Texas toll roads

Texas toll roads

They finally opened up the toll roads today! Now, I have a more direct way into work. And it is pretty fast. I can get into work in 15 minutes. But that was because that the couple mile stretch of IH-35 from Old Settlers Road to the toll road onramp was empty. It is normally stop and go for that length of road on most days. So it would be interesting to see if this is a new flow for IH-35 or those days were aberations.

Going south on IH-35, there are two exit lanes. There are three lanes for the toll roads (even for the speed-pass part). And there are three lanes when you drop off into Mopac. The only problem is the constant stream of people driving from Parmer onto Mopac. I have to weave through these people when I exit onto Duvall.

Going the other way is not so easy. It is fine until you try and exit the toll road onto IH-35. There is a hugh overpass that narrows down to one lane and merges into IH-35. IH-35 is stop and go through this section. So there is quite a backup on the toll road. They really need to fix the 620 exit. Because when that backs up, it causes a lane of 35 to be stopped. That causes gridlock for miles both behind and past the exit.

What I really don’t like about this toll road is how they screwed up IH-35 and 1325. Remember back a couple of years when they spent millions of dollars building U-turn lanes to help fix 1325 traffic flow problems? Well, they have removed an on-ramp and an off-ramp for both directions! If I want to head south to la Frontera or the big-block stores on the east side of IH-35 (Home-Depot, Walmart, OfficeMax, etc), I now have to exit at Hester’s Crossing. And go through the light! Hester’s Crossing cannot handle this load of traffic any more than 1325 could.
So now many, many, millions of dollars have been spent building roads and we still have hugh traffic problems. There was enough room for another lane where the onramp now is. They could have kept the 1325 exit!

Flawed!