![\"iStock_000088669461_Small\"](\"https:\/\/d4c5ufmcr8tey.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/07141429\/iStock_000088669461_Small.jpg\")
<\/a>\nCutting across the grain<\/strong><\/p>\n
Cutting across the grain of conventional wisdom, the Texas Department of Transportation repaved both shoulders along 6.3-miles of State Highway 161 between Dallas and Fort Worth in September. In a daring effort to prove critics of the project wrong, the new lanes were opened to traffic during the daily rush hour.<\/p>\n
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Tow trucks were kept on standby as a precaution, in the event motorists broke down, but according to recently released statistics in the Dallas Morning News, with the extra lanes in place, traffic \u201cstarted sailing.\u201d Of course, that\u2019s good news for the Department of Transportation and Texas motorists alike.<\/p>\n
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However, some point to the fact that this isn\u2019t supposed to work. As a rule \u2013 widening highways doesn\u2019t ease congestion, it often makes it worse. Just ask anyone who drives on California\u2019s paved nightmares at rush hour. Still, Texas made it work \u2013 even if only temporarily.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s what Todd Litman, executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in Victoria, British Columbia believes, claiming the Texas widening project \u201cis an awfully unique situation.\u201d \u00a0Litman continues by saying that the project wasn\u2019t a traditional highway widening, nor was it a permanent fix \u2013 and, Texas has not seen the full effect of its work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Be that as it may, it\u2019s a start \u2013 one that shows widening a highway isn\u2019t always a failure. But, there are very few high-fives going around. And, there\u2019s a good reason for that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The general consensus among civil engineers is that more lanes usually means more traffic. Widening highways \u2013 while not rocket science \u2013 is a solution to an ever-growing problem. But, as critics point out, it only eases the congestion problem until word gets out and everyone decides to take the new quicker route.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then, everything reverts back to square-one with city planners and civil engineers trying to come up with a new plan to ease the rush hour traffic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are basically two opinions, here. The first is that the Dallas project worked because opening the shoulders eliminated the choke points of squeezing into a tighter space from a three-lane highway into a two-lane highway.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And, second, the project wasn\u2019t really successful at all due to it still being too early to tell and there being a high likelihood the previous congestion will soon return. However, it should be noted \u2013 it hasn\u2019t happened yet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Whichever side you\u2019re on when it comes to widening highways \u2013 you have to admit \u2013 even temporary relief is better than no relief at all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The same can be said about car insurance<\/a>. If you\u2019re paying too much, you can find relief by lowering your auto insurance<\/a> rates with an online quote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019ve all been aggravated by traffic congestion and seeing a highway-widening project about to make matters worse for the next six months to a year isn\u2019t going to give us that warm and fuzzy feeling engineers expect us to have upon completion. At least, not those of us who have been to this rodeo before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[302],"tags":[],"importance":[],"type-content":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17036"},{"taxonomy":"importance","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/importance?post=17036"},{"taxonomy":"type-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-content?post=17036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
\nResults may be only temporary<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nNot rocket science<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nWhy the Dallas Project worked<\/strong><\/p>\n