was directly next to the city. So they zoned it for single-family homes only and then the only way to add new housing is for the city to expand horizontally. Which needs more roads and parking and reduces use of mass transit which in turn gets discontinued.

What you need isn't mass transit, it's to allow condos and mixed-use zoning in what is currently the suburbs, to reconstitute enough density that mass transit can actually work.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#234

Post by jtriangle »

hnburnsy wrote: post #224
missingcolours wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are frontage roads at most freeway interchanges in Texas. Typical stack interchange elsewhere has 4 levels: freeway 1, freeway 2, freeway 1 left turns, freeway 2 left turns. Frontage roads add 5th and occasionally 6th levels. The other thing not mentioned is the proliferation of separate express lanes, which often have dedicated flyover ramps as well.

Does HOV lanes add a level? Saw these in Arizona and always wondered how much expense the separate HOV flyovers added to the interchange cost.

Understand that, costs aren't linear for these sorts of things. Once you have the concrete plant, and are renting cranes, deploying a ton of falsework, etc, adding another level or two isn't as insane as it sounds.

The big thing is space required, and how much structure you actually need. Texas gets hurricanes, which are a big deal, but not nearly as big of a deal as earthquakes out in california, so, building tall things out of concrete is much more viable than most places. The only real issue in some parts of Texas is that the water table is really close to the surface, so, if you want to build tall, you need significant amounts of footing work so it doesn't sink.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#235

Post by fuzzfactor »

jcranmer wrote: post #110
gnatolf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's just me but I expected these links to open in the recently established apple maps web page. However, on an Android phone, Google Maps opens.

On Firefox on desktop, it just opens Google Maps webpage.

Here's the street view of one of the tall ramps coming in on the Westpark Tollway onto the SW Freeway:

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.721469,-95.4944352,3a,75y,11...

Up on the ramp you're coming from the tollway that is, you can see quite a lot from up there.

But on the street view the Google car is heading SW at grade on the 2-lane frontage road, the main freeway lanes are to the right and become elevated, and the overhead ramp had to fly over everything that was already there.

Notice how the frontage roads give a street address and access to properties facing the "limited access" highway.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#236

Post by kagevf »

thanksgiving wrote: post #193
fooqux wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, this will always be Las Vegas. Walking the strip my first time while at a conference was enlightening. Seeing all the American tropes that I'd seen in foreign media within a square kilometer and with my own eyes left me speechless.

I wish we had free public transit everywhere like they do on the strip.

Public transit isn’t free on the strip except during New Years Eve and possibly some other special occasions.

The monorail from Mandalay Bay to Bellagio is free, but it isn’t public transit.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#237

Post by jackstraw14 »

Zircom wrote: post #225
fuzztester wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like: Texans view Americans the same way Americans view the rest of the world - derisively, but it is those viewers who should be derided, and often are, by the groups that they deride.

My partner got me this shirt and I love wearing it, not because of any sort of state pride just because I think it's absurdly hilarious. https://hivemill.com/products/smbc-texas-shirt

thanks for wearing it ironically but it's not helping.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#238

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nayuki wrote: post #214
gustavus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside the shocking myopia of this comment (it turns out most of your food that magically appears in grocery stores comes from those useless rural yokels that use these roads) A major driver of the interstate highway project was military in consideration because of the importance of logistics in being able to move troops around the country.

> your food that magically appears in grocery stores comes from those useless rural yokels that use these roads That's fine. Roll those costs into the price of food. That way, the amount of road tax you pay is proportional to how much goods and services you consume. Meanwhile, the status quo is that everyone pays into the road system regardless of how much or little they use it - even if they don't own a car. Roads h…

> Roads have to get paid for no matter what. The only choice we have as a society is between taxing everyone versus taxing only the users.

Exactly right, but proving the opposite of what you request.

Once roads are built they're a sunk cost. Roads have to be resurfaced as a result weather damage regardless of how many people drive on them. Road capacity that exists and isn't used is lost. The incremental cost of an additional car driving down a road, the actual wear caused by the act, is trivial. Far less than the pro rata share of building or maintaining the road, or than existing gas tax, or the cost of even the collections infrastructure for road tolls. But the use has value to the driver and plausibly to others in society (e.g. their customers/employers/friends), so we don't want to discourage it unless its value is less than the incremental cost, since the cost of building the road and most of the maintenance is a sunk cost.

Which leads to the conclusion that the sunk cost of the road should be shared by everybody, since everybody benefits from having products delivered and emergency services even if they don't have a car.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#239

Post by gonzo »

anothername12 wrote: post #199
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything's bigger in Texas, including egos. Crucially, Texans are highly aware of "everything is bigger in Texas" trope and take pride in it. My favorite example is that everyone knows that Texas State Capitol is taller than United States Capitol (92.24m vs 88m)... But nobody will ever tell you that Texas State Capitol is only 6th tallest state capitol. Source: lived in Austin for 2 years. https://en.wikipedia.or…

Fun to ride on with motorcycle

Until the wind blows you over the side.

https://www.kxan.com/news/motorcyclist-killed-after-falling-...

She was nice. Worked at a local Taco Deli.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#240

Post by bmitc »

Keyframe wrote: post #167
nabla9 wrote: post #26

First time I visited the US it was Houston, Texas. My host was perplexed because I laughed out loud while we were driving. Experiencing highways and those massive gas stations felt like someone had made a state that mocked America by taking prejudices we have about the American traffic and making them 200% larger in real life. My mind was blown.

From european drivers perspective, what surprised me the most (aside from peculiar traffic rules - some actually good) was concrete highways instead of black asphalt. I was especially careful during rain, it "looked" slippery; Later I was told it does actually have some asphalt in it.

Texas doesn't have winters.
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