# Busiest road on earth



## Bartolo

*Which is the busiest freeway*

Which is the busiest freeway
401-Toronto
Santa Monica Freeway-LA
Southwest Freeway-Houstan
I-35-Atlanta


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## rufi

Probably the LA one.


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## DrJoe

The 401 is the busiest in North America, not sure about the world.

From Wikipedia

"Today it is considered North America's busiest highway, with an estimated *Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) over 425,000 * in 2004, near the interchange with Highway 400. Due to its triple use as the main trade, commuting and recreational corridor in Ontario, *many days spike well beyond the 500,000 level.* The just-in-time inventory systems of the highly integrated auto industry in Michigan and Ontario have made the highway into the busiest truck route in North America. The 401 also includes the continent's busiest multi-structure bridge at Hogg's Hollow in Toronto (4 structures for the highway's 4 roadway beds)".


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## Nick in Atlanta

Definitely I-35 in Atlanta. It's so fast you can't even see it.


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## Sexas

Where is Houstan?


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## MSP

I-35 isn't in Atlanta. I-75 is though...


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## HoustonTexas

"Houstan" Gotta love it


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## Nick in Atlanta

Yeah, those Kanaideeans! I-35 in Atlanta and "Houstan."  :runaway:


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## Bartolo

I meant I-75, what can i say i miss read a post on another site, and ya itz Houston


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## Nick in Atlanta

Bartolo said:


> I meant I-75, what can i say i miss read a post on another site, and ya itz Houston


I'm just kidding you!


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## centralized pandemonium

401, no doubt.


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## Guest

401.


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## Booyashako

I wouldn't be surprised if it was the 401 (and it's only getting bigger/busier)...however, I think the Santa Monica Fwy is pretty busy.


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## _tictac_

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/compass/systems/401main.htm
401: 350,000 vehicles on an average day.

http://www.cahighways.org/stats3.html#Busiest
I-10: 363,000

I voted for the Santa Monica Fwy


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## DrJoe

^^ old numbers there, the 401 basically goes up every year.


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## _tictac_

It's taken from the official website, and besides, the statistics for the Santa Monica Fwy are from 1993 so...

The number is much higher than 363,000 now


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## DrJoe

Or we could use wikipedia which has the 2004 stats and claims the 401 to be the busiest.


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## _tictac_

DrJoe said:


> Or we could use wikipedia which has the 2004 stats and claims the 401 to be the busiest.


Sure, but since when did Wikipedia know any better than the Ministry of Transportation in Ontario though?


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## DrJoe

Wikipedia actually updates the page, something im sure the ministry hasnt done for 5-10 years now


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## _tictac_

DrJoe said:


> Wikipedia actually updates the page, something im sure the ministry hasnt done for 5-10 years now


I doubt that's the case here.
We all know websites are not to be trusted when it comes to statistics, simply because there are hundreds of different answers.
Works the same way with statistics related to population within a city, different opinions and statistics.


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## Bartolo

canadian highways usually dont have prefixes, not in ontario atleast


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## Facial

You forgot the I-5 between SD and LA.


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## aswnl

Interesting link:

http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/wf.htm


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## Hogtown

The 401 has the largest traffic volume largely because of its position in the region as a traderoute. It is also the highway that all other major Toronto highways empty out on, forming the backbone of the system. I would guess that LA's SM freeway has larger commuter traffiic volumes though, if only there was a way to actually measure that...


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## 2Easy

According to the California DOT, the 10 Fwy isn't even the biggest in the LA area. The 405 in Seal Beach at the LA/Orange County border handles 390,000 vehicles per day.

The intersection of the 110 and 10 is 643,000 vehicles per day.

By the way, the LA area figures are averaged over the whole year including weekends and holidays. I wonder if the Canadian ones are as well.

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/saferesr/trafdata/2003all.htm


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## sonysnob

2Easy said:


> According to the California DOT, the 10 Fwy isn't even the biggest in the LA area. The 405 in Seal Beach at the LA/Orange County border handles 390,000 vehicles per day.
> 
> The intersection of the 110 and 10 is 643,000 vehicles per day.
> 
> By the way, the LA area figures are averaged over the whole year including weekends and holidays. I wonder if the Canadian ones are as well.
> 
> http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/saferesr/trafdata/2003all.htm


The Ontario data is also averaged over the entire year.

As far as I am aware, the standard for traffic data is AADT.

AADT stands for Average Annual Traffic Data, and it is measured in vehicles per day.

