Quote:
Originally Posted by Roy McDowell
I think it would be nice if US280 in Birmingham would model after Huntsville's Memorial Parkway with it's service roads in order to cut down on the long crazy back ups during rush hour. You could either elevate the service roads above 280 like the one highway in San Antonio and Austin with ramps exits or elevate the center. I'm all for using service roads to separate local traffic from express. I hear there was a proposal for this before.
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Perhaps, but it's not a system without disadvantages. The reason Memorial Parkway has its setup is that Huntsville, a city that until recently was primarily oriented north-to-south, has no north-south interstate. Memorial Parkway's current form is a compromise between a high-mobility freeway and a high-accessibility arterial road. Parts of it are woefully outdated close to downtown with tight ramps and blind elevation changes. It's an inadequate design that can't readily be changed for the second-busiest highway in the state (only I-65 near downtown Birmingham has higher traffic counts).
US-280 in Birmingham would probably benefit most from having better traffic-signal synchronization and a few key overpasses at major intersections, but not the whole road.