Is this the proper way to do a merge taper?
I guess this is a "painted" merge taper. The 24 ft wide area of pavement to the right of the median really doesn't narrow until very close to the intersection. It actually gives the appearance of curving outward. The median tip is 160 feet from the intersection.
Basically, many vehicles just follow the curb/road until it forces them to merge very late. People just use the dropping lane as a "right lane" as long as they can, to go straight through the intersection or to turn right. They treat the little white dots as white dashes signifying a right lane.
There are a lot of conflicts near the intersection where the road forces the folks who don't want to merge (especially right turners) to do so.
Also, I made a post before that there is a large apartment complex on the other side of the median with right in right out driveways. People also use the inviting drop lane to do sweeping U-turns from the right lane. Even if there is traffic in the left lane.
The intersection ahead is currently a "T" junction. You can't turn left. The developer wants to extend that road to allow left turns into a new residential section without a left turn lane.
I'm concerned that having cars staging left turns is a bad idea.
It's a collector road marked at 25 mph as a vestige from before the road was extended, but the other side of the road is 35 mph and the county knows drivers go 35+ here.