London
I really like one with the traffic circle, as you can totally see it at "street level" and integrating with the urban fabric, with one trenched freeway and one elevated freeway
Paris
Vancouver's 2nd largest (Hwy99/91)
Vancouver's largest (Cape Horn)
Montreal (Turcott)
Dubai
Dallas (High Five Interchange)
Los Angeles (I405/105)
So far it seems like none pale to the GTA
(400/407)
The parclo interchanges so commonly used in Ontario (they were actually designed by the Ontario government) are pretty wasteful of land but are arguably the most efficient for traffic, especially when compared to more traditional cloverleaf or diamond designs, and they are cheaper to maintain than the fancy multi-level flyovers-galore type interchanges found in American cities.
Parclos are actually one of the things that sets Ontario apart. Almost every interchange in the entire province is a parclo. By contrast, parclos are relatively rare pretty much everywhere else, although other jurisdictions around the world are increasingly adopting them.
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"It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves." - Friedrich Hayek
It doesn't exist yet, but unfortunately the future confluence of 3 highways in Calgary will probably take the cake for this "distinction"... the Glenmore Trail, Sarcee Trail, and Stoney Trail Interchange. Part of the Calgary SW Ring Road project set to begin construction this year.
Mohkínstsis — 1.6 million people at the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains, 400 high-rises, a 300-metre SE to NW climb, over 1000 kilometres of pathways, with 20% of the urban area as parkland.
BC has always had quite irregular shaped interchanges with a minimal footprint, until the Cape Horn got built last year. I started this thread in while dismay at the mad rush of stack interchanges about to happen with the Hwy99 upgrade (see here: http://skyscraperpage.com/forum/show...201708&page=77), and got curious how these interchanges compare to others out there.
BC has always had quite irregular shaped interchanges with a minimal footprint, until the Cape Horn got built last year. I started this thread in while dismay at the mad rush of stack interchanges about to happen with the Hwy99 upgrade (see here: http://skyscraperpage.com/forum/show...201708&page=77), and got curious how these interchanges compare to others out there.
You talk about wasting space and then dislike the idea of the stack interchanges proposed (with centre media bus stops as well I might add). For the amount of movement being done you cant have it both ways. That fact that they are so multi-layered is actually going to make them very compact. In fact the new Steveston interchange will take up less space than old existing design (with loops) that it is replacing.
Even if the bridge width was reduced this interchange should still remain the same design.
Shanghai's largest interchange has got to be the Xinzhuang interchange in SW Shanghai, where 3 expressways (S20 Outer Ring, S4 Jinshan Expressway, and G60 Hukun Expressway) plus the Humin Elevated Road and Humin Highway, plus mainline AND metro rail service all intersect. It's gigantic.
But this is almost suburban, whereas the urban interchanges are much more compact, but very tall due to the fact that the intersecting highways are generally both elevated.
This one is my favourite, especially to drive on - the interchange on the west end of the Nanpu Bridge. It's actually very compact given how much height it has to lose from the bridge deck (46m above the river) to the roadways below. The space is also very efficiently used, as there is a park and a bus terminal in the centre of the spiral.
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"Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature." - Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
It doesn't exist yet, but unfortunately the future confluence of 3 highways in Calgary will probably take the cake for this "distinction"... the Glenmore Trail, Sarcee Trail, and Stoney Trail Interchange. Part of the Calgary SW Ring Road project set to begin construction this year.
It should be mentioned though that that is the 'ultimate' stage including a second ring road that will probably never be built. What we will get in the next few years will not include the central express lanes or a lot of the flyovers.
Interchanges that have a large footprint are not automatically wasteful. Building more expensive, less efficient, tight interchanges when land is plentiful is what's wasteful.
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Lana. Lana. Lana? LANA! Danger Zone
FYI, There is a similar thread in the transportation folder that has many great pictures of freeways around the world.
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell)
What do you mean by wasteful? Sure we'd like to see a better use of space in urban design but freeways are meant to keep movement going at as high rate a speed as possible. The ones used by the 400 series hwy's in Ontario are pretty standard for newer hwys built in areas that have space for them around the globe. It would be nice if they did a better job of landscaping them and planting trees in and around the interchanges. I'm sure some would consider tighter corners and slower traffic to be wasteful hwy design if it ads time to ones commute.
Outside of your London, Paris, and Dubai examples they all look fairly similar to me. That Dubai example probably the most efficient design and was most likely designed like so many other things there to look good on an aerial map or from satellite.
Moncton was on something when they designed this, a massive traffic circle (not even a proper roundabout), which leads into a freeway on one side, a small freeway segment and then traffic lights on another, and then freeway on the final side, first blocked by more lights. What's the point in building a giant, high speed circle and occupying ludicrous amounts of land when most people have to stop immediately after?
There's absolutely nothing wasteful about the 401, etc. whether one finds it compact or spread out in its form. Nitpicking in the wrong place. There are dozens of uses that are much grwater land hogs that aren't such vital pieces of infrastructure.
It looks like a normal roundabout but the overhead views loses the nice grades that lead down into it. It's like one of those waterslides that is a giant funnel you spin around before falling through.
There's absolutely nothing wasteful about the 401, etc. whether one finds it compact or spread out in its form. Nitpicking in the wrong place. There are dozens of uses that are much grwater land hogs that aren't such vital pieces of infrastructure.
Like golf courses.
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All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us? NOTHING!
Surely the wastefulness when it comes to these things comes down to the impact to commute times due to properly engineered versus improperly engineered traffic flows. Greenery and being as compact as possible seems to be the wrong goal for these types of things. It isn't like people are making the trip down to the local freeway interchange to have a family picnic.
By that score the Vancouver area ones are particularly "wasteful".
By "wasteful" I mean, sure, cutting butter with a chainsaw is faster than with a butterknife, but you might wreck the counter top. It's great that I can maintain 200kph while switching freeways on a flyover, but if it means dooming the surrounding urban area into unconnected regions that can neither be crossed by foot nor effectively serviced by transit, forcing more people into cars, thus generating the traffic queue that I'm stuck at on the first arterial off-ramp, then it's of little value.
By "wasteful" I mean, sure, cutting butter with a chainsaw is faster than with a butterknife, but you might wreck the counter top. It's great that I can maintain 200kph on a flyover while switching freeways, but if it means dooming the surrounding urban area into unconnected regions that can neither be crossed by foot nor effectively serviced by transit, forcing more people into cars, thus generating the traffic queue that I'm stuck at on the first arterial off-ramp, then it's of little value.
So offer up your solution so it can be discussed - it's not difficult to bash what exists but coming up with truly viable alternatives isn't necessarily that easy either.
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Just a wee bit below average prairie boy in Canada's third largest city and fourth largest CMA
So offer up your solution so it can be discussed - it's not difficult to bash what exists but coming up with truly viable alternatives isn't necessarily that easy either.
An urban form dense and connected enough to render walking and high quality transit viable alternatives to driving?
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