[Samwill89]

http://swamplot.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ring-roads-of-the-world.jpg

Swamplot Blog Post (http://swamplot.com/ring-roads-of-the-world-houston-wins/2009-05-14/)

http://www.thumbprojects.com/index.php?/recent/ring-roads-of-the-world/

This poster is designed as a sort of calling card for Rice School of Architecture, located in Houston. We collected ring roads from 27 international cities and layered them all at the same scale. As it turned out, Houston has the largest system of those we surveyed. (Beijing was second)



I found this image to be very interesting, though I am not sure if it tells the whole story. Any thoughts?


Edit: I believe this image shows urban areas with easily defined "hub and spoke" systems, though some cities are still left out.

[salaverryo]

The quote says: "Houston has the largest system of those we surveyed".

Last time I counted Houston had two ring roads: Loop 610 & Beltway 8.

Don't you think it's a bit too much to call two ring roads a "system"?

[Samwill89]

The quote says: "Houston has the largest system of those we surveyed".

Last time I counted Houston had two ring roads: Loop 610 & Beltway 8.

Don't you think it's a bit too much to call two ring roads a "system"?

As I said earlier, I do not think this image tells the whole story. However, this "system" being mentioned includes the "spokes" of the roadway systems of the cities on this list.

As for Houston, I am not sure if it is fair to include the 1960/Highway 6/146 ring as a part of the system.

Either way, I always wanted to see what multiple major cities looked like while overlayed with each other. I think it says a lot about sprawl and the use of public transit.

[plinko]

I once had a tour guide in Xian, China lament the fact that their city had but three 'ring roads', while Beijing had six. I wanted to say something, but decided better of it.

[krudmonk]

101/37/80/780/680/280/1 doesn't count?

[TexasPlaya]

I found this image to be very interesting, though I am not sure if it tells the whole story. Any thoughts?


Edit: I believe this image shows urban areas with easily defined "hub and spoke" systems, though some cities are still left out.

It would be interesting to see some congestion and commuter data to compare it with. Houston is definitely spread out beyond comprehension but the highway system really keeps everything reasonable.

[Reverberation]

There is a new Ring Road U/C in Houston; The Grand Parkway.

www.houstonfreeways.com
http://houstonfreeways.com/images/other_pages/retrospective/grand_parkway.gif

[SHiRO]

I want that poster!

[Trantor]

São Paulo´s rodoanel is not completed yet... I wonder how it will compare to those from the poster. Upon completion, it will be 172 km long (for comparassion, Houston´s Grand Parkway, far from finished, should be 270km long when completed)

http://primeirapessoa.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/rodoanel.jpg



by the way, does the graphic for Houston shows the Grand Parkway or Beltway 8? If it shows the uncompleted Grand Parkway, why wasnt São Paulo included in the graphic?

[JManc]

a freeway/ highway that circles an urban area. and i think that one for houston is referring to the still unfinished grand parkway.

[holladay]

The e-book shown on houstonfreeways.com is very informative, even if the subject matter is disgusting.

[tablemtn]

Well, Houston is clearly doing things right - it has one of the best economies in the US, and has weathered this downturn remarkably well.

[Trantor]

a freeway/ highway that circles an urban area. and i think that one for houston is referring to the still unfinished grand parkway.

well, if it is, than São Paulo´s Rodoanel should be there on that graphic too, since on completion it will certainly be larger than Beijing´s. The whole yellow part is completed (west sector) and the south sector is nearing completion. Thats already MORE than the small two sections of the Grand Parkway.

[holladay]

Correction: it's doing some things right.

[touraccuracy]

I don't think my city has a ring road...

[J. Will]

Does Calgary have a ring road yet? I haven't been there in years. Are there any other major cites in Canada with a ring road? They don't seem too common here.

[ue]

^...

Calgary, AB has Stoney (or Stony) Trail under construction which will be a ring road. Calgary doesn't currently have one.

Edmonton, AB has Anthony Henday Drive - with most legs open now. Only the north end has some construction to do. But even with that you could still call it a ring road with Anthony Henday and then Yellowhead between both of Yellowhead's interchanges to AH which adequately makes a ring road.

