Oddities

On her blog at the Courant, Loretta Waldman has posted pictures of a proposed overpass for the US44 / Route 10 intersection at the foot of Avon Mountain.  The intersection is infamous as the site of a couple of spectacular crashes in the past few years, due to trucks’ brakes failing on the steep downgrade.

This problem was supposed to be resolved by an ugly runaway truck ramp recently installed, but apparently ConnDOT still has some grand plans.  "Before" and "after" pictures are up:

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.

Treehugger ran the following photo of an entertaining bike lane in Amsterdam:

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.

We go to Brazil this week:

This is a section of SP-160, the Rodovia dos Imigrantes (”Immigrants Highway”), a toll expressway connecting São Paulo with the Atlantic coastal cities of São Vicente and Praia Grande, descending 800 meters in elevation down the Serra do Mar in the process.

Due to the volume of beach-bound traffic, the route can be converted into a one-way expressway (with traffic seeking to go the other way relegated to the older Rodovia Anchieta).

The particular stretch shown above is one of the crossover points of the two carriageways, as they snake around the escarpment, making use of 44 viaducts, 7 bridges, and 11 tunnels for the 59km route.

Via CaHwyGuy’s Livejournal, I found this odd story in the Los Angeles Times:

For 10 days now, a sagging house parked on the freeway’s northbound shoulder in the Cahuenga Pass has had people gawking — and talking.[...]

Richardson, 45, of Castaic, obtained a permit from Caltrans to transport the oversize load on the freeway. Instead of taking the shortest route — up the 405 Freeway and over the Sepulveda Pass — he took a longer and more level route through downtown L.A. and north on the 101 Freeway.

By the time the 20-foot-wide structure reached the downtown area, wheels were reportedly coming loose from the trailer hauling the house. Richardson made emergency repairs and lumbered onward, only to come to a halt again in Hollywood.

That’s where his house struck the 14-foot-10-inch Western Avenue bridge. The impact sheared off the top of the structure’s roof. A SigAlert was called when it took hours to free the stuck house. Richardson eventually was able to limp another 3 1/2 miles to Barham Boulevard, where the shoulder beneath the overpass was wide enough for the house to be parked out of traffic lanes.

You know, there have been a couple of times in my life where I’ve had very easy commutes.   In college, for example, I lived in an apartment upstairs from one of my jobs.  Post-college job #2 saw me living next door to my office. And currently, I have to travel frequently for work, making owning a home near the end of the runway pretty darned convenient.

I can see that there’s something to be said for living someplace with such easy freeway access.

I can also see that this would be a textbook example of the rationale in the warning, ”don’t try this at home”.

Actually, I think that pictures of this wayward bungalow ought to be incorporated in Travelers’ display of wacky disasters in the east concourse of Terminal A at BDL.  The display shows a number of…unique (and presumably fictional) claim situations.  Having your house broken-down on the verge of the motorway would fit right in with that display. 

For this week’s Highway Feature, I thought I’d do something a little different

Route 128 (known as I-95 outside New England) is an overcrowded generally 6-lane urban/suburban freeway between Route 9 and Route 24 during rush hour. Rather than widen the road, the local powers-that-be decided to permit drivers to use the shoulder (the “breakdown lane” in New England-speak) as a travel lane during rush hours.

It can be a disconcerting experience if you’re just passing through the area, like I was when I took this picture. The entrance ramps lose their acceleration lanes, traffic wanders a little bit in/out of the shoulder because of the optical illusion created from striping varying between shoulder and acceleration/deceleration lane….

It’s a “fun” experience, in other words.

A post on DGlenn’s Livejournal alerted me to the addition of a major “road” to the Google Maps database.

See this set of directions as an example. (Note step 59.)

For this week, I thought I’d offer this fun stretch of street in San Francisco:

Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world.

I’m featuring it here for no good reason other than my enjoying visiting San Francisco, and that it was featured in a Pepsi commercial with some entertaining SFX.

This block of Lombard Street features eight switchbacks to facilitate vehicular traffic down the 27 degree grade.

Now, here’s a highway feature I’m glad I don’t have to encounter any time soon:

This rotary was featured in the Telegraph in January, and it serves as an example of how perhaps China’s infrastructure hasn’t kept up with the rise of an automobile culture in that country.