Been doing a fair amount of driving in rural parts of Texas and Louisiana the past few days. I am kind of amazed to see two lane by directional roads in Texas, with no shoulder, and residential access direct, but with a 70 mph speed limit as standard. Hey I love it, But it seemed nuts! Contrast this with Louisiana, a two Lane divided Highway, going through towns, and the speed limit drops from 65 to 50 or 45 all of a sudden. On paper it sounds prudent. But this is just not a good design. Every 10 minutes you have to slow down, this just doesn’t work.

Makes for a lot of traffic fine revenue?

That’s one thing I thought of!

Guessing that you haven't been to New Jersey.

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Surely you don't think it makes sense to have 18-wheelers and monster SUVs doing 70 through small towns where kids are walking to school or people are ambling across to the courthouse.

If you want those kinds of speeds, stay on the freeways and expressways. Texas is rather liberal with allowing such speeds on rural highways that lack access control, and Texas has had the money and political will to build bypasses around towns of any size.

No, of course not. It’s just that it doesn’t on the other hand make much sense to keep it high speed and then every five minutes slow down like that. I see many people as a result missing the signs and just blowing through town. Very bad design overall.

Washington state is usually better about speed limits but that is about it. Thousands of miles of narrow two lane highways with no bike lane or a median to walk on.

The last couple of months have been really good for pedestrians and bike riders. The local news hasn't mentioned any deaths from cars in the longest period I can remember since I moved here.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Well, it wasn't designed as some sort of speedway. It came into being as a country lane or county road linking the main street of one town with the main street of another. It happened to be the optimal path from one settlement to the other, so over a period of decades it was gradually improved as a state highway.

As cars got more powerful and safer, people felt emboldened to go through the countryside faster, but that didn't change the conditions of the main streets through the town—nor would we want those to be reconfigured into auto sewers that speed outsiders through as fast as possible. If you don't want to be slowed down by actual settlements, there's always I-10 through the swamps.

Many times you don’t have the option of an Interstate. The point is you shouldn’t have a high speed highway that slowed down to 45 or 30 every 5 minutes (I’m looking at you whatever your name is, connecting Lake Charles and Alexandria). That is piss poor design that neither serves the users or communities very well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2020 11:46PM by Carnos Jax.

So what alternative are you proposing? Allowing high speeds through the towns, restricting speed between the towns, or relocating the towns so you needn't slow for them?

Nothing really off the top of my head, I really haven’t thought about it much further. Just pointing out the current design doesn’t work well at all. Every other states I’ve been too (including Arkansas and Texas, except the two lane no shoulder by’s of the latter) handle this, maybe not best, but much better.

Have you noticed in Texas where there is a shoulder on a bidirectional two lane highway that slower cars will pull over on the shoulder without slowing down to let the faster car by?

Quote
Carnos Jax
Been doing a fair amount of driving in rural parts of Texas and Louisiana the past few days. I am kind of amazed to see two lane by directional roads in Texas, with no shoulder, and residential access direct, but with a 70 mph speed limit as standard. Hey I love it, But it seemed nuts! Contrast this with Louisiana, a two Lane divided Highway, going through towns, and the speed limit drops from 65 to 50 or 45 all of a sudden. On paper it sounds prudent. But this is just not a good design. Every 10 minutes you have to slow down, this just doesn’t work.

I was country driving from Center Point Texas to Bandera at 70+, saw some fool look at me and pull out in front of me. Maybe he saw that there was no oncoming traffic to stop me from zooming out him, or saw that there was a semi right behind me and didn't want to get stuck behind it. I sped up to get past him at about 80mph.

It's graduated slowing, from 70 to 55 to 45 to 35 while in town then goes up faster as you leave town, sometimes from 35 to 70 right away.

There are usually signs that warn you of slower rates ahead...

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San Antonio, TX (in the old city)


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