Highways in Canada

[FrAnKs]

Awesome pictures Klazu !

I love how BC roads are designed

I especially loved the Yellow ''Exit'' ''Only''

[middeljohn]

This is insane, I just stumbled across a map of the German autobahns on wikipedia. So dense! Makes the 400 series look like amateur hour.

[Innsertnamehere]

In Ontario's defence that is for 80 million people rather than 13 million.

[SignalHillHiker]

And Canada's population is much more linear. It's harder to create such a convenient highway system when everyone lives along the same line.

[middeljohn]

I know, still crazy to look at though. The country is only 1000km in its longest direction, and only 317,000 sq km. That's a dense network of freeways for a very densely populated country!

[vid]

You have to move everyone somehow. The three western states of North Rhine-Westfalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse have 27.5 million people between them, and they're not in a well-organized cluster like the GTA. It's a very poly-centric, very dense region. You need that many highways for the economy to function.

I doubt an of them have more than 6 lanes, either. With that much duplication it isn't necessary.

[middeljohn]

I agree with everything you guys are saying, I just find it to be an incredibly advanced and well-planned network. The Germans aren't perfect, but they do some things to near perfection. Building highways in urban areas without it inducing severe sprawl is one of them.

[Klazu]

I used to live in Dortmund, which is inside Ruhr-Rhein metropolis. The highway density in that area is comparable to Dallas, Texas. The cool part is that the rail network is even more dense.

Originally Posted by vid

I doubt an of them have more than 6 lanes, either. With that much duplication it isn't necessary.

You are mainly correct. There are some sections of Autobahn with 8 lanes, but mainly it is either 4 or 6 lanes. It's pretty amazing how so few lanes will allow so much traffic to travel at very high speeds (150km/h is almost the standard speed on Autobahn). That and the excellent road conditions are something I miss here in BC.

[libtard]

You're not supposed to equate anything European with anything American in the highway threads! In Germany their highway network is dense and modern. While in Dallas the highways are clearly sprawling and monstrous.

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by libtard

You're not supposed to equate anything European with anything American in the highway threads! In Germany their highway network is dense and modern. While in Dallas the highways are clearly sprawling and monstrous.

A little comparison for our pleasure :

Dallas i-635
• Video Link
Berlin A-10, A-113, A-100 and A-111.
• Video Link

One thing you can notice though is how careless US drivers are compared to Europeans.

[middeljohn]

I really enjoyed that, thanks franks!

I cannot overstate how much those short on ramps on US interstates piss me off. Can't imagine that there haven't been loads of accidents caused by not having enough time to merge. Omtario's highways may be as wide as theirs, and it may have led to as much sprawl as theirs, but at least our freeways are amongst the top in design quality and safety, with on ramps typically giving 300m of room to merge in. The super 5 was impressive though.

Those autobahns are nice! 194,000 AADT on the busiest section of Germany? That's not too bad. But any place in North America they would've widened the section to 10 lanes, in turn pushing AADT to 250,000 and then it becomes a never ending cycle. Also, did you guys notice how small all the cars were? They were either hatchbacks or compact sedans. No Lincoln Navigators and Ford Explorers. I didn't notice a single pickup truck. Or semi-trailers for that matter.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by middeljohn

I really enjoyed that, thanks franks!

I cannot overstate how much those short on ramps on US interstates piss me off. Can't imagine that there haven't been loads of accidents caused by not having enough time to merge. Omtario's highways may be as wide as theirs, and it may have led to as much sprawl as theirs, but at least our freeways are amongst the top in design quality and safety, with on ramps typically giving 300m of room to merge in. The super 5 was impressive though.

Those autobahns are nice! 194,000 AADT on the busiest section of Germany? That's not too bad. But any place in North America they would've widened the section to 10 lanes, in turn pushing AADT to 250,000 and then it becomes a never ending cycle. Also, did you guys notice how small all the cars were? They were either hatchbacks or compact sedans. No Lincoln Navigators and Ford Explorers. I didn't notice a single pickup truck. Or semi-trailers for that matter.

They might not be semi-trailers in the North American sense, but there are LOTS of long transport trucks on European highways.

It's actually really really bad on some of the routes - worse than most places in North America for sure. Both edges of the highways in Europe tend to have those steel guardrails the entire length - even in the countryside - and when you are trying to pass a long line of transports it's actually much more stressful than on a rural Interstate where you have open grassy medians and verges.

You actually feel really caged in. I've driven there a lot.

[haljackey]

The only highway system that comes close to comparing with the German and US networks are Quebec's Autoroutes. Ontario's are not a web, in fact most of the highways just feed into the 401.

[Innsertnamehere]

My understanding is that Europeans have a crappier freight rail network a larger portion of freight is moved by trucks right?

[sa230e]

Originally Posted by middeljohn

I really enjoyed that, thanks franks!

I cannot overstate how much those short on ramps on US interstates piss me off. Can't imagine that there haven't been loads of accidents caused by not having enough time to merge. Omtario's highways may be as wide as theirs, and it may have led to as much sprawl as theirs, but at least our freeways are amongst the top in design quality and safety, with on ramps typically giving 300m of room to merge in. The super 5 was impressive though.

Those autobahns are nice! 194,000 AADT on the busiest section of Germany? That's not too bad. But any place in North America they would've widened the section to 10 lanes, in turn pushing AADT to 250,000 and then it becomes a never ending cycle. Also, did you guys notice how small all the cars were? They were either hatchbacks or compact sedans. No Lincoln Navigators and Ford Explorers. I didn't notice a single pickup truck. Or semi-trailers for that matter.

The Autobahn merge lanes didn't seem very long either (judging from the video). Surprising for such a high speed road.

[vid]

The interchange north of Thunder Bay has a 300m long merge lane (part of a 1,200m long ramp) and a speed limit of only 90, and an AADT of 9,000.

It's so safe, it encourages recklessness!

[Dmajackson]

If you want ridiculously long merge lanes look no further than Nova Scotia Highway 101 Exit 2 (Sackville). The southbound merge lane onto the highway is 1.3km long with the first ~280 metres marked as a solid white line. The merge ramp is marked as 70km/h and the highway is marked as 100km/h. Traffic counts are only around ~15'000 (one direction).

Bing's Bird Eye View

[middeljohn]

My favourite highway in terms of safety and ease of merging remains the QEW section between Brant and Trafalgar. All the merging lanes become a fifth lane and then become the off ramps again at the next exit (I think they're called weave lanes). So basically 2-4 km space to merge. Also an incredibly smooth and straight highway ever since they did the reconstruction a few years ago. IIRC AADT ranges from 240,000 to 160,000.

[libtard]

The merge lanes on the 407 are comically long

[middeljohn]

Originally Posted by sa230e

The Autobahn merge lanes didn't seem very long either (judging from the video). Surprising for such a high speed road.

The Autobahn's ramps



Are better than Dallas' ramps



But aren't to the standard of the 401's ramps