I believe that the 110, 10 interchange is busier then anything in Toronto, tho the 404/401/DVP interchange would be relatively close.

Scott Steeves


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## pwright1

I read that the Santa Monica Freeway is North America's busiest. Plus the Los Angeles area has more autos than any city in the world.


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## abrowser

*Busiest*

It's the I-10 Santa Monica Fwy. between the I-110 and I-405.
And the I-405 is hell to drive every day-that God I don't have to.


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## skyscraper17

I dont care what everyone else says. Highway 401 is the busiest Highway in North America. Case Closed. Bye.


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## Stratosphere 2020

Nevertherless Atlanta has some impressive traffic jam images


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## djm19

If by impressive you mean nightmare-provoking.


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## hamhamfan

pwright1 said:


> Plus the Los Angeles area has more autos than any city in the world.


LA is a very spread out and decentralized city with freeways criss-crossing the map. Depending on where one starts, it's possible to reach the same destination using different highways. Also, the I-10 services only a portion of LA (Santa Monica to downtown), so it's possible that many residents do not use it often. The 405 gets the vast majority of my time. On the other hand, other posters have suggested that the 401 plays a very central role in meeting Toronto's transportation needs.


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## Gordon Freeman

Yes the 401 is the Busiest highway in NA, funny Metro Toronto has about 6 million, while LA has about 16 million, must be alot of mass transit users, joggers, bikers or something, anyways Vancouver BC may not have the Busiest Highway but not only is the Highway system is the worst ive ever seen and driven on, mind u greater Vancouver has 2 million people, but it is the only city where ive stoped at a red light and seen it change 5 times before i got to go, no joke, people out here drive like theres no tommorow, they hate the traffic so much they drive like its the autobahn, im sure some of u know, and for those of u who dont, well its best u dont find out


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## djm19

LA has a lot of freeways though with no clear central freeway really, while the 401 is the main freeway of toronto. The more years that went by with LA freeways being congested the more people chose to use other freeways for their routes. 

I mean, have you seen a map of LA freeways? You have the 210, the 405, the 10, the 110, the 105, the 101, the 118, the 2, the 187, the 605, the 60, the 134, the 19, the 91, the 213, the 27, the 72, the 5, the 107, and more down in orange county.


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## KGB

I agree...Toronto just has a major dominating freeway, while LA is littered with them. And the 401 plays a triple role of inter-metro commuting...inter-province travel and goods movement...as well as international travel and goods movement between Canada-USA.





KGB


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## SuperMan44

I have been on 401 on quite a few times and its getting more and more crowded day by day. everytime i have been around Missisauga and Toronto area of the 401, there was always a traffic jam so I will go with 401


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## Skybean

401

The skyline is that of North York City Centre, a secondary skyline of Toronto. 


(thank you muchswatch)



























Where is this in relation to the downtown core? 
(thank you lucky24)


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## Nick in Atlanta

Skybean said:


> The skyline is that of North York City Centre, a secondary skyline of Toronto.


North York City Centre is halfway between Sheppard/Yonge and Finch/Yonge. It doesn't border the 401, but is about *2 miles north* of it. I know because I remember when they added the North York Centre station to the Yonge Street subway line and it was right in the middle of the Sheppard and Finch stations. 

Is all that development in the first pic on the north side of the 401? That's all new if it is. That area is really booming!


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## Skybean

Nick in Atlanta said:


> Is all that development in the first pic on the north side of the 401? That's all new if it is. That area is really booming!


Yes it is. The "NY towers" are edged up in those pics against the 401. (pics that I posted-- that highway is the 401) If you can see the blue box in the map made by lucky, you can see it touches the 401. This area has been building condos non-stop for many years.


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## Chibcha2k

I90/94 in Chitown ?


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## Froster

Definately the 401.

I am sure that the Santa Monica Freeways is damn close, but I have seen the 401 listed as the NA's busiest many times. I'm not saying that in any "mine's bigger" sense, in fact I think its a shame that toronto is like that. The reality is that it is only that bad because of piss-poor planning by Metro and the MTO that resulted in the construction of new highways in Toronto being virtually stopped. Now, the shit has hit the fan, and people are choosing to move, or change employers rather than having to fight traffic on the 401. If you look at the plans for the original Metro highway system developed in the 60s, Toronto would have been full of alternate routes other than the 401. It was a longstanding plan to have an Eglinton Expressway to aleviate the traffic trouble on the 401 between the 427 and 400, and also to complete the Gardiner parallel to the CN tracks and Kingston Rd. until it met up with the 401 again. 

