Great work Dallas/Ft Worth ! ( almost)

The only thing I've ever seen any city do is to get the salt/sand trucks out spreading before the storm hits.

 

By the time DFW gets done with all of their road construction, the population will double and they'll have have to tear it all up and start new construction projects.

 

It’s true that flyovers are well-loved here. Easy to build.

It’s also true that EFFECTIVE de-icing is now carried out by semi-trailer tankers.

Note too that Ranger Hill out west on IH20 has been removed. Gigantic earth-moving, the sort that built the Interstates in the first place. Takes me back fifty-plus years.

Anyone remember Ohio Torches? You missed those little flames in the dark and you drove right off the paved road. Back then the drop-off was less than a foot (unlike today), but it was quite a wake-up.

Ice storms that shut Ranger Hill severely disrupted national traffic.

Commercial traffic past D/FW hasn’t been a problem (lane capacity) since the IH20/IH30 split was moved from east Dallas in to west Fort Worth by 1974.

IH30 has been rebuilt from downtown Fort Worth to downtown Dallas, but I doubt that the sections before and after that ever will be.

The downtown Dallas mixmaster will always be slow.

IH-820 & US-183 are mainly re-done. So the three main lanes East-West across the MetroHex are great today. As one is always screwed North-South. (Same with Houston).

Ranger Hill changes and modern de-icing mean ice storm problems will mainly be hours, not days, as the rest of the E-W system isn’t 1961 anymore.


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You haven’t been driving very long have you? lol

I’ve watched that nightmare of a ramp getting on 45 south from 20 west turn into an ice rink. With trucks and cars stuck on it, going nowhere.

When that place freezes over. I just stay parked. Too #### many people from Michigan that think snow = ice = not a problem.

FYI half of Michigan moved there during that last downturn. Have they left yet?

 

a couple of those skyramps you have to keep your eyes open for aircraft .... never thought about ice .. gotta be a mess

 

I feel the same way, if they had shoulders... well people will use them. Not necessarily for the purpose they are intended for.

The last time I come through Dallas Fort Worth with FFE, I was off I-35 E onto I-30 W via a flyover ramp that had a S inside of it so that it will get to I-30 in a organized way, no shoulders.

In that S there developed due to the physics of my tractor trailer room for a car to fit on my left. And boom two teens in a black convertable madza zipped into that spot next to the middle of my 53 foot trailer at 60+ determined to cut me off and get ahead or die trying. I was doing about 35.

Of course the S went away fast leaving the idiot teens with no place to go but under my trailer which will kill them easily.

What I did was aim that Century towards the right hand retaining wall outside of my windshield which provided me a view of the skyline that high up. It was a very unnatural view and something that if I don't fix will either kill the stupid teenagers or kill me. Either on impact with the wall or after we crashed through and plummet to the ground some 70 feet below and buildings with people inside of them.

That bought the madza just enough room to squeeze past my tractor to freedom. I got a pair of middle fingers for it.

This was Summer of 2001. I hope those two idiots have had a nice future that I risk my own to give to them.

If there were shoulders on those ramps I bet the people will just use one or both of them to flow around big rigs on those ramps because they are impatient and stupid.

What those two teens don't know is (Or care really but should) is two things. First I came really close to making a royal mess of FFE's tractor trailer, load and myself and killing people on the ground to boot. And second, next time that happened I will not do that again. They will get either crushed under the trailer or into the back of my tractor with the same result. OR not be on that ramp at all. Bypass the whole city if possible.

 

the locals stay home during winter weather