Irelands Ten Worst Roundabouts

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History of American Highway building

Notice how they link it up with good old ‘Eik’. I heard Patrick Scott saying last night in the documentary, that in the 1930s in Ireland during the economic war with Britain, some people were saying, I wish we had a Mussolini here.

I guess Ireland, in the early parts of the 20th century never had a stage at which, some leader or otherwise charismatic person took matters into their own hands.

We have had many ‘personalities’ for our leaders, we have a ‘kind of personality now’ for a leader, and he does seem to get into the motorway thing a bit. But how many ringforts do you think good old ‘El Duce’ would stop for? 🙂

That anybody would ever romanticize the days when America moved on rails would have stunned the highway boosters of the first half of the 20th century. In those days, highways meant progress, pure and simple. Railroads and streetcars did not. Both had been built with private capital, and the railroads in particular embodied capitalism at its most rapacious. To the Progressives who came to political power at the turn of the century, highways were the Main Street alternative to Wall Street-dominated rail. And for people who lived in rural areas, paved roads weren’t just an alternative; they were an escape from mud-imposed isolation during the rainy months.

Well if you read that extract above, which related trains to stock exchanges, and highway building to the new progressive people in power – I think that the internet and computing nowadays – is a highway too. One which is driven by consumer demand, and like the early days of the automotive industry, has had more than its fair share of cowboys too. You will notice, that like the automotive industry, the number of players in the computer industry are getting less and less.

But what was interesting was how, the dotcom bust proves, that unlike the old days, with the railroad building analogy for the internet – you cannot ‘corporatise’ the new highways – automotive or otherwise. Places like America have taken ‘the consumer oriented world’ to an extreme, with loads of motorway, loads of cheap web access, loads of mals,… all to do with consumer spending, and in turn keeping their economy booming.

In and around America’s big cities, the legacy of the Interstates is more complicated. When talk of an Interstate system first began in the 1930s, urban areas weren’t really part of the equation. The point was to link cities, not repave them. By the 1950s, though, big-city mayors and merchants were becoming alarmed by the car-enabled outflow of people and commerce to the suburbs. The solution, as they saw it, was to make it easier to get into, out of, and around cities by car. Highway planners listened and redrew their Interstate maps to wrap every big city with superhighways, high cost be damned.

The backlash came remarkably quickly. It’s easy enough to trace in the pages of FORTUNE: Through 1956 the magazine depicted urban superhighways in a positive light. But in 1957 and 1958, as the bulldozers came out in force, a series of articles on “The Exploding Metropolis” called the automobile’s urban role into question, wondering at one point whether the highways needed to get cars downtown might “carve so much space out of the city that little worthwhile will remain.”

The notion that big highways and big cities don’t mix spread. In 1959, San Franciscans staged the “freeway revolt” that halted the building of the Embarcadero Freeway along the city’s waterfront. In the 1960s, successful anti-freeway protests followed in Washington, D.C., New Orleans, New York, Boston, and other cities.

motor city!

indeed. this is the type of society that we are striving to be.

Two quickies:

US roundabouts – there are plenty, and there are also loads of a horrible device called a traffic circle that appears designed to cause accidents. Check this out:

http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/fall95/p95a41.htm

You should check out the terrible interchanges that exist between freeways and surface streets in the US as well. Try the single-point urban interchange (scroll down a bit):

http://www.kurumi.com/roads/interchanges/spui.html

… or this take on the most common motorway-motorway interchange in the UK, the three-level stacked roundabout:

http://www.kurumi.com/roads/interchanges/volleyball.html

… and there is of course the most common full interchange in the US (and Germany), the cloverleaf – poor capacity, low speeds and weaving traffic all in one. It’s probably better than this though:

http://www.centerturn.com/

… and any other interchange design with overtaking-lane exits, of which we are getting a few along the M50.

Italian autostrade – these are not world-class; they have extremely narrow lanes, no hard shoulders and poor interchanges. When combined with Italian driving, they are amongst the most intimidating roads you’ll ever encounter. In fact, people who have experience of excellent British or American motorways and dismiss ours as pathetic may be surprised by the poor quality of much of Europe’s network.

At least we’ve never done this:

And most development of the past 50 years isn’t dense enough to support mass transit—even when it is, the failure of newer suburbs to build sidewalks has made it unpleasant or impossible for many Americans to walk short distances to schools, stores, bus stops, and train stations. (This, coupled with the rise of fast-food chains, may be where the Interstate system and the nation’s obesity epidemic intersect.)

when in doubt stick in a roundabout!

jeez, i’m a poet … that should have been my calling!!!!!

do the little tits on the road count?