[magellan]

All this stuff about using only one lane of the interstate outbound of Houston is surprising.

On I-16 out of Savannah Georgia, the eastbound lane has gates on every exit which can close off access to the eastbound lane. Closer to the coast, every few miles there are crossovers built into the median (with gates) to distribute westbound traffic onto the eastbound lane.

My guess is the Georgia State Highway Patrol would close the gates to access the eastbound lanes, and once the lanes are confirmed clear, open the crossovers.

As the Interstate highways are a federally funded project, you would think they would have similar setups from all coastal areas.

[logician2u]

Federally funded, yes. But I believe local authorities (MPOs and state DOTs) have considerable say in the final design of Interstate Highways.

When there's extra money to spend, some areas will put it in landscaping or bike paths. Others, apparently yours in Georgia, look into actually spending it on something useful.

Thanks for your input.

[meyer]

Georgia isn't the pinnacle of highway operation either. They love to take I-75 down to one lane in each direction during spring break week so that a couple of surveyors can wander around measuring in the median.

/pet peeve.

As to the Texas situation, I heard mention (and I don't have a source) that there was some construction upstream from Houston that created a massive bottleneck. I believe it given the problems that construction causes in normal traffic flows on our interstate highways.

At any rate, even without the construction and during normal conditions, the highway system is woefully inadequate near any major city.