I have done more U-Turns in the past three months than I have previously performed in my whole 50+ years of driving. The reason is, I am now a Texan, living in the Greater Houston area, where everything I learned about urban driving must be abandoned so new rules and practices can take their place in my limited skull capacity, where years of hard-wiring and muscle-memory make up 99% of my driving-a-car-in-the-city ability.
I won’t go into the reason me and my husband both 70+ year-olds decided to leave our comfortable home in Northern Kentucky, (part of the Greater Cincinnati area) to settle in the largest, most diverse, hottest most humid southern city in the whole US, but suffice it to say, it had to do with our children. Two of whom live here.
Back to U-Turns. I’ve also learned to not get too comfortable with this easy “Opps, I’m going in the wrong direction correction”. U-turns are legal only until they aren’t. So you must be alert to the NO U-Turn signs that are usually hiding in plain sight. One thing I know for sure, without the legal U-Turn laws in Texas, I’d be stuck on one of the many Feeder Roads – a parallel highway running beside the real expressway – of which there are many: I-45, SH 99 aka The Grand Parkway and the outer-most beltway, I-10 known as the Katy Freeway in this part of Texas, The Hardy Toll Road, and Sam Houston Toll Way aka Beltway 8 – the 2nd of three, and I-610 the innermost Interstate circle freeway, just to name a few. These extra lanes of highway allow the driver to have access to the businesses along the expressway, without having to take an exit ramp. The only problem is the other side of the feeder road is on the other side of the expressway. So if you need to go south, but end up traveling north on the I-45 feeder, you are stuck, until you come to the next intersection where you can go under the interstate and do a legal U-ey, not to be confused with a legal left turn, which our cell-phone’s GPSes have trouble with. Siri had us turn left, going west on Rayford Road, instead of South on the opposite side of I-45 before we understood her use of the words, “make a left turn.” Another thing Siri likes to do, just to F….k with us, is tell us to ‘take the next exit’ then have us drive 3-5 miles on the parallel access road only to direct us to merge back onto the expressway, into the flow of traffic we just left. She did this to us more than once, when we were driving south on I-69 (not the one in Indiana) into Houston, before we got wise to her tricks just to save us ten seconds.
To make Houston driving even crazier, the existing Texas expressway systems in no way resemble I-75, I-71, I-65, I-74, or any of the interstate highways of our previous life in the mid-west. They all have at least eight lanes of traffic each way. The Katy Freeway has as many has 26 lanes in some areas through Houston (12 mainline, eight lanes of feeder roads and six HOV – high occupancy vehicle – lanes. It is one of the widest freeways in the world. Not for the faint of heart or newbies from the Mid-West. I can’t talk about Houston freeways without mentioning the tiered freeways of Texas. We all know about overpasses and exit ramps that go uphill, and around a curve before settling your vehicle back on level ground. But I’m talking about multiple layers of streamlined expressways towering above everything around, some stacked as much as five tiers high. These are referred to by the locals as “Texas stacks”. The most prominent examples include the interchange between I-10 and I-610 on the east side, and the interchange between I-45 and Beltway 8. My favorite sky bridge is the exit off I-45 north to The Woodlands. I hear the Jetson’s theme song every time I approach it. The vehicles whizzing along the highest tier make me think of the flying cars in the 1960s prime-time futuristic cartoon.
I have lived all my life, until now, in three states, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. And in all of our road-trips across the lower 48, I do not recall ever seeing such artistry in the engineering of an Interstate Highway systems as I’ve witnessed here in Texas. Now you’d think all these modern roads would lead to safer driving habits by the locals. NOT. No matter how congested the highway, everyone is in a hurry. Driving much faster than I am. And then out of nowhere, while I’m minding my lane, traveling the speed limit north on I-45, a vehicle will speed past me on the right, and whip in front of me, dangerously close, flying like he’s driving at the Brickyard. Then this speed demon, usually a pick-up truck with big wheels, will move to the farthest left lane, only to zag back dodging other vehicles, just in time to take the next exit ramp. Very unnerving.
Not sure if I’ll ever be brave enough or stupid enough to venture south on I-45 into Houston and I believe I’d shut down completely if I had to navigate I-10 during rush hour.
I’ll close for now. Wish me luck on the roads in Houston and be sure to watch for my next Texas Newbie post.
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