Texas Roads - Misc.

Misc. Photos



TX 5 (old US 75) NB in Fairview at a one-lane former railroad trestle. It sure would have been nice to take away more of the overpass - perhaps the abutments on either side, so that the road could be widened to two lanes like a state highway should?


TX 20, the Texas Mountain Trail, WB at Zaragoza Rd. near El Paso. With Loops, Spurs, Beltways, and a host of other routes, not to mention the 1-to-4 digit Farm and Ranch Roads, it's no wonder TxDOT doesn't care about duplicating state highway numbers with Interstate routes.


In my personal collection. I'm told this style sign is no longer used by the county - they may not sign their roads at all for what I know, or they may have modified the pentagon. I'm not from Texas, so I don't know. One theory is that the numeral size has since been enlarged.


In Post, heading around the town square on brick Avenue M (which becomes Farm Road 669 outside town), then turning onto the exceptionally wide West Main St., well over 100 feet wide despite having no traffic and leading nowhere (it ends within town limits). The last photo looks back east along West Main at the Garza County Courthouse. For reference, the blue car on the right is about 18 feet long (which is very long for a car, mind you). By my estimation, that makes the road about 110 to 130 feet wide, which would normally be enough for eight lanes plus parking on either side.


Courtesy Dan Garnell via Adam Prince, this is on La Frontera Blvd. SB in Round Rock. Texas' new toll signage is nifty, though still not as nifty as the FM (Farm-to Market) signage - yes, Farm Road gets abbreviated FM, don't mess with Texas. Highway 45 still exists along with Toll 45, hence the dual signage - it's not unheard of in Texas to sign the free route as the frontage roads of the toll route (see Beltway 8 around Houston).


Courtesy Adam Prince, northbound on I-35 within spitting distance of Dan's photo - that's Highway 45 on the second level, Toll 45 on the third (since I-35's frontage roads have to intersect at the second level but still pass under Toll 45), and the directional ramps on the fourth level. This, the SB-EB ramp, passes under the EB-NB ramp, which thus constitutes a fifth level. Everything's bigger in Texas. I'm surprised this interchange isn't fully direction to try to suck more traffic onto the toll road, but I guess once you've come out of Austin, either you'll stay on I-35 since the traffic is dissipating, or you've already taken US 183 to the northwest. Either way, Highway/Toll 45 is unimportant to you.


Aerial view facing south, I-635 gets complicated as it heads east from I-35E (off the screen to the right). The Exit 27 ramps from that massive interchange are coming down from the top of the stack to the level of the express toll lanes in the median. As they interface, the rest of Exit 27 drops down to meet the I-635 mainline, which happily rises up to meet it. At the same time, curiously, the inner lanes are also interfacing with the middle of I-635 and end up dropping down below the mainline, resulting in the structure you see on the left - everyone has flipped position! Oh, and there are still more local ramps outside of all that. That's Texas for you.


A little easier to parse this interchange on the east side of Dallas, not to mention north is now up like you'd expect. I-635 carries I-20 in from the bottom, a nice four-level stack with US 175 (I-20 Exit 479), and then I-20 leaves I-635 (Exit 480) to the right.


You're seeing most of TX Spur 366 here, a short highway that begins on the west side of the Trinity River (bottom of first photo) and crosses it on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge between a pedestrian bridge (the colors are artwork) and a railroad bridge (there is a truss that didn't come out from my altitude). Continuing east, there's the interchange with I-35E you see in the second photo. You may also see a pair of stub ramps, the EB entrance being more visible but both lengthening the I-35 ramp connections to make everything fit vertically. They were never built out, but I'm thinking they were intended for the area below the interchange that was once railyards but may now be getting redeveloped. Someday those may be ramps to the empty lots at bottom right.

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