Highway Feature

Sadly, roadgeek-oriented information about Rio is somewhat lacking.   So, unfortunately, I probably don’t appreciate the significance of this week’s highway feature.  But hey, it looked interesting, and that’s good enough for me. 

(View in Google Maps)

This week takes us to the bi-continental metropolis of Istanbul:

(View in Google Maps)

The Bosphorus Bridge is the first of two bridges to span the Bosphorus, separating Europe from Asia.  It’s a 4954 foot-long suspension bridge completed in 1973, and it has since been superceded by the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge as the “through traffic” route between the European and Asian sides of the city.

This week brings us to an interesting interchange in Tianjin, China:

This is the interchange of the Jingtang Expressway (京津塘高速公路), the Jinji Expressway (津蓟高速公路), and Tianjin’s Outer Ring Road (Waihuanxian)

The Jingtang Expressway (the upper northwest-southeast highway above) is a 4-lane tollway connecting Beijing with Tianjin.  It was built in 1993, and is reported to be seriously plagued by high traffic loads arising from the growth of long-haul trucking and personal auto ownership in the past 15 years.

The Jinji Expressway (running southwest-northeast in the map above) connects the urban center of Tianjin with Ji County of Tianjin province.

And, of course, the Waihuanxian (the more impressive-looking northwest-southeast highway in the map above) is the outer ring road.  Although it looks like a freeway in the above clip, in reality it is just a major road, not-fully controlled access.

After having spent the last few weeks visiting large urban areas with underdeveloped road systems, we now head to Russia, to visit the mighty (infamous?) original beltway of Moscow, the MKAD (the Moscow Automobile Ring Road).

An interesting looking interchange can be found on the southern edge of the city:

The MKAD is a 109km beltway.  Originally built in 1961 as a four-lane express road circling the administrative border of Moscow, it has in recent years been upgraded to a 10-lane urban beltway and is compared to the Capital Beltway (I-495) around Washington DC or the M25 around London.

Sadly, roadgeek information from Egypt is lacking.   So, I really have no almost no clue about the significance of these intersections in Cairo Egypt, but the array of major highways meeting, with the added complication of the presence of a rail line, just seemed too interesting to not merit a highlight:

Back to India this week:

Northwest of the center city of Kolkata there is an interestingly-named neighborhood called Dum Dum, best known for the being the home to a Royal Artillery armory in the 19th Century, and more recently the site of Kolkata’s international airport.

Pictured above is a random, under-construction interchange on National Highway 34 as it passes just to the west of the airport. It’s not terribly exciting, but I just had to feature the Dum Dum neighborhood.

This week takes us to China:

This is the Yangpu Bridge (杨浦大桥), an 8.4 kilometer bridge which provides a link between Pudong and the Yangpu District of Shanghai.   It is one part of the Inner Ring Road of Shanghai’s freeway system, and it’s center span of just over 600 meters renders it the fourth-largest cable-stayed bridge in the world.

Well, it’s the end of a road, anyway:

This is the intersection of Colorado Avenue and Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, California.  Passing underneath the intersection is California Highway 1.  Just to the northeast is the official western end of I-10, and extending to the southwest is the Santa Monica Pier.

This site is also considered the symbolic end of old Route 66, although the historic designation officially terminated some distance east of here, at the intersection of Lincoln and Olympic.

Back to Japan this week:

This is the Tempozan Interchange in Osaka, an interesting collection of ramps where Routes 4 and 5 (Wangan Route) and 16 (Osaka-ko Route) of the Hanshin Expressway (阪神高速道路) meet next to the Tempozan Harbor Village, home to the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan and the Tempozan Harbor Village Ferris Wheel, the world’s largest before the opening of the Millennium Eye in London.

Even though Hong Kong has been returned to China for over a decade now, the autonomy granted to the Hong Kong S.A.R. means that the border between mainland China and the former British Colony still functions like an international border.   Consider, for example the Lok Ma Chau ( 落馬洲) border crossing:

To the right is the road crossing, used primarily by trucks, coming in the form of a high bridge across the Shenzhen River.  The north end of a bridge features an impressive ramp structure that not only helps achieve the necessary elevation, but also facilitates the switchover of traffic from left-hand-drive in Hong Kong to right-hand-drive in mainland China.

To the left is a double-decked pedestrian bridge, housing immigration checks for pedestrians crossing the river between train stations on both sides of the river.