Truck routes

[IronTiger]

So I've been looking at some 1960s freeway planning literature and while I understand that there's obvious changes between 1960s and current lines of thinking in terms of freeways, one thing that popped out to me that isn't being followed is truck routes to take them off the freeways. As we know, trucks do the most damage to freeways and also make the most noise, as well as posing a hazard on the road (sight lines blocked, slower acceleration/deceleration speeds). But as far as I know, there's no dedicated truck routes in Houston. Does anyone know why truck routes, in Houston and others, never caught on as an option separate from freeways?

I think this is a neat topic that we could discuss as long as we don't get in the same arguments as we do before...

[JLWM8609]

I would guess that we don't have dedicated truck routes because trucks are present in just about every part of town, and they use all the freeways to get to their destinations. Since we can't keep trucks off of our freeways, there are other steps that have been taken, such as TxDOT banning trucks from being in the left lane of some of our freeways in the metro areas. There's also Houston's designation of 610 as a Haz-Mat route and the prohibition of Haz-Mat trucks on the Pierce Elevated and 59 Elevated to keep Haz-Mat trucks out of the city.

http://www.houstontx.gov/police/teu/haz-mat.htm