Why Texas Has SO MANY Frontage Roads | Are They a Good Thing?

As a Texan, I call these “feeder roads.” They are extremely useful, and I can’t imagine not having them around.

I moved from the Chicagoland area to Houston a little over a decade ago. The roads did confuse me at first, but after driving on them for a few weeks, something simply clicked one day and everything immediately made perfect sense. I absolutely love the way Texas does its highways.

I've lived in Texas my whole life and didn't know that most states didn't have feeders. I'm glad you gave the warning about staying away from the left and HOV lanes, most Texans use the speed limit as more of a guide. If you aren't doing 10-15 mph more, you will be run over.

I also came from Illinois to Texas and discovered frontage roads in all thier glory. What I think are really cool and smart are the turnarounds built underneath the highways. Texans are fiercely proud of their state and right they should be!

Having been born and raised in Texas, I can tell you that the lack of frontage roads outside of this state can cause confusion for us, too. With the ubiquity of frontage roads, it's easy to fall into the trap that missing an exit isn't a big deal, since you can just do a U-turn at the next one. It was quite a shock to me the first time I went out of state, and ended up going 10 miles out of my way because I missed an exit.

Being from the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, I can't imagine most highways without frontage roads. I thought that was a normal thing. I only left the state twice in my lifetime.

Growing up in Texas I always thought this was how the whole country did it and still can’t believe most don’t. It’s so much better.

You can tell which part of Texas you're from depending on what you call these roads. Here in San Antonio, we call them access roads. Last year when my husband and I were visiting a friend in Houston, we got caught up in traffic on I-45, and our friend told us to exit onto the "service road" to dodge the traffic. And my husband had absolutely no idea what he was talking about until I explained it to him!

Growing up in Texas and travelling to other states... it SHOCKS me how exits just end in stoplights!

Very well worded video. As a transplant to Texas a decade ago. Frontage roads confused me all the time. Having gotten used to them and navigating all the different types as you state (u turns, one ways, two ways etc)now, i wouldn't have it any other way. The other thing you didn't mention is how to Texas tell the DOT where a new exit is needed. We call it the "Texas Off Ramp". Basically you just go off roading through the grass divider onto the frontage road. :)

As someone who was raised in DFW, I was absolutely shocked to learn other states don't have access roads, I intend to live in Charlotte NC and the lack of frontage roads showed tons of traffic issues.

I've lived in Texas most of my life but also California. I think frontage roads are a net positive in cities because access to retail is so convenient and the commercial strip on each side of the freeway functions as a sound barrier for residential. In California the freeways feel like tunnels because of high sound walls close to the roadway. Despite this there are adjacent "freeway houses" which have so much noise pollution they are nearly uninhabitable (90 Db in the backyard). Caltrans hides all the ramps pretty good too!

this is why i love texas. i was so shocked to find out that other states don't use the texas turnaround

I've lived my whole adult life in Texas but I've traveled all over the country. I'm pretty neutral on most aspects of this question, but I do often find myself getting very frustrated when I'm in an area that doesn't have fairly frequent exits/turnarounds, plus easy access to nearby businesses. We're heavily conditioned to have high expectations about those things.

One thing is that for many newly built highways, especially tollways, the frontage roads are actually built first, oftentimes years before, and the main high speed lanes are built oftentimes purely based on traffic demand. You’ll see just frontage roads in some places with an immensely wide median between them that is really where the future main lanes will be built, which isn’t even guaranteed

Thank you for your commentary on the Texas frontage roads. I learned to drive in SoCal, and spent much of my adult life there. I often wondered why frontage roads were so rare, and why they didn't work well where they did exist. Most of the frontage roads in SoCal (where they exist) are two-way roads, and are generally not accessible from the main roadway, except at the diamond interchanges. About 10 years ago, I spent some time in Houston, and stayed at a place right near the 610 Loop. With the one-way frontage roads, it was very easy to get in and out of the hotel, and onto the highway (if I chose), or just down the road a bit, if desired. It took me almost no time at all to learn to navigate and to appreciate the advantages of the frontage roads in Houston. Having spent quite a bit more time driving in Texas since that time, I've learned to appreciate the frontage roads along the highways of the state. Those "Texas Turnarounds" are great, unless you're behind a semi that is trying to follow Google's prompts, by turning where it won't fit... Of the many traffic "solutions" I've seen along our nation's highways, the Texas frontage roads are, in my opinion, one of the best solutions in use today. I've seen crossover lanes on some highway interchanges, and they do make sense to a degree, but are complicated and confusing for drivers that aren't familiar with them. Roundabouts work well in theory, but, from what I've seen, are almost always built too small, so traffic in the circle becomes too congested. I applaud Texas for building its highways with frontage roads the way they do. From my experience they work reasonably well for keeping the highway traffic moving while providing relatively easy access to nearby businesses and neighborhoods.

I think your points about the advantages and disadvantages are well-reasoned and -explained, with the exception of "unusable parcels." They're not unusable, they just require different routing to access them and their "front" will be facing away from the highway. In the case of GA-400 mentioned at 3:05, I live in Alpharetta and know that what you have highlighted in yellow as "unusable parcels" are required buffers, which reduce visual clutter and noise noticeably. Contrast this to Dallas, TX where my son lives. We met a friend in the parking lot in the 9300 block of the North Central Expressway (where Total Wine and Cavender's are) and we had to raise our voices significantly so we could hear each other because of the traffic on the expressway and frontage road, neither of which had any sound-absorbing features between them and the parking lot.

Another disadvantage of frontage roads is that they are a disaster for pedestrians trying to walk under an interstate bridge. You have so many more points of conflict with drivers. And none of the drivers are looking out for pedestrians or even yielding when they should. You have to cross two extra roads in addition to going under the interstate.

Grew up in Texas and then moved to the West Coast, in my 30s. Married a Washington woman and we ended up moving to Texas for a job I got. She'd never seen a frontage system like that, and she loved it! I was used to them, so I kind of shrugged.

When I first relocated to Texas from California the frontage roads confused me. But after stepping back and thinking about it for a little bit I realize what good idea they were. In California you had to know every road that had an access to the freeway. Otherwise you would find out you were on the wrong road as you passed over the freeway. With an Access Road you just need to get on the access road and sooner rather than later would be able to get on the freeway.