So I think the 401 is the busiest, but I'm not very happy that it is. I wish we could say it was LA's hands-down, but unfortunately Toronto highways are so poorly planned that we have a road busier than a city 10 million people bigger!


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## DrJoe

^ Trust me more freeways is not the answer. Look at LA they have possibly the most extensive freeway system in the world and still have some of the worst traffic in the world. If anything we should be thankful Toronto doesnt have tons of highways running through/ruining the city. Traffic on the 401 can get bad but generally speaking it does pretty well.


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## Froster

Dr Joe, I agree that highways arent everything, but there is a direct benefit for Toronto to have a more developed highway system. With the volume of commercial truck traffic that relies on the 401, the current gridlock is definately slowing trasport and costing the city business. For example, if a company wants to develop a just-in-time delivery system, they must currently locate their warehouse/factory in such a way that their trucks can avoid traffic on the DVP, 401, or whatever. In terms of commuter traffic, expanding the subway, and GO system could be beneficial, but nothing will replace the truck, and commuter traffic will not drop (regardless of public transit)- but its growth could slow. Eitherway, traffic jams cost the Toronto economy money, and the city and the province definately need to spend money on highways as well as transit if they hope to recapture some of this lost business opportunity.


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## Nick in Atlanta

Froster said:


> Definately the 401.
> 
> I am sure that the Santa Monica Freeways is damn close, but I have seen the 401 listed as the NA's busiest many times. I'm not saying that in any "mine's bigger" sense, in fact I think its a shame that toronto is like that. The reality is that it is only that bad because of piss-poor planning by Metro and the MTO that resulted in the construction of new highways in Toronto being virtually stopped. Now, the shit has hit the fan, and people are choosing to move, or change employers rather than having to fight traffic on the 401. If you look at the plans for the original Metro highway system developed in the 60s, Toronto would have been full of alternate routes other than the 401. It was a longstanding plan to have an Eglinton Expressway to aleviate the traffic trouble on the 401 between the 427 and 400, and also to complete the Gardiner parallel to the CN tracks and Kingston Rd. until it met up with the 401 again.
> 
> So I think the 401 is the busiest, but I'm not very happy that it is. I wish we could say it was LA's hands-down, but unfortunately Toronto highways are so poorly planned that we have a road busier than a city 10 million people bigger!


I think the biggest problem is that all the traffic that's passing through the Toronto area should be *forced* to take the toll highway that runs north and parallel of the 401. If the trucks don't have a pickup or delivery within the metro area, they need to keep off the 401.


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## Froster

Nick in Atlanta,

I dont know if forcing truck traffic on the 407 would be a good thing for the city, since the 407 runs outside of the city itself, through the suburbs. If truck traffic was forced onto it, it would emphasize economic development of the suburbs, and leave toronto without decent access to transportation. I know that you specified that trucks with deliveries in the city would be allowed on other highways, but if a company is looking to locate their business, they are going to choose to locate near that 407 truck bypass.

Further, the 407 is very much a commuter highway, so forcing truck traffic onto it would just move the existing problems with the 401 a couple kilometres north, and deprive toronto of economic opportunity.

I really think that building a highway system that provides alternatives is the best idea. Every highway doesnt need to dump onto the 401 as the major east-west corridor through the city. This reliance on the401 as the lynchpin of the system is what makes it so bad, and an unwillingness among politicians to consider the idea of construction of alternative routes is only going to make it worse.


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## FK

Definately the 401

Its pretty dangerous aswell! Trucks zoom in everytime, be it in the afternoons or evenings!


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## Nick in Atlanta

Froster said:


> I dont know if forcing truck traffic on the 407 would be a good thing for the city, since the 407 runs outside of the city itself, through the suburbs. If truck traffic was forced onto it, it would emphasize economic development of the suburbs, and leave toronto without decent access to transportation. I know that you specified that trucks with deliveries in the city would be allowed on other highways, but if a company is looking to locate their business, they are going to choose to locate near that 407 truck bypass.
> 
> Further, the 407 is very much a commuter highway, so forcing truck traffic onto it would just move the existing problems with the 401 a couple kilometres north, and deprive toronto of economic opportunity.
> 
> I really think that building a highway system that provides alternatives is the best idea. *Every highway doesnt need to dump onto the 401 as the major east-west corridor through the city. This reliance on the401 as the lynchpin of the system is what makes it so bad, and an unwillingness among politicians to consider the idea of construction of alternative routes is only going to make it worse.*


Well, if you don't like the 407 as an alternative to the 401, where and what do you think would be a good alternative east-west corridor through the city?


