Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Alabama Roadgeekery (ASCII-art enhanced!)
This past weekend we went to Birmingham for my wife's friend's baby shower, and also visited my cousin in Cullman. This was my chance to notice a few things about Alabama roads.
On a long stretch of I-20 east of Birmingham, workers appeared to be burying some huge pipeline in the median.
Our hotel in B'ham was out on US-280, well outside of I-459. That section of 280 is a partial example of something that is very common in Alabama and (at least in my travels) not particularly common in a lot of other states: non-freeway highways with two-lane, two-way "service roads" or "access roads" on either side. Numerous other examples exist in Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery, and even Tuscaloosa. This is a styleized representation of a "typical" Alabama highway:
---------------------------------------
---> Access Road North
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<---
---------------------------------------
Median
---------------------------------------
--->
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
---> Main Highway Eastbound
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
--->
---------------------------------------
Median
---------------------------------------
<---
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<--- Main Highway Westbound
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<---
---------------------------------------
Median
---------------------------------------
---> Access Road South
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<---
---------------------------------------
Remember, these are surface roads, with at-grade intersections. In many cases, like this stretch of 280, lots of at-grade intersections. Streets crossing the highway have to intersect all four roadways. Presumably this system was originally designed to allow at least some local traffic to use the access roads instead of clogging up the main highway. Unfortunately, the access roads tend to be on the losing end of stop signs with the streets that cross them, and they are frequently interrupted so that you have to get out on the main road anyway.
With the possible exception of one short stretch of Buford Highway, I have never seen anything like this in Atlanta.
Mapquest doesn't really show 280's access roads with any accuracy, but this aerial photo doesn't lie.
Here is a mapquest map of Airport Boulevard in Mobile, one of the most (in)famous examples of this kind of highway. It is a common urban legend in Mobile that the person responsible for having planned Airport Boulevard actually committed suicide after seeing what a mess it turned into.
I explored 280 on into B'ham. Between I-459 and US 31 there are few traffic lights, left turns are rarely permitted, and there are even some freeway-style interchanges. They could probably go ahead and make the road into a full freeway without too much trouble. In fact they might even be planning to do so, since there were a lot of "road work" signs around.
After driving up I-65 to Cullman, we decided take US 278 back to Atlanta. Except for some four-lane stretches just east of Cullman and in places where it is multiplexed with US 431, this is mostly a two-lane road with occasional "truck lanes". While I have seen plenty of truck lanes in other states, including Georgia, I still regard them as something of an Alabama specialty.
The 4-lane sections of 278 also exhibited another thing that, while certainly not limited to Alabama, is especially common there. In hilly areas, one half of the highway tends to roll with the hills, while on the other side the ground has been flattened by any means neccessary. This is obviously due to the two sides having been built decades apart, with completely different technology and standards. It results in a pretty big difference in elevation between the two sides, which can produce some interesting intersections. The cross-roads sometimes have to turn sideways between the two halves of the highway in order climb the hill.
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On a long stretch of I-20 east of Birmingham, workers appeared to be burying some huge pipeline in the median.
Our hotel in B'ham was out on US-280, well outside of I-459. That section of 280 is a partial example of something that is very common in Alabama and (at least in my travels) not particularly common in a lot of other states: non-freeway highways with two-lane, two-way "service roads" or "access roads" on either side. Numerous other examples exist in Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery, and even Tuscaloosa. This is a styleized representation of a "typical" Alabama highway:
---------------------------------------
---> Access Road North
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<---
---------------------------------------
Median
---------------------------------------
--->
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
---> Main Highway Eastbound
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
--->
---------------------------------------
Median
---------------------------------------
<---
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<--- Main Highway Westbound
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<---
---------------------------------------
Median
---------------------------------------
---> Access Road South
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<---
---------------------------------------
Remember, these are surface roads, with at-grade intersections. In many cases, like this stretch of 280, lots of at-grade intersections. Streets crossing the highway have to intersect all four roadways. Presumably this system was originally designed to allow at least some local traffic to use the access roads instead of clogging up the main highway. Unfortunately, the access roads tend to be on the losing end of stop signs with the streets that cross them, and they are frequently interrupted so that you have to get out on the main road anyway.
With the possible exception of one short stretch of Buford Highway, I have never seen anything like this in Atlanta.
Mapquest doesn't really show 280's access roads with any accuracy, but this aerial photo doesn't lie.
Here is a mapquest map of Airport Boulevard in Mobile, one of the most (in)famous examples of this kind of highway. It is a common urban legend in Mobile that the person responsible for having planned Airport Boulevard actually committed suicide after seeing what a mess it turned into.
I explored 280 on into B'ham. Between I-459 and US 31 there are few traffic lights, left turns are rarely permitted, and there are even some freeway-style interchanges. They could probably go ahead and make the road into a full freeway without too much trouble. In fact they might even be planning to do so, since there were a lot of "road work" signs around.
After driving up I-65 to Cullman, we decided take US 278 back to Atlanta. Except for some four-lane stretches just east of Cullman and in places where it is multiplexed with US 431, this is mostly a two-lane road with occasional "truck lanes". While I have seen plenty of truck lanes in other states, including Georgia, I still regard them as something of an Alabama specialty.
The 4-lane sections of 278 also exhibited another thing that, while certainly not limited to Alabama, is especially common there. In hilly areas, one half of the highway tends to roll with the hills, while on the other side the ground has been flattened by any means neccessary. This is obviously due to the two sides having been built decades apart, with completely different technology and standards. It results in a pretty big difference in elevation between the two sides, which can produce some interesting intersections. The cross-roads sometimes have to turn sideways between the two halves of the highway in order climb the hill.
| |
| |
-------------+ +-------
- - - - - - - - - - - -
-------------+ +-------
| |
+-------+ |
| +-------+
| |
-----+ +---------------
- - - - - - - - - - - -
-----+ +---------------
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