Vancouver, BC doesn't - but they are anti-freeways (which is a good thing).

Regina, SK and Saskatoon, SK both have half ones.

Winnipeg, MB has one, with the Perimeter. It mostly goes around the city edges.

Toronto, ON doesn't seem to have one, but rather, multiple freeways that connect up to form a ring road. MacDonald-Cartier/Kings/Gardiner/Don Valley would make one.

Hamilton, ON has one if you combine Lincoln M. Alexander, 407, QEW, and Red Hill Valley.

I think that's it. Surprised Montréal doesn't have one.

[brian_b]

I want that poster!

I emailed the school and asked if there was a way to get a copy. You should try it too.

[The Chemist]

Weird that Shanghai got left out. It's got two complete ring roads (Outer and Inner) plus another two at some stage in construction (middle and outer-outer). That's not an insignificant amount of ring roads.

[Saddle Man]

.

[ardecila]

by the way, does the graphic for Houston shows the Grand Parkway or Beltway 8? If it shows the uncompleted Grand Parkway, why wasnt São Paulo included in the graphic?

The poster was produced by Rice School of Architecture, located in Houston. I believe the intent of the poster was to showcase the outlandish scale of the proposed Grand Parkway, even when compared to megacities 10 times bigger than Houston. The poster thankfully does not take a side on whether such urban sprawl is good or bad, but it does make it look impressive.

I emailed the school and asked if there was a way to get a copy. You should try it too.

I did so a few months ago when the poster appeared on our wall at Tulane School of Architecture. Never got a response. :shrug:

[muppet]

Beijing's 6 ringroads (the first one doesnt actually exist in name, but are the main avenues around the centre and Forbidden City):

http://www.chinasnippets.com/images/map-beijing.png
www.chinasnippets.com

Second ringroad:

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/01Ts2XEaBN8Re/610x.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/2768057362_e2be807602.jpg?v=0
http://cache.daylife.com


Third Ringroad:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3198/2966625776_5f12782deb_b.jpg
www.flickr.com
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/27/59958215_d6485abbe4.jpg?v=0 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-05/28/xin_3005042807344243029932.jpg
www.flickr.com

Fourth Ringroad

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20080720/00e04c44261a09ed6fc712.jpg
www.chinadaily.com.cn

Fifth Ringroad

http://image2.sina.com.cn/dy/c/2003-10-29/1_1-1-21-312_20031029105615.jpg http://images.china.cn/images1/200712/416327.jpg
www.thebeijinger.com, http://images.china.cn


The Sixth Ringroad

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/7386527.jpg
Osmo Tammeler, www.panoramio.com

[Samwill89]

For the record, this graphic is showing the 1960/Highway 6 ring road around Houston. So the Grand Parkway is going to be even more outlandish.

Personally, I hope it never needs to be completed.

[ue]

Doesn't surprise me - the crazy highways in Beijing. Got to be one of the most spread out cities in the Orient. Most people are shocked cause its China and they have so many people, but they've become as obsessed with the freeway as Americans have (although Americans have realized that traditional urbanity works so much better).

[You Need A Thneed]

^...

Calgary, AB has Stoney (or Stony) Trail under construction which will be a ring road. Calgary doesn't currently have one.

Edmonton, AB has Anthony Henday Drive - with most legs open now. Only the north end has some construction to do. But even with that you could still call it a ring road with Anthony Henday and then Yellowhead between both of Yellowhead's interchanges to AH which adequately makes a ring road.

A small section of Stoney Trail has been open for around 10 years in Calgary. Also, the ring road will be HWY 22X on the south end of the city, which has existed for a long time, but will be upgraded for the completed ring road. Projects to bring the ring road around the whole north end of Calgary will be totally open by November 2009, and some parts of those projects may open sooner - the first part actually opened up in November of 2008.

Another project to build Stoney Trail around the SE corner of Calgary was announced by the provincial government back in March of this year, and should be complete in 2013. This will connect the road that will be complete in November on the east side to HWY 22X in the south, and will also include a couple of interchanges on HWY 22X.