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## KGB

"North York City Centre is halfway between Sheppard/Yonge and Finch/Yonge. It doesn't border the 401, but is about 2 miles north of it."


I think you are confusing the subway station with that name, with the whole downtownish area called "North York City Centre"...which does indeed run from the 401 to Finch. 2 miles?????? Finch isn't even 2 miles from the 401.







"I think the biggest problem is that all the traffic that's passing through the Toronto area should be forced to take the toll highway that runs north and parallel of the 401. "


Incorrect again...the 401's primary function is an inter-regional, inter-provincial, international connecting route....not a commuter highway for getting across town. It's the annoying commuters that are wrecking the purpose of the highway...not the other way around. But then again, coming from an area that knows nothing but suburban sprawl, I'm not surprised by your attitude.






KGB


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## sonysnob

KGB said:


> Incorrect again...the 401's primary function is an inter-regional, inter-provincial, international connecting route....not a commuter highway for getting across town. It's the annoying commuters that are wrecking the purpose of the highway...not the other way around. But then again, coming from an area that knows nothing but suburban sprawl, I'm not surprised by your attitude.
> 
> KGB


That isn't true. Though the 401 was origninally designed to be a freeway bypass of Toronto, its purpose changed greatly in the 1960s when the collector lanes (aka local lanes) were added. The thought was (and really still is) that local traffic should use the collectors, and through traffic should use the express. Highway 401 just has too much of both kinds of traffic, and of course this is because both Toronto's mass transit, and freeway networks are underbuilt.

Also, a common misconception, Highway 407 was designed as both a commuter freeway and a bypass, not one nor the other.

Cheers!
Scott


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## KGB

Bullshit...the 401 was built to connect southern Ontario with the USA and Quebec...and the highly populated area between them...obviously including Toronto. The movement of goods and travelers between these areas are hampered by the profusion of commuters travelling within Toronto and it's immediate suburbs. Toronto's mass transit is not underbuilt...the suburbs are.





KGB


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## sonysnob

There is no bullshit about it. The 401 as a whole is designed for distance traveling. However, it was also designed with a strong local component in mind, particularly in Toronto. In Toronto, the core-distributer setup IS designed to accomdate local traffic. Also this is why Highway 401 has an interchange with virually every major north-south arterial in Toronto, and why Highway 401 signage in Toronto doesn't use control cities.

As for Transit, I will agree that within the city limits, transit is better then the suburbs, however, there are some serious defficencies in transit in Toronto, particularly the subway network. Compare Toronto's network, to the smaller Montreal, and I would say its almost embarrasing.

Cheers!
Scott


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## KGB

Of course the 401 interacts with the city of Toronto and it's suburbs...why wouldn't it...it's the largest urban area on the damned thing, and therefore the hub of activity for travelers and goods it was designed for. But do you think they would have put it where it is if they had imagined it would be used as a cross town commuter route as much as it is? It's a multi purpose route for sure, but it's the commuter usage that has exceeded it's capacity, and brought it's usefullness down.







"As for Transit, I will agree that within the city limits, transit is better then the suburbs"

Just a slight understatement eh? LOL








"Compare Toronto's network, to the smaller Montreal, and I would say its almost embarrasing."

I wouldn't knock Montreal's subways...but compared to Toronto, it simply lacks the direct nodal developments of Toronto's and isn't even in the same league in terms of multi-modal connectivity with the surface routes. On top of it, it's considerably less cost-efficient.






KGB


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## sonysnob

KGB said:


> Of course the 401 interacts with the city of Toronto and it's suburbs...why wouldn't it...it's the largest urban area on the damned thing, and therefore the hub of activity for travelers and goods it was designed for. But do you think they would have put it where it is if they had imagined it would be used as a cross town commuter route as much as it is? It's a multi purpose route for sure, but it's the commuter usage that has exceeded it's capacity, and brought it's usefullness down.


The 401 as well as the 427 were desgined as bypass roads across the top of the city. That is for certain, but bypass does not necessarily mean intercity traffic. The purpose of the freeways were to create routes for travelers (both local and distance travelers) away from the congested city routes in urban Toronto. If these freeways were intended as only for distance type traffic, then the hwys would have been constructed with far fewer interchanges.

