Interesting Texas Interchange

[Sykotyk]

I was in West Texas this past weekend hitting a few counties, and stumbled upon a very interesting interchange in the town of Borger, Texas.

TX 207 heads North-South through town, and TX 136 comes from the west before running concurrent with TX 207 from the interchange. The oddity of this interchange is that it's in the middle of the town, serving two relatively lightly traveled roads, and nowhere close is being upgraded to a freeway. Add in the fact that's a very interesting traffic-circle with extra ramps.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=borger,+tx&sll=35.66094,-101.398407&sspn=0.002576,0.006539&gl=us&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Borger,+Hutchinson,+Texas&ll=35.661228,-101.398873&spn=0.005152,0.017166&t=k&z=17

TX 136 does run as a four-lane out to Lake Meredith, but TX 207 (although four-laned for a stretch) has no hope of being freeway-tized through town,s o what's the use of the interchange?

What I find interesting is the additional internal ramps leading to the 207 N or S from the circle, which eliminates any potential (improbable) swerving traffic at the entrance/exit of the circle if they weren't present.

[BigMattFromTexas]

Whoa, dang. When I say West Texas I was thinking it was somewhere near me, boy was I wrong?? But that looks like our Texas weird designs. Hey, at least we're original!
BigMatt

[mapman]

TX 136 does run as a four-lane out to Lake Meredith, but TX 207 (although four-laned for a stretch) has no hope of being freeway-tized through town,s o what's the use of the interchange?

I agree -- an interchange of this size at this location seems like overkill to me.  TxDOT must have expected much higher volumes on these two roadways than what actually occurred.

[xonhulu]

I was just on this interchange two weeks ago, but took the ramp from southbound to westbound and didn't really grasp the size of it.  I didn't get a picture of any part of it, but here's the junction just slightly to the north:



Unfortunately, I didn't really get enough of the background to even see if the interchange is visible from here.  I'm kinda sorry I hadn't seen this post before I left on the trip, I would've made it a point to check out the interchange.

[Alps]

If you build inner loops to those weird left ramps, you could have a double-trumpet interchange with no circle at all.

[BigMattFromTexas]

If you build inner loops to those weird left ramps, you could have a double-trumpet interchange with no circle at all.

Hmmm. That would have looked a lot better. But it reminds me of some type of alien crop circle thing, only on a road. Heh heh.
BigMatt

[J N Winkler]

The Childress District says:  "Me too!"

[english si]

If you build inner loops to those weird left ramps, you could have a double-trumpet interchange with no circle at all.

But that requires more construction - wider/longer bridges. Given that this interchange is seemingly a bit overkill for the two roads it links, why pay more and make it more overkill? Not to mention less interesting!

The ramps allow an easier left turn onto the n-s road than going all the way around 3/4th of the circle, which is nice given there's the space. You also remove a lot of the conflict points + weaving that would be caused by cars heading all the way across the circle's lanes quickly, in order to turn left onto the n-s road. Clever thinking I think.

[txstateends]

Since I never got to Borger when I lived in Amarillo, this was an interesting subject.  I took the Street View route from the link that the OP posted, and it's quite a structure for the town the size of Borger.  I did see a Speed Limit 20 sign while taking the EB TX 136 merge around to TX 207 north.  I really wonder if this was wishful thinking on TxDOT's and/or Borger's part, or if there had been some kind of bad accident history in this area to cause the building of the circle.  But, when you look a few blocks north up the street, where TX 152 merges with TX 136 and TX 207, it's just a simple cross-street intersection with full signals (part of which Xonhulu caught)--no wide swoopy things there.  Then, there's a wide circle farther north without the extra bridges and ramps where 2 other roads turn off, Spur 140 and Spur 245.  Borger has had quite an oil/gas industry over the years, but other than that, I'm not sure why the extra added space for the 2 circle intersections there.