Calgary Details Here (http://www.transportation.alberta.ca/804.htm)

In Edmonton, they have about 60-70% or the Ring road complete (minus a couple of interchanges that haven't been built), and the project to complete it to about 90% is underway. When that project is done, it will mostly be one river crossing that remains.

Edmonton Details here. (http://www.transportation.alberta.ca/1701.htm)

[ue]

^Anthony Henday Drive West has been built for a while too. Then the SW leg was built in 2007 I believe, then SE in 2008 (I might be a year off by those). The East leg has also been built for a while as well.

Now they're building the north side of it which is expected to be done by 2011. Anthony Henday is very close to being done. The only major things aside from NAHD is the west leg doesn't have a few interchanges, rather intersections, but the hills are made, now we just need to build them.

[tablemtn]

traditional urbanity works so much better

The freeway system has also been built for national security purposes in China, in the same way the original US interstate system was designed as a dual purpose civilian/military transport network.

Concentric ring roads make it easier to transport soldiers or equipment quickly around a major city, a task that might otherwise be very difficult. This was also a rationale behind the wide boulevards of Paris,

[muppet]

Doesn't surprise me - the crazy highways in Beijing. Got to be one of the most spread out cities in the Orient. Most people are shocked cause its China and they have so many people, but they've become as obsessed with the freeway as Americans have (although Americans have realized that traditional urbanity works so much better).

car is king in Beijing, much more so than other Chinese megacities due to the terrible Beijing weather - up to -40 winter, dust storms in spring, over 100f and humid in summer - and of course the pollution which the cars add to. In the old days people really suffered on their bikes - but also the city's so much bigger now. Hopefully the current 3 million cars on the road will stay steady or drcrease when the Beijing subway is completed in 2015, which aims to transport half the population by then on the worlds largest network (560km).

[ue]

^Yes the pollution is crazy in Beijing. It's more smokey than what you would see in smoggy Southern cities where it's different.

And you're right it's more of a freeway city than Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou, etc. but in the Orient China as a whole is more of a car nation than say Japan, Korea, or Singapore.

[Peanuthead]

If I am correct is that London as 3rd! Must be the 117 mile circumference of the M25. Well 8 million+ people live within its borders so i guess it's definately needed

[muppet]

yep, thats London 3rd. M25 is the second ringroad (first is the north/south circular).

[Metropolitan]

Paris has three ring motorways. The better known is the périphérique encircling the city centre, then there's the A86, and then the Francilienne. The artist has chosen the second ring road to represent Paris. It's true though that the Francilienne ring doesn't make a full circle yet.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/ParisRingRoads_A104.svg/350px-ParisRingRoads_A104.svg.png
Yellow: Périphérique
Red: A86
Green: Francilienne


Even further than that, you get the "grand contournement de Paris" (great Paris bypass), though that one isn't an urban freeway but is actually aimed at dodging Paris during national and international trips. It links Paris satellite towns, at a radius of 100 km from Notre-Dame.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/ParisRingRoads_GC.svg/350px-ParisRingRoads_GC.svg.png

[Jeff_in_Dayton]

Im really blown away by the Beijing ring roads. Wow.

The details on the 4th ringroad...it looks like they have gas station set ups like the German autobahns used to have, where the gas station is on a dedicated exit off the freeway, not like they do in the US (except on certain toll roads). The blue & white signage also resembles the German autobahns.

The grid of snowy fields on that last ringroad aerial brings to mind the snowy US midwest a bt.

[MolsonExport]

Doesn't Moscow have something like 6 or 7 concentric ring roads?

[mthq]

I guess New York doesn't have ring roads? I guess this would be because of the rivers and the three major airports throwing things off?

[brickell]

It's got enough highways though. I'm sure you could make a ring out of a combination of them.

Miami doesn't have ring roads it has L roads.

[The Chemist]

car is king in Beijing, much more so than other Chinese megacities due to the terrible Beijing weather - up to -40 winter, dust storms in spring, over 100f and humid in summer - and of course the pollution which the cars add to. In the old days people really suffered on their bikes - but also the city's so much bigger now. Hopefully the current 3 million cars on the road will stay steady or drcrease when the Beijing subway is completed in 2015, which aims to transport half the population by then on the worlds largest network (560km).

