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This week brings us to Chicago: This is the northern terminus of the Stevenson Expressway, I-55, at US 41 (Lake Shore Drive) a bit south of downtown Chicago. Most of the ends of interstates I’ve encountered in the US tend to be rather anticlimactic. However, at least I-55’s north end benefits from the distinction of ending on [...] 
This wee brings us to Thailand (View in Google Maps) This is the new (opened in 2006) Dipangkorn Rasmijoti Bridge, a.k.a the Mega Bridge. It carries the Industrial Ring Road across the Chao Phraya River, and connects Bangkok with the Samut Prakan Province. 
It’s Beijing’s week to get a highway feature highlighted. So, in honor of the Summer Olympics…. (View in Google Maps) The Fourth Ring Road is a frequently congested loop about 8 kilometers outside the core of the city of Beijing. This particular location is where the expressway passes just south of the new National Stadium, the “birds [...] 
This week brings us to the outskirts of Paris, where we see what happens when the French need to build an interchange between two partially underground autoroutes: This is the interchange between the Autoroute 14 (running northwest-southeast in the map above) and the Autoroute 86, the Paris Super-Périphérique (second beltway, running southwest-northeast in the map above). The [...]
This week brings us to Germany, home of the Autobahns. In the industrial Rhine-Ruhr megalopolis, we can find the answer to the question — how exactly do you design an interchange between two freeways meeting at a shallow angle, with a river and a railroad complicating matters: This is the Kreuz Kaiserberg, the interchange between the [...]
I’ve come to the conclusion that America doesn’t have enough roundabouts or traffic circles. They’re beautiful structures and, the way we drive in the States, they provide a practical field test of Darwin’s theories. Consider, for example, this highway feature in Tehran: (View in Google Maps) This is the Hagh-Shenaas Square, a roundabout-based interchange for the recently [...] 
We’ll stay in South America for another week, and move a bit to the south, to Buenos Aires: (View in Google Maps) When I first spotted this in Google Maps, I was struck by the similarity (at first glance anyway) to Chicago’s Circle interchange. The north-south road portrayed above is the 9 de Julio Avenue, a broad multi-carriageway [...]
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 brings us to an interesting interchange in Tianjin, China: (View in Google Maps) 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 [...]
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: (View in Google Maps) The MKAD is [...] |
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