Freeway Design Decisions For Revised Frontage Road Policy: Final Project Report

摘要

Constructing frontage roads along freeway corridors has been Texas' primary solution to providing property access while linking freeway main lanes to cross streets. In 2002, however, the Texas Transportation Commission decided to limit frontage roads inclusion to only special cases as described in section 15.54 (d) section of Texas Administrative Code (TAC section 15.54 (d)). Kockelman et al's (2003) extensive analysis of frontage road design policies including legal statutes, land development, traffic operations, safety, and cost perspectives found that freeway main lanes and arterial systems operate better in combination with frontage roads only in heavily developed areas. And the cost of building frontage road facilities is considerably higher than building facilities without frontage roads except in cases where high access-right values exist. Furthermore, Kockelman et al (2003) developed design policies and procedures for both new limited-access roads and highway upgrade projects by applying the findings of this study. In the second phase of the project, they implemented these policies in the assessment of frontage roads as an element of controlled-access facilities of several actual Texas corridors that are likely to require upgrades in the near future. In the third stage, the project team described both potential and practiced access management and corridor preservation strategies that state highway departments can apply to improve safety and facilitate traffic flow. Finally, they documented these design considerations and recommendations and sent them to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) district and design division for use by its Human Resources department in the training of engineers.