WTF Points

[wxfree]

Exploring Google Maps, I found a strange road formation.  I know of another one, and assumed it was too stupid a thing for it to be duplicated elsewhere (I recently discovered that a second is being built nearby).  I dub this formation the WTF point.

So you're driving down the road, obeying all the traffic laws, and everything is fine.  The road ends, but it's okay because another road ends at the same point, so you just turn and keep going.  But the other road is one-way, and it ain't the way you're going.  While illegal options may be available, the only legal option is to turn around and go back.  The only examples I know of are at ends of one-way frontage roads.

http://goo.gl/maps/U7azg  There's obviously a lot of illegal freeway entrance.  There's a No Outlet sign at the previous intersection.

http://goo.gl/maps/Untc0  There's a No Outlet sign, but after the previous intersection.  There's another one in the works nearby, at the new US 67 freeway and County Road 801B.  http://goo.gl/maps/vzZsa  The crossing will be eliminated and a one-way frontage road will end at each intersection.  The plans call for a Dead End sign just before the southern intersection, well after 801B's previous intersection.  I expect either the county or TxDOT will install a No Outlet sign at the County Road 805 intersection.

As long as there's a sign far enough back so that you don't have to turn around, that reduces the WTF factor, although if your map doesn't show, or you fail to zoom in far enough to see, one-way arrows, it can still be complicating.

Across from the first and third examples is the opposite formation, where the county road ends and traffic continues along the frontage road.  The county road is two-way but has no traffic on one side until the first road or drive.  I find this formation interesting, but it generally won't get attention, so I propose no name for it.

[PurdueBill]

Exploring Google Maps, I found a strange road formation.  I know of another one, and assumed it was too stupid a thing for it to be duplicated elsewhere (I recently discovered that a second is being built nearby).  I dub this formation the WTF point.

So you're driving down the road, obeying all the traffic laws, and everything is fine.  The road ends, but it's okay because another road ends at the same point, so you just turn and keep going.  But the other road is one-way, and it ain't the way you're going.  While illegal options may be available, the only legal option is to turn around and go back.  The only examples I know of are at ends of one-way frontage roads.

http://goo.gl/maps/U7azg  There's obviously a lot of illegal freeway entrance.  There's a No Outlet sign at the previous intersection.

Interesting that if you follow that around the turn left going the wrong way on the frontage road, you find older street view that shows the frontage road as two-way with arrows/chevrons facing both ways at the curve, and blazed trails coming from both ways onto the Interstate (from frontage road end and county road).  I wonder how many misadventures have occurred since the change, especially with the paucity of signage?  Why not a Do Not Enter or Wrong Way or something?  It's probably light traffic but still.....