No, the number of cars in Beijing has little to do with the weather (which in summer is worse in Shanghai and Guangzhou anyway), and far more to do with the fact that the municipal government of Beijing has chosen to make license plates cheap to buy. As a result, cars are much more affordable, and there are a hell of a lot more of them. So more roads are needed. If Beijing's municipal government had taken Shanghai's path and held auctions for license plates (a plate in Shanghai can run 35000RMB, or US$5000 or more) and limited the number of plates that can be issued in a given month (I believe only 2500 plates are issued a month in Shanghai), they wouldn't have needed any more roads than Shanghai has. Even though Shanghai has more people than Beijing, the traffic (and the air quality, for that matter) is much more palatable - tells me that Shanghai, not Beijing, got it right when it comes to how to deal with cars.

And Shanghai's subway will be every bit as large as Beijing's in the future, too.

[dimondpark]

It seems like many ring roads encourage sprawl.

[mthq]

It seems like many ring roads encourage sprawl.

Did you just have a Captain Obvious moment? ;)

[LMich]

Did you just have a Captain Obvious moment? ;)

I don't know; wondering why NYC didn't have a ring road ranks right up there with that one. ;)

[Reesonov]

car is king in Beijing, much more so than other Chinese megacities due to the terrible Beijing weather - up to -40 winter, dust storms in spring, over 100f and humid in summer - and of course the pollution which the cars add to. In the old days people really suffered on their bikes - but also the city's so much bigger now. Hopefully the current 3 million cars on the road will stay steady or drcrease when the Beijing subway is completed in 2015, which aims to transport half the population by then on the worlds largest network (560km).

Beijing's weather is terrible, but I've spent two winters there and the temperature never dropped below -10 degrees Celsius for the record. Beijing's traffic congestion has far more to do with the car's role as an important status symbol than it does with the weather.

Anyway, Beijing is denser than any North American city excepting perhaps New York, and even that is far from certain.

[10023]

Beijing's weather is terrible, but I've spent two winters there and the temperature never dropped below -10 degrees Celsius for the record. Beijing's traffic congestion has far more to do with the car's role as an important status symbol than it does with the weather.

Anyway, Beijing is denser than any North American city excepting perhaps New York, and even that is far from certain.

I'd add (and keep in mind I haven't visited Beijing so my knowledge of the city's weather is secondhand) that there are plenty of cities with walkable neighborhoods or public transit where the weather is at least as uncomfortable as Beijing.

On a side note, I don't know where people in this forum got the idea that population density is a positive quality in its own right.

Density is good insofar as it improves quality of life, by allowing walkable neighborhoods, convenience, efficient public transit, attractive streetscapes (as opposed to vacant lots, 1-story strip malls, etc), creates some "buzz" and vibrancy, etc.

A super-dense city that lacks these things represents the worst of all possible worlds.

Hence the stupidity of posts trying to provide that the cookie-cutter suburbs of the Southwest U.S. are denser than the cookie-cutter suburbs of the Northeast U.S. It doesn't matter - all that means is that the auto-dependent, unwalkable, unlivable sprawl of Phoenix doesn't even give you the breathing room and green space that the auto-dependent sprawl of Connecticut or New Jersey gives you.

/end rant.

[JDRCRASH]

Hmm, does LA have any? I'm not sure I would call the one circling Downtown a "ring".

[dimondpark]

Did you just have a Captain Obvious moment? ;)

:haha:

[sofresh808]

Hmm, does LA have any? I'm not sure I would call the one circling Downtown a "ring".

Not a complete ring, but the 405 fits the role.

[dimondpark]

Not a complete ring, but the 405 fits the role.

er, how about the 405 to the 22 to the 57 to the 210 to the 134 to the 101 then back to the 405.

that was tiring.

[Buckeye Native 001]

er, how about the 405 to the 22 to the 57 to the 210 to the 134 to the 101 then back to the 405.

that was tiring.

