Random awesome picture

Chris_533976

Part of Highway 401 in Canada

Usual AADT of 500,000.

Pulled from Skyscrapercity forums.

Steviemak

And it is still jammed despite the numerous lanes - build it and they will come. Lessons for us - when the M50 is finished it may still be a carpark.

ardmacha

And the Ontario 401 was originally built as two lanes in each direction! But they had the foresight to buy the land along a 100m corridor, quite unlike the planners in Dublin who allowed buildings along the M50.

ardmacha

And an unwidened road, showing how things were 60 years before, preserved by political changes
Part of the Berlinka autobahn (Berlin-Königsberg) in northern Poland.

from http://www.berlinka.pcp.pl

I guess the AADT here is more like 500!!

It just goes to show "parkinson's law" in action.

fricatus

Moscow traffic, from http://www.englishrussia.com/?p=429



Just try doing a search for Tehran traffic too... whoooohh, and we complain about the M50?

fricatus

Tehran from a 707! Thanks to Sam Chui on Airliners.net:

ardmacha

Mongolian roads don;t seem great, but the signposting beats Ireland any day!
(from skyscraper.com)

godtabh

ardmacha wrote: »

I guess the AADT here is more like 500!!

A housing estate with 50 odd houses with 8 trips per day per house will give an AADT of 500

godtabh

Steviemak wrote: »

And it is still jammed despite the numerous lanes - build it and they will come. Lessons for us - when the M50 is finished it may still be a carpark.

You cant tell what speed they are going. Based on the spacing I would think that the traffic isnt at a stand still and could be traveling at a speed a lot great than the M50's average speed limit

markpb

kearnsr wrote: »

You cant tell what speed they are going. Based on the spacing I would think that the traffic isnt at a stand still and could be traveling at a speed a lot great than the M50's average speed limit

They might be moving but it's still jammed, just not congested. It would be interesting to find out how many people are in cars in that photo and then show how much space a train carrying the same amount would take up. It's depressing to think people still believe we can build ourselves out of road congestion.

Chris_533976

Yeah theres a lot of people having a go about getting high speed rail paralleled to the 401. They really should do it.

godtabh

markpb wrote: »

They might be moving but it's still jammed, just not congested. It would be interesting to find out how many people are in cars in that photo and then show how much space a train carrying the same amount would take up. It's depressing to think people still believe we can build ourselves out of road congestion.

So what for a road to be successful in your eyes only one car can use it at a time?

markpb

kearnsr wrote: »

So what for a road to be successful in your eyes only one car can use it at a time?

Har har! What a fantastic summary of my point, it's so concise and completely removes any point of common sense. What I meant was that when you have to spend that much money building that much road, you have to ask what the limit is? Do you keep widening the road or do you bite the bullet and admit that an alternative has to be found?

godtabh

markpb wrote: »

Har har! What a fantastic summary of my point, it's so concise and completely removes any point of common sense. What I meant was that when you have to spend that much money building that much road, you have to ask what the limit is? Do you keep widening the road or do you bite the bullet and admit that an alternative has to be found?

Everything that is built has to be sustainable. Its all well and good suggesting a high speed interlink along the route above but if the organ/destination of the drivers doesnt match the train route what's the point in building it?

Jammed is a nice technical term. How would you define it? Point being what you consider jammed way run well within acceptable margins.

Its seems to be your goal to push public transport weather its deemed necessary or not.

Happy Bertie

When a new road lives up to and/or exceeds its traffic expectations, I would label that a success. The traffic throughput is both a reflection of the economic activity in the area surrounding the road and the effect the new road had on making that increased economic activity possible.

Just like a business, when sales grow and exceed expectations, it is time to build another branch to sustain the growth. But more important is the strategic location of that branch.

The M50 is a beautiful example. Most of us would rather traffic congestion than the poverty of an earlier era. But what most of us would rather more is less traffic congestion and increased standards of living. Solution: Build more strategically placed roads. They have a 5 to 1 benefit to cost ratio (versus rail's 0.8 to 1), roads made up about 0.4% of the land area in 1960, they will make up about 0.5% in 2010. New roads are generally really attractive and there are still enough green fields and hills (maybe 97%) to balance out the scenary, although beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Don't get me wrong I'm the world biggest rail fan too, but I'm just trying to bring some perspective to the argument.:)

Fratton Fred

kearnsr wrote: »

So what for a road to be successful in your eyes only one car can use it at a time?

as long as it's me, yes

(I DO own the roads by the way:D)