Cheers!
Scott


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## LooselogInThePeg

Compared to American cities, Toronto does not have an adequate freeway system. This would certainly explain how a city of 6 million can boast the busiest freeway in North America when there are many much larger centers seemingly more likely to claim the title. 
KGB has a point when he says that it's not so much that the 401 is overbuilt but rather that the suburbs are underbuilt. 
Don't forget that up until recently, the urban model has indeed been to build the highways to allow for residential development. Now, the focus is changing to the other way around. Let the density warrant the freeway instead of the "if you build it they will come" philosophy. In the new scheme, Toronto is still ripe for a couple more freeways but in areas that are already considered to be high-density. Better would be to extend the subway system but until sprawl slows drastically it's tough to justify the cost.

Anyway, if indeed the 401 is the busiest in N. America (as I've seen it listed countless times) I'm sure that there are plenty of US interstates that come close.


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## JARdan

_tictac_ said:


> http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/compass/systems/401main.htm
> 401: 350,000 vehicles on an average day.
> 
> http://www.cahighways.org/stats3.html#Busiest
> I-10: 363,000
> 
> I voted for the Santa Monica Fwy


As some pointed out, those numbers are old and the site was last modified in November 2002. 

The highest AADT I have found so far for the 401, was near 410 000.


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## DrJoe

Here are the official 401 numbers from 2002.

http://www.ronenhouse.com/__85256B7...5976385C385256EF5007152CB/$FILE/2002 AADT.pdf


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## SkyHigh529

Nick in Atlanta said:


> Definitely I-35 in Atlanta. It's so fast you can't even see it.


Yes, the I-35 in Atlanta... wow, it's so busy it's almost fictional....


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## SkyHigh529

Stratosphere 2020 said:


> Nevertherless Atlanta has some impressive traffic jam images


Is that a picture of the I-35? lol


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## eddyk

Acoording to this google site im looking on...

The busiest road in the USA is the San Diego Freeway...has a peak hour volume of 25500 vehicles!


But the busiest motorway in the world is the M25 in England...with 270,000 vehicles a day driving on it!


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## SkyHigh529

I don't know about the bussiest, although I'm inclined to believe the statistics that have been posted on this website, but the 401 is definetly the coolest looking freeway in the world, IMO. 

Generally speaking, I think that the US Interstate system is probably the busiest "motorway/freeway" system as a whole in the world. Although I have not stats to back up that claim. It is probably at least the most extensive. Even in rural areas it is busier than rural areas of other country's that I have been to with motorways/highways. I don't think Interstates are necissarily the root cause of bad development, and ignoring increasing demand for them may just be playing denial. I think that the addition of new Interstates/highways is a good thing, as long as the development around them changes to also allow for alternatives like busses, subways, commuter trains, etc... in other words denser development off the exits, as opposed to the spread out "sprawl" that we are used too. Interstates in and of themselves are not bad, though.


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## brisavoine

Juan Kerr said:


> I'd have to say that the M6 in Birmingham / West Midlands would HAVE to be up there among Europe's busiest.


Well, according to the BBC article I quoted, the stetch of the M25 mentioned above is the busiest section of motorway in the UK.


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## London_2006

yrkn said:


> i think the LIE I-495 in nyc should be up there too


Among Europe's busiest?


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## Iggybumtastic

M8 Glasgow -

In 2004 it was announced that a section of the M8 was the 2nd busiest stretch of road in the entire UK, after a section of the M60 motorway (usually a section of the M25 motorway holds the honour of the busiest, but had unusually low traffic figures in 2004 due to roadworks). An average of 173,000 vehicles per day used that stretch of the M8 in 2004.

The Kingston Bridge is a ten lane road bridge crossing the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland. The bridge carries the M8 motorway through the city centre. The Kingston Bridge is one of the busiest road bridges in Europe, carrying over 150,000 vehicles every day.


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## Æsahættr

PERIPHIQUE


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## kaunaz

MKAD?


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## KIWIKAAS

The A16 van Brienenoord bridge in Rotterdam handles over 200000 vehicles per day on 12 lanes. I wouldnt be surprised if sections of the A16 south of the bridge would be 250000+ v.p.d.


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## KIWIKAAS

brisavoine said:


> 3- M25 motorway between junctions 13 and 14 in the western suburbs of London: 196,000 vehicles a day in 2003 (source)


Thats interesting. The busiest section of motorway in New Zealand (pop.4 million) handles the same daily average volume.