And would take about two days to complete with all the traffic. ;)

[staff]

There's nothing really "insane" about Beijing's freeway network (considering its population) and it doesn't really tell anything about "the car being king" or that "Chinese have embraced the car" more than anywhere else. They are simply building a freeway network large enough to accommodate a city of 15-20 million people (which will be quite a bit larger already in 10-15 years) located in an area scattered with large cities (Tianjin with 10 million+ for example) and massive rural population densities as well.
The world's largest metro network and other massive mass transit projects are also under construction in Beijing, which is easy to forget.

[BarbaricManchurian]

Yes, it is Madrid style, they are constructing both expressways and public transportation, but I’ll have to disagree with staff about Beijing’s car dependency. Beijing’s car dependency seems higher than any other Chinese city besides Dongguan, and certain expressways, such as the 6th ring road are just not needed. Of course they are convenient, I’m not really a public transport at all costs kind of guy, BUT the fact is that there are certain Beijing expressways with perpetual traffic jams, and others with almost no traffic all the time. The core is extremely dense, but the outskirts are mostly “towers in the park” suburbia and small, dense old villages. You have to keep in mind that almost all of Beijing outside the 2nd ring road was built since the 1980s, and for such a new city, it is the exception as it is refreshingly well served by public transportation and the automobile isn’t promoted at all costs.

[sopas ej]

Hmm, does LA have any? I'm not sure I would call the one circling Downtown a "ring".

I was gonna mention that earlier but didn't... but since you did, I think it's the closest thing we have to a "ring" in LA County, and it does indeed encircle downtown LA; but I don't think it's possible to drive in a continuous circle over and over on this "ring," clockwise or counter-clockwise? Has anyone ever done it? I'm curious to try it, though I somehow don't think it's possible, but I could be wrong?

Going counter-clockwise, starting from the 5, I guess you could take the 101 north to the 110 south to the 10 east, but I don't think the 10 east hooks back up to the 101 north, does it? So I guess this doesn't count as a true ring road around downtown LA?

[Buckeye Native 001]

Going counter-clockwise, starting from the 5, I guess you could take the 101 north to the 110 south to the 10 east, but I don't think the 10 east hooks back up to the 101 north, does it? So I guess this doesn't count as a true ring road around downtown LA?

Going in the opposite direction: Start on the 110 north, take the 101 south (which merges with the 5 south, IIRC) to the 10 west back the 110?

[sopas ej]

Going in the opposite direction: Start on the 110 north, take the 101 south (which merges with the 5 south, IIRC) to the 10 west back the 110?

Hmm, I'm curious now, I think I'd like to try it in both directions; it'll have to be late at night/early in the morning when there'll be little traffic. Maybe I'll do it tonight, or this Saturday night/Sunday morning.

[tablemtn]

There are some mini-rings encircling downtowns... Rochester, NY has an "Inner Loop" that is about three miles in length. Portland, Oregon has a loop formed by interstates 5 and 405.

[sopas ej]

Going in the opposite direction: Start on the 110 north, take the 101 south (which merges with the 5 south, IIRC) to the 10 west back the 110?

Well, I just got home from trying to drive around the freeway ring that encircles downtown LA, and... (drumroll) it can't be done. I did this around 9-ish pm to about 10:30pm tonight (Monday night), and traffic was actually good. Going clockwise, you can take the 10 west, then the 110 north, then the 101/5 south, but then you can't get back to the 10 west, your only choices are the 60 east or to continue to the 5 south; I assume you'd have to get off the freeway and look for a 10 west onramp.

And then going counter-clockwise, I took the 5/101 north, the 110 south, and then the 10 east, but then after getting on the 10 east, your only other choices are the 60 east, the 5 south and the 5 north (which you can then take to continue going east on the 10); there's no way to get back on the 5/101 again.

Well THAT satisfies my curiosity! :tup:

[staff]

but I’ll have to disagree with staff about Beijing’s car dependency. Beijing’s car dependency seems higher than any other Chinese city besides Dongguan,

Actually I should have been more clear-- Beijing is indeed more car dependent than other Chinese cities (I had written that but edited it out for some reason). The point of my post was more to illustrate that the massive highway construction in Beijing and elsewhere in China hardly is an indication of "mass-autoism" or that the Chinese are "embracing the car" more than anywhere else (in the world)-- it's simply a number of large/mega cities in China accommodating its huge populations with proper infrastructure - both road, rail and mass transit. I don't think any city in China have anywhere near the amount of highways (per capita) than my home city in Sweden (which has two ring roads and six radial highways, for a city of ~300.000) for example.
The "Madrid effect", like you stated, might give the impression that these cities are somehow being wasteful and are building way too many highways - but it's rather a result of the poor and lacking highway networks prior to the boom.

