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What the Beep: Why Austin doesn’t do yield signs on feeder roads

KVUE viewer David asked, "Where are the yield signs for traffic to exit the highway?"

AUSTIN, Texas — Dallas has them. Houston has them. But have you noticed Austin doesn't seem to be into yield signs?

KVUE viewer David did. He emailed asking, "Where are the yield signs for traffic to exit the highway?"

Here's what KVUE found out.

TxDOT confirmed Austin is different in a lot of ways, including in this case when it comes to yield signs on feeder roads.

We don't have them, even though other Texas cities do.

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David sited this scenario: exiting southbound MoPac at 360 and trying to get over in time to make a right on 360.

It can be difficult.

But the lack of feeder road yield signs isn't an oversight – it's by design. TxDOT said yield signs work best when exiting traffic is forced to immediately merge into an existing lane. But Austin has dedicated exit lanes on the highways, which should give drivers time to merge.

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The Capital City also doesn't have two-way frontage roads, which is another case where yield signs are used to prevent crashes.

So, like it or not, there's no plan to put yield signs on Austin's frontage roads.

In fact, TxDOT said with the amount of traffic on those feeder roads, it would cause an even bigger congestion issue.

If you have an issue with our roads, let KVUE's Mike Rush know about it. He'll try to get answers to see what, if anything, will be done to make improvements. Sent an email to whatthebeep@kvue.com.

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