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## GNU

brisavoine said:


> 2- A 100 Autobahn (Berliner Stadtring) near the Funkturm in Berlin: 216,000 vehicles a day recorded in 1998


hmm I dont know really.

all I can say is that the Berliner Stadtring is certainly not the buisiest autobahn section in Germany.
the Koelner Ring (cologne), Frankfurt or some sections in the Rhein-Rhur area are surely busier.

In Europe I would say that some parts around Paris must certainly be up there.


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## kostya

I always thought it would be some autobahn somewhere near Koln.


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## brisavoine

lotrfan55345 said:


> PERIPHIQUE


It's hard to find exact data about the Périphérique. From what I could gather online, there are up to 300,000 vehicles a day on the busiest sections of the Périphérique, which would make it Europe's busiest freeway, unless someone can find a busier freeway, but I doubt it.


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## GNU

kostya said:


> I always thought it would be some autobahn somewhere near Koln.


Well thats what Im supecting. the Koelner Ring (Cologne Ring) is one of the buisiest sections in Germany.


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## empersouf

The Frankfurter Kreuz????
And what about roads in the Netherlands?


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## 909

Soufian said:


> The Frankfurter Kreuz????


You are right, the FK is the busiest stretch of motorway in Europe:



> The Frankfurter Kreuz is an Autobahn interchange in the city of Frankfurt in Hesse, Germany where the autobahns A3 and A5 meet. The interchange was originally to be built from 1931 to 1933, but due to World War II construction was not finished until 1957. It underwent massive remodeling in the 1990s, as it had been frequently overloaded due to excess traffic. Today, both autobahns have ten lanes.
> 
> Two tunnels of the Cologne - Frankfurt high-speed railway line have been put below the Kreuz. The Kreuz is situated at the northeastern corner of Frankfurt International Airport.
> 
> Along with the airport and the airport's railway station, the Frankfurter Kreuz is commonly seen as a symbol of Frankfurt's good connections to the world.
> 
> *With 300,000 cars daily it is the most heavily used interchange in Europe, followed by the Kamener Kreuz.*
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurter_Kreuz






















Second in Europe is the Kamener Kreuz:



> The Kamener Kreuz is a cloverleaf interchange between the town of Kamen and the city of Dortmund in Germany where the [[Autobahn|]]s A1 and A2 meet. It was the first interchange between the first two Reichsautobahns, and the first operational cloverleaf interchange in Europe, opened in 1937.
> 
> *It is the second most densely used interchange in Europe after the Frankfurter Kreuz.*
> 
> The Kamener Kreuz is currently being renovated and upgraded to three lanes per direction, this requires the demolition of the old A2 bridge and the construction of a new one.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamener_Kreuz


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## empersouf

And what about the road between Utrecht and Amsterdam. Amsterdam-The Hague or Amsterdam-Almere/Hilversum/Amersfoort. Or the road between Antwerp and Brussels. Or a highway in Paris, like a the road from Val-de-Marne(big suburb) to Paris? Or maybe a road in Milano??


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## 909

brisavoine said:


> It's hard to find exact data about the Périphérique. From what I could gather online, there are up to 300,000 vehicles a day on the busiest sections of the Périphérique, which would make it Europe's busiest freeway, unless someone can find a busier freeway, but I doubt it.


It's difficult to compare these kind of figures for a whole freeway. It is better to compare a single part, a stretch of freeway. I have no doubt that the Périphérique is very busy, just like the ring of London, but when it comes to a single part of freeway the Frankfurter Kreuz is the winner in Europe. 

It is interesting to see that the Frankfurter Kreuz with a few lanes can handle over 300,000 cars per day, while a intersection in Los Angeles (the El Toro Y) needs 26 lanes for 350,000 cars a day... European efficiency?


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## Minato ku

909 said:


> It's difficult to compare these kind of figures for a whole freeway. It is better to compare a single part, a stretch of freeway. I have no doubt that the Périphérique is very busy, just like the ring of London, but when it comes to a single part of freeway the Frankfurter Kreuz is the winner in Europe.
> 
> It is interesting to see that the Frankfurter Kreuz with a few lanes can handle over 300,000 cars per day, while a intersection in Los Angeles (the El Toro Y) needs 26 lanes for 350,000 cars a day... European efficiency?


No whole Peripherique It is 1.2 millions car per day.