[JDRCRASH]

Moscow has a few:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Mf7NlsFwlaM/SaCeGJN2FgI/AAAAAAAAACM/Voguk6Yd7pY/s400/moscow-map.jpg

[staff]

^^
If you are talking about Moscow you should probably mention the MKAD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKAD) (not visible in that downtown map) which measures some 110km.


I can never forget the breathtaking views of commieblocks and power plants from that beltway.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/MKAD-bitsa.jpg/800px-MKAD-bitsa.jpg

[Busy Bee]

I've been on the Grande Raccordo Anulare in Rome. That is the dirtiest scariest thing at night. Its got these plexiglass sound barrier type things on the sides that are COVERED in graffiti. It's a wonderful welcome to one of the world's best cities.

[ThreeHundred]

Phoenix has Loop 101. Ignore the real estate agent.

http://trevisoresales.com/images/map_big.jpg

[SpongeG]

I don't think my city has a ring road...

unless we started driving on the ocean we can't have one :haha:

new westminster could have one ;)

[BarbaricManchurian]

Actually I should have been more clear-- Beijing is indeed more car dependent than other Chinese cities (I had written that but edited it out for some reason). The point of my post was more to illustrate that the massive highway construction in Beijing and elsewhere in China hardly is an indication of "mass-autoism" or that the Chinese are "embracing the car" more than anywhere else (in the world)-- it's simply a number of large/mega cities in China accommodating its huge populations with proper infrastructure - both road, rail and mass transit. I don't think any city in China have anywhere near the amount of highways (per capita) than my home city in Sweden (which has two ring roads and six radial highways, for a city of ~300.000) for example.
The "Madrid effect", like you stated, might give the impression that these cities are somehow being wasteful and are building way too many highways - but it's rather a result of the poor and lacking highway networks prior to the boom.

Yeah, I totally agree; the car's role as a status symbol is already decreasing in some more-developed cities in China (including Beijing, and I would guess Shanghai), unfortunately Tianjin is still a few years away from that point.

[KVNBKLYN]

I guess New York doesn't have ring roads? I guess this would be because of the rivers and the three major airports throwing things off?

Interstates 287 and 278 are both partial ring roads. I-287 covers the southwest, west and northern suburbs in NJ and NY while I-278 connects all four outer boroughs with NJ in the southwest and Westchester (by way of 95) in the north. No one refers to I-278 by that name, however, as New Yorkers prefer to use the named segments (BQE, Staten Island Expressway, Bruckner Expressway) and I don't think many people consider it a ring road or beltway.

The original plan for 278 was to extend further west from its current terminus at the NJ Turnpike. I'm not sure if it was intended to meet with 287 there. It never got built because it would have bulldozed through a bunch of existing towns.

[Dan Denson]

I've been on the Grande Raccordo Anulare in Rome. That is the dirtiest scariest thing at night. Its got these plexiglass sound barrier type things on the sides that are COVERED in graffiti. It's a wonderful welcome to one of the world's best cities.

As much as I love Rome, I have to say that the city in general is covered in graffiti. It was so bad in the millineum year that they couldn't even begin to clean it up for all the tourists who visited that year.

[brian_b]

I got a copy in the mail today. Very cool :tup:

I'm going to hang it up at work next week.

[Jersey Mentality]

Interstates 287 and 278 are both partial ring roads. I-287 covers the southwest, west and northern suburbs in NJ and NY while I-278 connects all four outer boroughs with NJ in the southwest and Westchester (by way of 95) in the north. No one refers to I-278 by that name, however, as New Yorkers prefer to use the named segments (BQE, Staten Island Expressway, Bruckner Expressway) and I don't think many people consider it a ring road or beltway.

The original plan for 278 was to extend further west from its current terminus at the NJ Turnpike. I'm not sure if it was intended to meet with 287 there. It never got built because it would have bulldozed through a bunch of existing towns.

