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Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

practical.engineering

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Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#261

Post by otteromkram »

hoten wrote: post #138
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.

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.

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Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#262

Post by p_j_w »

gustavus wrote: post #211
p_j_w wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not sure what you think the alternative is. We could start by making people who choose rural or suburban life pay the costs of such a life rather than foisting them on everyone else. Roads should either be toll roads or entirely paid for by gas taxes and vehicle registration costs. Gas taxes should have to include the cost of removing the pollutants from the environment.

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.

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Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#263

Post by kulahan »

bamboozled wrote: post #153
yossi_peti wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people want to live in rural areas, that's fine by me. They don't particularly contribute to the problems with car-centric infrastructure in the US. The main complaints are how most cities in the US are designed in ways that are hostile to anybody who doesn't have a car, such as: - making it difficult to get around safely by bike - zoning restrictions that force development to be clumped in certain areas - underde…

Japan is awesome like this, they have amazing highways and rail. Tokyo in my option is a bit too car friendly but it’s still very walkable and rideable.

Japan is an extremely small island. I don’t think a lot of their experience would apply to us. China may be a better example.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#264

Post by otteromkram »

next_xibalba wrote: post #210
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…

Texan here. My experience has been quite different. I lived in Austin for 7 years and I had no idea about this fact. Whenever the whole "everything is bigger in Texas" comes up, everyone smiles and rolls their eyes. I now live in Houston and its the same. People here think its kind of a joke. Though Texans definitely do take pride in Texas. I just don't think they take themselves as seriously as your comment suggests…

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Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#265

Post by kulahan »

macNchz wrote: post #183
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.

My main complaint is that the people who like suburban density went ahead and made zoning codes to basically prevent building anything but sprawl, so now the few remaining places that don't require a car are rare and super expensive. I'm even a car guy—I own a stick shift BMW—I just don't have much interest in getting into it to do literally any activity or errand other than walking around the neighborhood.

I think this is strongly overestimating the ratio of Americans who would be willing to walk to work, but that’s pure conjecture

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#266

Post by rurban »

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 highways will get very hot in summer, and with cheap asphalt it will last max. 5 years. Proper concrete will last 20 years.

Also asphalt is more slippery than concrete. It will spill out oil.

Only poor cities will do asphalt, and they are in constant reconstruction.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#267

Post by tinix »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #231
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…

> 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 certainl…

middle of the great depression... fwiw.

i believe around the same time the empire state building was constructed as well.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#268

Post by db48x »

mschuster91 wrote: post #18
lwansbrough wrote: post #4

> 37 bridges and more than 700 columns are crammed into this one spot to keep the roughly half a million vehicles flowing in every direction each day Truly pitiful numbers for a project of this scale lol.

And now imagine that these 500k people would be served by a decent network of trains or even buses. That would immediately reduce the demand for infrastructure, simply because how much more efficient even a single decker bus is in passengers/m² of occupied road space.

That’s 500k vehicles, not people. It includes freight.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#269

Post by Vespasian »

fooqux wrote: post #182
deegles wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is the America of America.

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 loved my most recent trip to the US (it's been almost 10 years...wow) for anything but Vegas.

Something really didn't mesh with me.Too much focus on fakery and "big" I guess. (Especially all that "Roman" and "greek" flair after having just toured the real deal a few weeks earlier)

So we took advantage of the cheap accomodation and visited the stunning places around it.

Re: Why are Texas interchanges so tall?

#270

Post by meinersbur »

zrobotics wrote: post #222
pc86 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "T" in TFA stands for "The" so this is sort of like saying "ATM machine."

Could you refrain from making low-value posts like this? This is not any better than pointing out a grammar/spelling mistake, and just degrades the quality of the conversation. Yes, you are technically correct, but teh original meaning was clear. Your original comment isn't any more contributive to the discussion than pointing out the typo in my previous sentence. I'm not trying to start an argument, but asking you t…

By you own standard, this is a low-value post as well.
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