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## empersouf

^^
But to compare, you need a part of a highway. So only between 2 junctions.
Unless all thos people who drive on the peripherique are going around it completely


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## 909

minato ku said:


> No whole Peripherique It is 1.2 millions car per day.


Even if 1.2 million cars use the Peripherique every day, it doesn't say something about the number of cars using a small piece of the Peripherique every day. 
As Soufian said it is impossible to compare complete motorways. The only way to compare motorways is to compare a stretch, a single part of the motorway. 
The best way to compare is using figures of one single point of a motorway, not the whole motorway.


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## Minato ku

I understood.
but 300 000 cars only beetween 2 junctions
It isn't impossible.


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## empersouf

^^
The Frankfurter Kreuz is showing that


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## eomer

brisavoine said:


> It's hard to find exact data about the Périphérique. From what I could gather online, there are up to 300,000 vehicles a day on the busiest sections of the Périphérique, which would make it Europe's busiest freeway, unless someone can find a busier freeway, but I doubt it.


300 k.vehicule a day is very much but the Peripherique is not a motorway or a freeway.


----------



## Æsahættr

It is fully acces-controlled, what more do you need?


----------



## brisavoine

The German examples given are interchanges, therefore they cannot be counted. It is only normal that you will have more traffic on an interchange, given that two or more freeways meet at that point. Please give only figures for sections of freeways/motorways, not interchanges (or échangeurs, or Kreuze). So far, until new figures are offered, the section of the Berliner Ring near the Funkturm is the busiest in Germany. If you have figures for the busiest section of the Kölner Ring proving that it is busier than the Berliner Ring, bring them.

As for the Périphérique, it handles 1.2 million vehicles in its entire length, but its busiest section still handles up to 300,000 vehicles a day, which would make it the busiest section of freeway/motorway in Europe, unless other figures can be offered.


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## Minato ku

eomer said:


> 300 k.vehicule a day is very much but the Peripherique is not a motorway or a freeway.


Peripherique is not Motorway but it is a Freeway

*Peripherique*

















*L.A Freeway*









Where is the difference ?


----------



## x-type

how about italian A4? i tink it is one of the bussiest (if we look whole lenght). alos, it would be interesting to find data about Milano Tangenziale, Roma Tangenziale, Torino Tangenziale...


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## sbarn

minato ku said:


> Peripherique is not Motorway but it is a Freeway
> 
> *Peripherique*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *L.A Freeway*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Where is the difference ?


^^ Thats kind of a stretch... few freeway networks in the world match LAs, for better or worse.














































Thankfully, you all in Europe have extensive public transportation so such infrastructure is not needed! Cheers!


----------



## Juan Kerr

LA freeways kick ass!


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## Æsahættr

It wasn't comparing the Periphique and LA freeways, it was saying that the Periphique *is* a freeway, even if a few turns are a bit too sharp to go up to spec with freeway standards. (Not that it matters, it's a slow feeway anyway)


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## Bikkel

Kennedytunnel in Antwerp would be a contender :dunno:


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## brisavoine

lotrfan55345 said:


> It wasn't comparing the Periphique and LA freeways, it was saying that the Periphique *is* a freeway, even if a few turns are a bit too sharp to go up to spec with freeway standards. (Not that it matters, it's a slow feeway anyway)


Some LA freeways have sharp turn too anyway. Try to drive the Pasadena freeway for example.


----------



## KIWIKAAS

Bikkel said:


> Kennedytunnel in Antwerp would be a contender :dunno:


Dont think so


----------



## [email protected]

909 said:


> Even if 1.2 million cars use the Peripherique every day, it doesn't say something about the number of cars using a small piece of the Peripherique every day.
> As Soufian said it is impossible to compare complete motorways. The only way to compare motorways is to compare a stretch, a single part of the motorway.
> The best way to compare is using figures of one single point of a motorway, not the whole motorway.


Even if it's fully stupid, we can try to make an average:
*1.2* Million/vehicules/day for *35.04* km => *32.246* vehicules/day/km
Mean distance travelled: *7* km
=> *239.726* vehicules a day.
So it's easily possible to reach the *300.000* vehicules a day.


----------



## Manuel

the average daily traffic handled by the busiest sections of the Parisian peripherique are slightly under the 250 000 mark (The prefecture de Paris holds the data. For the other IDF motorways, data are available in the DDE).

From what I remember when I compiled traffic data for the IDF region back at the end of the 90s, the A4 was already the region busiest section, with rising traffic flow whereas the peripherique flows were dropping slowly and gradually.