I dont think there was a plan to connect 278 and 287, but on I-95 there is a gap between Trenton and New Brunswick. 95 should connect 295 to 287 but it was never built because of all those towns in Middlesex and Somerset County protested. The gap should be fixed in a few years after the completion of an interchange at I-476 (Penna Turnpike) and I-95 north of Philly.

[JordanL]

Alright, I took a look at Portland. For clarity, the map to scale is approximately 13 miles wide (~21 kilometers):

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/1008/ringsn.jpg

Here we can see the two primary rings in Portland. Ring 1 actually never leaves downtown and acts as a circulator instead of sprawl machine. Ring 2 is more classical sprawl, however we haven't spent very much money or effort adding capacity to it. Instead we've opted for other solutions.

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/5146/allcenters.jpg

This map is an approximation of job and population centers in Portland. The circles indicate relative size and approximate center... this shouldn't be taken as an exact scale though. As we can see from this map, most of our housing without jobs is located in the south and east.

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3521/builtlightrail.jpg

This is a map of built high-capacity light-rail, with the exception of a very small portion of the yellow line at the top of the map. (It stops at the river.)

All of the lines travel to downtown Portland, acting to promote urban growth instead of suburban sprawl.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6962/builtallrail.jpg

This map shows all built public transit rail. The line in the SW corner is a diesel commuter line that does not travel to downtown Portland and instead connects to the light rail in Beaverton.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/3162/plannedrail.jpg

This map shows all rail that is built, underconstruction (green line), in pre-construction phases (orange line), or under planning phases (purple line).

This map will probably be a fairly accurate idea of Portland's rail system 20 years from now.

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/5906/centersrail.jpg

By laying the rail lines on top of our population and job centers, it's very easy to see what the general idea behind our planning is.

Despite the fact that Portland has rings, (not really concentric), it is the other things we do that promote urban growth and allow the rings to work less as promoters of sprawl and more as alternate routes.

[strongbad635]

There aren't many European cities on the list (arguably Paris does not have a complete ring road) because they understand the proper relationship between the highway and a town. Highways skirt the edges of towns, perhaps rounding the city a quarter of the way or so, but it does not plunge into the city and destroy its fabric. So you have dense towns and cities with a continuous urban fabric, and on the highway you primarily see uninterrupted countryside.

Complete ring roads are a double-edged sword. They can prevent highways from impeding into the city by diverting traffic around and away (Baltimore's Beltway does a good job of this), but they can also wall off a city and create a "status" to living outside of the ring (this is certainly the case in Atlanta, where being inside the perimeter usually means being black and/or poor).

As for New York City, the Darth Vader of city planning, Robert Moses, DID plan to encircle the entire island of Manhattan with highways, but the economic malaise at the end of his reign in the late 1960s stifled the full fruition of his automotive wet dream. The highways he did build in and around NYC have definitely done unbelievable harm to the urban fabric, not the least of which is because he designed overpasses that were purposely too low for buses to go under, so that public transportation couldn't be a part of the equation at all.

[Avanine-Commuter]

I'm really confused-- I'm looking on Google Maps and there's NO way that Houston is bigger than Beijing if we are comparing the outer rings. Am I missing something? Can someone help me put a side by side comparison or something?

Ty.

[manuelpr]

:previous: Yeah, I have been trying to find it on maps since it was posted in the Texas section. From where you assume the city core is, the eastern edge would probably reach or be close by city of Beaumont but I cant find it.

[manuelpr]

:previous: Yeah, I have been trying to find it on maps since it was posted in the Texas section. From where you assume the city core is, the eastern edge would probably reach or be close by city of Beaumont but I cant find it.

I think I got. FM 1960 on the north and 6 to the west and southwest. You take 6 to the seawall and it turns to 87 going east. Then you take 124 north until 90 which takes you to FM 1960. Correct me if I am wrong.

[Samwill89]

I think I got. FM 1960 on the north and 6 to the west and southwest. You take 6 to the seawall and it turns to 87 going east. Then you take 124 north until 90 which takes you to FM 1960. Correct me if I am wrong.

You are correct