A Texas U-turn, or Texas Turnaround, is a lane allowing cars traveling on one side of a one-way frontage road

Frontage road

A frontage road is a non-limited access road running parallel to a higher-speed road, usually a freeway, and feeding it at appropriate points of access...

 to U-turn

U-turn (maneuver)

A U-turn in driving refers to performing a 180 degree rotation to reverse the direction of travel. It is called a "U-turn" because the maneuver looks like the letter U. In some areas, the maneuver is illegal, while in others it is treated as a more ordinary turn, merely extended...

 into the opposite frontage road (typically crossing over or under a freeway or expressway

Limited-access road

A limited-access road known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway and expressway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a controlled-access highway , including limited or no access to adjacent...

). These are typically controlled by a yield sign, allow traffic to bypass the two traffic signals, and avoid crossing the highway traffic at-grade. This particular highway configuration originates (and is particularly common) in Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, especially in the Dallas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

, Fort Worth

Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...

, Houston

Houston, Texas

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...

, Austin

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

, San Antonio

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

, and El Paso

El Paso, Texas

El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...

 areas, but can also be found in Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...

; Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Oklahoma City is the capital and the largest city in the state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, the city ranks 31st among United States cities in population. The city's population, from the 2010 census, was 579,999, with a metro-area population of 1,252,987 . In 2010, the Oklahoma...

; Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...

; St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, and North Little Rock, Arkansas

North Little Rock, Arkansas

the city was 62.55% White, 33.98% Black or African American, 0.41% Native American, 0.59% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 1.18% from other races, and 1.26% from two or more races...

. This is also common in Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

 and Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, where frontage roads travel along freeways. In some cases these are controlled by signals, and are similar to the Michigan left

Michigan left

A Michigan left is an at-grade intersection design which replaces each left turn with a permutation of a U-turn and a right turn. The design was given the name due to its frequent use along Michigan roads and highways since the late 1960s. In other contexts, the intersection is called a median...

. They are also used less frequently in other areas of the world.

External links

• A Texas U-turn seen from Google Map, another one
• Texas Highwayman's Primer on Texas Highways has a diagram of Texas U-turn.