What is the reason behind the 4 one-way streets that US 87 and 287 travel down? I can't seem to find anything with a Google search but does anyone know? Freeway revolt? Secret governmental plans? :-P
This brings up another thing, I would much rather walk under an overhead freeway than cross 12+ fast lanes of traffic.
12+ lanes of at grade or below grade?
The four streets are at-grade through Amarillo just north of I-40 before merging together to form what I call the 'blender'.
I've driven it a few times. Honestly, if you're going US287-to-US287, taking the Loop 336 around the northeast side of town is much faster.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=35.2189&lon=-101.8237&zoom=14&layers=M
From west to east, the streets are:
*Taylor, US 287 south (and Historic 66 west?)
*Fillmore, US 87 north (and Historic 66 east?)
*Pierce, US 87 south/US 60 west
*Buchanan, US 287 north/US 60 east
Fillmore is the original north-south route, having carried US 66 between 6th and Amarillo Boulevard. Note that while northbound US 287 is constrained to using only Buchanan, traffic on all other routes can use either street.
Quote from: Sykotyk on June 26, 2011, 11:43:38 PM
The four streets are at-grade through Amarillo just north of I-40 before merging together to form what I call the 'blender'.
I've driven it a few times. Honestly, if you're going US287-to-US287, taking the Loop 336 around the northeast side of town is much faster.
That would actually be Loop 335, but close enough :)
I should have researched local road history up there better when I lived there, but maybe if I have time for a roadtrip one of these years, I'll stick my head in the door at the downtown library. As a guess (not a fiction/fantasy but a guess), the downtowners couldn't agree or didn't want some kind of freeway alternative (elevated like the new replacement in Wichita Falls that superseded the US 277-281-287 one-way pair there) or (trenched a-la the way US 75 got redone north of downtown Dallas) and thought that a freeway through downtown would affect downtown traffic or quality-of-life somehow. Plus there was no plan at the time to have any kind of interstate designation north of town (even though I could *easily* digress about that), so, unless there were money (I'm guessing more for a trench than an elevated version) and the definite likelihood of an I-27 extension northward, the 2 one-way pairs are likely their present as well as near-future.
Quote from: NE2 on June 27, 2011, 07:38:08 AM
From west to east, the streets are:
*Taylor, US 287 south
*Fillmore, US 87 north
*Pierce, US 87 south
*Buchanan, US 287 north
I hadn't thought about that until now, but the Amarillo situation is not typical in this sense: whichever route one happens to be driving, the opposing direction of that same route is
not the next block to the left. Instead, for drivers on US 287, opposing traffic is
three blocks to the left. And for drivers on US 87, opposing traffic is one block to the
right. I came here wondering if anyone had discussed the reason for that before, and the observation below provides a partial answer:
Quote from: NE2 on June 27, 2011, 07:38:08 AM
Note that while northbound US 287 is constrained to using only Buchanan, traffic on all other routes can use either street.
If NB 287 traffic must use Buchanan, then why wasn't SB 287 traffic put on the adjacent block to the left (Pierce)? I believe the reason is that SB 287 needs to make a right-hand exit to continue on EB I-40, which is an easier movement for drivers on Taylor. Photos, maps, and additional thoughts on
this page (https://www.usends.com/blog/amarillos-dual-one-way-couplets).
Thumbs up for the 10-year bump.
r u a cicada?
This sort of configuration was common in Texas, though probably not with how the routes were signed. Before the Pierce Elevated in Houston, US 75 traffic split into four one-way streets. Ditto for I-345 in Dallas, though much of that was divided boulevards.
Wichita Falls is one of the few places in Texas where a freeway's end at a collection of traffic intersections was eventually spanned by a freeway extension. In this case it was the Holliday & Broad Street overheads to connect I-44 with Kell Freeway and the US-287 freeway on the South side of Wichita Falls. These viaducts were more feasible since they spanned 8 blocks and ran about 3/4 of a mile.
The US-87/287 split in Downtown Amarillo goes for around 28 blocks and over 2 miles. There is a lot more obstacles along the way. I would never expect to see any elevated (or below grade) freeway built through there. Loop 335 will get all the freeway upgrade attention, including a re-route of I-27 around the West side if I-27 is ever extended North of Amarillo.
I drive through Amarillo on road trips up to Colorado. Loop 335 is definitely faster than driving through downtown Amarillo. On the other hand, it is kind of interesting to see some of the improvements that have been taking place downtown. The traffic signals along US-87/287 are timed pretty well too. Lately the best reason to take Loop 335 is to bypass some of the construction happening along I-40.