Texas

[Plutonic Panda]

If the land is cheap enough, I always thought turbines were cheaper than stacks.

[sprjus4]

I don't know what the advantage is of a turbine as opposed to a 4-level stack. You need lots more real estate for it and more piers to install since piers aren't being shared. It's "innovative" and "looks purty" but that's about it.

From what I've noticed, it allows faster driving speeds which can prevent unnecessary braking and slowdowns in heavier volumes. I've driven the turbine at I-485 / I-85 in Charlotte, NC and you can easily take those ramps at 55 mph, and they're 2 lanes throughout. No significant change in grade and sharper corners.

[Road Hog]

I don't know what the advantage is of a turbine as opposed to a 4-level stack. You need lots more real estate for it and more piers to install since piers aren't being shared. It's "innovative" and "looks purty" but that's about it.

From what I've noticed, it allows faster driving speeds which can prevent unnecessary braking and slowdowns in heavier volumes. I've driven the turbine at I-485 / I-85 in Charlotte, NC and you can easily take those ramps at 55 mph, and they're 2 lanes throughout. No significant change in grade and sharper corners.

If it's rural then yes, but I've driven the High 5 in Dallas hundreds of times and you can keep your speed. The problem is when you get down to South Central and encounter the three on-ramps in short order ... the biggest design flaw in Texas.

[BJ59]

I don't know what the advantage is of a turbine as opposed to a 4-level stack. You need lots more real estate for it and more piers to install since piers aren't being shared. It's "innovative" and "looks purty" but that's about it.

From what I've noticed, it allows faster driving speeds which can prevent unnecessary braking and slowdowns in heavier volumes. I've driven the turbine at I-485 / I-85 in Charlotte, NC and you can easily take those ramps at 55 mph, and they're 2 lanes throughout. No significant change in grade and sharper corners.

I don't think speed is necessarily an advantage of turbines over stacks. I will comfortably drive 70mph on stacks in DFW, and I'm sure those speeds are also attainable on turbines. I will say though that turbines look like they do not go as high as stacks, so maybe it saves money since the piers don't have to go as high

[Bobby5280]

Turbines can be built cheaper than directional stacks since the ramps can be built mostly on earth berms. Directional stacks tend to require ramps built mostly or entirely on bridges. And the bridges are going up much higher. A turbine interchange will require a lot of land if the ramps are going to have design speeds of 45mph or faster. But the same thing is also true for directional stacks. The High Five interchange in Dallas has ramps signed for 30mph and 40mph ratings.

It seems to me it would have been better allocated on US-287 from I-40 to Claude....

The AADT levels on I-27 from Loop-335 down to the split with US-60 have grown to 45,000-50,000 vehicles per day. South of the US-60 split the traffic levels on I-27 drop to a range of 10K-11K per day. US-60 from Canyon to Hereford carries over 10K per day.

US-287 from the I-40 split to Claude currently carries around 13,000 vehicles per day. Those AADT levels stay consistently above 10,000 per day between Amarillo and Wichita Falls. Parts of I-27 between Amarillo and Lubbock dip below the 10K level. Traffic counts on US-287 grow a good bit at Wichita Falls and farther East. AADT levels in Decatur are close to 40,000 per day. They're over 70,000 near the I-35W split.

Bare minimum, US-287 needs to be Interstate quality from I-35W up to and past Decatur. I still think all of US-287 between Amarillo and Fort Worth needs to be Interstate quality due to the amount of trucks using it. As metro regions such as DFW in Texas and the Front Range cities in Colorado continue to grow the traffic levels on US-287 are going to swell.

[BJ59]

They're over 70,000 near the I-35W split.

Bare minimum, US-287 needs to be Interstate quality from I-35W up to and past Decatur. I still think all of US-287 between Amarillo and Fort Worth needs to be Interstate quality due to the amount of trucks using it. As metro regions such as DFW in Texas and the Front Range cities in Colorado continue to grow the traffic levels on US-287 are going to swell.

Almost every time I pass the US-287 split the traffic heading northbound on US-287 is at a dead stop, and it backs up onto the free-lanes and express-lanes of I-35W. Its too bad they're not going to start construction for a couple years, because more and more houses are going up everywhere all the way up to TX-114

[Bobby5280]

Anyone can see the explosive growth of new properties getting built North and Northwest of Fort Worth just by looking at Google Earth and playing around with the overhead imagery time line. It's just nuts how many new residential subdivisions are getting built. And it's not just around US-287 either. They're going up rapidly around TX-114 too. Hell, the TX-114 corridor has higher AADT levels than I-27.

[Rothman]

Yep, have a friend out there that made a whole lot of money in that real estate market.

[BJ59]

Yep, have a friend out there that made a whole lot of money in that real estate market.

Someday I would like to buy some land near Newark, a town west of the US-287 and TX-114 split. I could see that being a boomtown in the future like Haslet, with its proximity to the Fort Worth area as well as its closeness to Eagle Mountain lake.

I guess once TX-114 and US-287 are upgraded in that area, they'll have to start thinking about upgrading FM-718, FM-1220, and FM-3433, all routes which will connect the area with major highways or suburbs. Because once North Tarrant County is filled in, people are going to rapidly fill up Southern Wise County and East Parker County

[Bobby5280]

Someday I would like to buy some land near Newark, a town west of the US-287 and TX-114 split. I could see that being a boomtown in the future like Haslet, with its proximity to the Fort Worth area as well as its closeness to Eagle Mountain lake.

You might be already missing your opportunity. One project South of the US-287/TX-114 interchange will feature over 10,000 new homes (all fairly high priced of course; a private equity company from Arizona is heading up this project). The development is called "Reunion" and is being built on 3400 acres of Rolling V Ranch land.

That's far from the only thing getting built in that area. Other big residential subdivisions and commercial projects are in various stages of planning or construction.

Traffic levels on both US-287 and TX-114 in that area North of Fort Worth are going to get a whole lot heavier over the next few years.