Frontage roads before freeway?

[J N Winkler]

Would you rather they build a regular surface street and then be unable to build the freeway due to development/NIMBYs once it's needed?  That's what typically happens.

I actually sympathize with Roadcrazed's objection to building frontage roads for corridor preservation purposes.  In addition to the expense of building the frontage roads themselves, which can be considerable in rural areas which will stay rural for the foreseeable future, commercial development tends to congregate along frontage roads, where it can cause problems with traffic operation that spread onto the freeway mainlanes.  It can also greatly raise the cost of future widening, since commercially zoned land is typically more expensive to acquire than residential land.

It is certainly true that building a precursor facility without access control is not corridor preservation--quite the opposite, in fact.

The better play is advance acquisition, in which any land or access rights needed to build the freeway are banked well in advance.  In Wichita this is currently being done with the Northwest Wichita Bypass, a planned K-254 extension to Goddard.  In Texas, where the access control law is actually pretty plain-vanilla, this could have been pursued as an alternative to frontage road construction.  However, frontage roads in Texas got their impetus from DeWitt Greer's "interregional highways" policy in the 1950's, and they are now so embedded in land developers' expectations in Texas that there was considerable resistance ten years ago when the Texas Transportation Commission proposed to stop building them in favor of "backage" access.  (Greer initially pushed for frontage roads because it was thought that building them was cheaper than acquiring access rights.  The practice calcified when commercial developers started showing a preference for frontage road parcels.  TxDOT's predecessor agency at the time also acquired a lot of freeway ROW in emerging suburban areas through donations from developers, which were made in the expectation that access would continue to be provided through frontage roads.)

[Sonic99]

Not frontage roads, but several sections of the AZ Loop 303 were built on what look like future exit/entrance ramps between Happy Valley Parkway and I-17. You can see where the road leaves the center wide concrete and has a narrower carriageway with no shoulders in those sections. They seem to be around every mile or so (which is in-line with how interchanges with surface streets are spaced in metro Phoenix). I'm assuming this means they can build overpasses in the median when they're ready to build an actual interchange without affecting the flow of the freeway itself with lane shifts and such.

Yeah the 303 is currently configured this way. In many cases, the future "interchange" road isn't even in the area, so basically it was just ADOT planning ahead (you have NO idea how amazing it is to say that!) for future expansion. If the road never comes, it still flows just like a normal freeway.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Surprise,+AZ&hl=en&ll=33.777685,-112.204013&spn=0.013787,0.01929&sll=34.168218,-111.930907&sspn=14.033625,19.753418&oq=surp&t=h&hnear=Surprise,+Maricopa,+Arizona&z=16

ADOT has done this in many cases, actually. The Loop 101 Price Freeway was built in "stages". First, Price Rd split up, with a "Price Rd North" built opposite from the original Price Rd. Then after the "northbound" and "southbound"  Price Rd's were built, THEN the freeway itself was built in between.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Surprise,+AZ&hl=en&ll=33.353868,-111.895409&spn=0.02771,0.038581&sll=34.168218,-111.930907&sspn=14.033625,19.753418&oq=surp&t=h&hnear=Surprise,+Maricopa,+Arizona&z=15

The Loop 101 around Scottsdale/North Phoenix was built similar to the way that the 303 is currently set up, where the future on/off ramps were used for the initial roadway to get traffic moving across that part of town (sure, only 45mph and there were stop lights, but it helped move some traffic). After that portion was built, then the overpasses were built and turned into a freeway.

Actually, I've got a "reverse" situation here. The same Loop 101 around Scottsdale had an interesting history. First, in the early 90's, the overpasses themselves were built, but there was no freeway. So the overpasses literally sat in the middle of the desert for a few years until ADOT actually had the full funds to build the actual roadway. I remember as a kid driving along Pima Rd and seeing all the overpasses just sitting there, with no dirt grades actually connecting them. Damn, I wish I had a camera back then like today and could take pictures of those, it was really weird.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Surprise,+AZ&hl=en&ll=33.522936,-111.889057&spn=0.110622,0.154324&sll=34.168218,-111.930907&sspn=14.033625,19.753418&oq=surp&t=h&hnear=Surprise,+Maricopa,+Arizona&z=13

[Anthony_JK]

Strangely enough, Louisiana took the exact opposite approach with both US 167 between Lafayette and Opelousas, the Evangeline Thruway through Lafayette, and US 90 between Lafayette and Morgan City.  For the non urban segments, LADOTD acquired enough ROW to allow for future frontage roads and wider medians at potential future interchange locations, but they first built the mainlaines with generally uncontrolled access. Once they got the funding, though, they built the grade-seperated overpasses through the wide medians to create the interchanges, and completed the service roads to control access and compete the freeway.

US 167 between Lafayette and Opelousas was upgraded as part of I-49 in exactly that fashion; with only an interchange at Judson Walsh Drive in Opelousas added after the fact.

Most of US 90/Future I-49 South from LA 88 to the Wax Lake Outlet was upgraded in the same fashion as well; with only the LA 318 intersection conversion to an interchange needing additional ROW.

OTOH, you could say that the Evangeline Thruway one-way couplet through Lafayette was built with the thought of being frontage roads for a future freeway.

[Truvelo]

Not unique to the western US....

Not unique to North America either. The only part of this ring road to be built were the frontage roads. The grade separation was never built and the space provided has been used for parking on some sections.

[Revive 755]

MO 364, St. Louis

Should this one really count?  There may have been a couple isolated section of outer roads prior to construction, but most of the outer roads were built as part of the freeway upgrade.


MO 367 - Had two way outer roads prior to upgrading the main lanes to freeway standards.