Huh, ever since moving away, I've greatly enjoyed not having access roads. I feel like they greatly encourage a particularly walking-unfriendly sort of suburban sprawl in which there are long rows of large chain stores and restaurants directly facing highways and no opportunity for any sort of neighborhood to exist around them.
They are also very dangerous: they combine people getting off the highway with people accelerating to get on with people entering and leaving those shopping centers and restaurants. It really creates for messy traffic.
I thought these were called frontage roads? I mean, in Mississippi, they are just called that.
I prefer living in the north where they do not have such monstrosities. But I currently live in Beijing, so I have to deal with the "fulu" all the time.
Frontage roads take up a lot of space and are not pedestrian-friendly, but they can help drivers. Personally, I'm not a fan of them because I like walkable cities.
Wow, I didn't realise that feeder roads were a Texas-specific thing. How do other parts of the country handle commercial properties that face highways?
It is bizarre (and a bit frustrating) to drive down a NJ turnpike and miss your exit. You have to drive 15 miles to the next one to turn around. And most urban centers are miles from the exit. No stores around. I like the latter, not so much the former.
Other parts of the country call these roads "frontage roads" or "service roads" if they are what I'm thinking of (never been to Texas). They do exist outside of Texas; I've seen them in Myrtle Beach, SC, for instance.
Sydney invented a system used by a few countries that optimises traffic lights for public transport. So if a bus is running late, there is a higher chance it will get more green lights.