I also remember that the A3 in NE Paris had some stretches with more than 200 000 v/d on average.

We may also combine the A6a and A6b traffic. I guess it would amount to around 280 000 v/d on average.

Outside Paris, there are few french motorways with flows exceeding 150 000. In Lille, The A1/A25 junction area may be a contender...

---------

As for the UK, the M25 has reached 200 000 v/d on average in 2004 between J14 and 15. 
The M1 (M25-Luton), M6 (Thelwall and Brum), M62 (Manchester area), M60 (Manchester ring), M4 (Berkshire and Ldn) and the M8 exceed for more than one stretch the 150 000 mark. Slightly under 150 000 v/d are the M42 (Brum se ring), the M56 (Manchester SW approach), the M27 (Southampton), the M20 (Kent), M4 (Newport, Wales), M62 (Leeds)...

Also remember that the M25 is a suburban motorway not an urban one.

The busiest river crossing in the UK are the M8 and the Dartford Crossing A282 for the M25 (around 150 000 v/d)

When T5 opens to passengers in 2008, M25 traffic is expected to rise immediately to 250 000 v/d as access to the terminal is mainly provided by a spur between J14 and 15 (12 lanes).

the UK has also on average (all motorways combined), the highest average daily traffic flow and among the busiest non urban motorways.

The M1 and M6 have almost consistently traffic flows exceeding 100 000 v/d on average.


----------



## eomer

lotrfan55345 said:


> It is fully acces-controlled, what more do you need?


Some "yield" signals like this at the entrance.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

The MKAD Motorway of Moscow is very busy, i thought this was the busiest stretch of road in Europa. The M-roads around Madrid are very busy too (M30, M40, M45, M50). And of course the Périphérique around Paris, but this one is not an autoroute, but a voie expresse, an expressway. So it's not an officialy motorway or freeway, but it looks like one. This road can be very busy, rushhour s last the whole day, but you can drive it in the summer, when all Parisians are on vacation. 

Most motorways in The Netherlands are overcrowded and have a heavy undercapacity, especially the A1, A2, A4, A9, A10, A12, A13, A16 and A20 motorways around Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht. But other motorways are busy too, near Arnhem, Eindhoven, Haarlem, Almere, Zwolle, Groningen and Deventer. Some motorways have the same capacity as 30 years ago, but the number of traffic has tripled that time.


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## Bikkel

Hmm, I think we're mixing up numbers of commuters and all of the traffic. Near Rotterdam, Antwerp etc, there is a huge share of trucks. In terms of air pollution, Belgium/NL is worst, perhaps also busiest.
Anywhere near Essen, Bochum etc or Lille/Duinkerken or down south in Italy around Milan could also count amongst the busiest parts.
The worst traffic I myself got stuck in is near Lyon.


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## ChrisZwolle

The R0 Ring of Brussels, and the R1 around Antwerp seems to be busier every day. The A7 near Hamburg, and the A99 around Munich are very busy too. 
In summer, long trafficjams of more than 50km are not uncommon on the German A8.
The French "autoroute du Soleil A6/A7" is notorious for huge traffic jams from Lyon to Perpignan. The longest traffic jam ever was between Paris and Reims, over 180kms of traffic jam.


----------



## aswnl

Some useful links:

Busiest roads in the world: http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/wf.htm

in Europe: http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/euf.htm


----------



## KIWIKAAS

^^
Very interesting. Clears up some myths in this thread.


----------



## gooth

Puente de Ventas, Madrid:


----------



## London_2006

What is a freeway? We don't use that term in the UK.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

It's a Motorway, but the term freeway is more common in certain parts of the world. There are a lot of names for a road who looks the same, for example expressway, freeway, motorway, highway etc.
Autobahn, Autoroute, Autopista, Autostrada, Motorvej and Autosnelweg are common names in Europe.


----------



## coth

aswnl said:


> Some useful links:
> 
> Busiest roads in the world: http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/wf.htm
> 
> in Europe: http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/euf.htm


hmm, 1999 was 7 years ago... i think figure for MKAD should double or triple now... plus TTK freeway was completed in 2003. It's more busier than MKAD, but 3 times shorter. definitely should be now in list.


----------



## bay_area

aswnl said:


> Some useful links:
> 
> Busiest roads in the world: http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/wf.htm
> 
> in Europe: http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/euf.htm


Here's a 2004 Update on LA's busiest
[email protected] Street-Santa Ana.........406,000
[email protected] Beach.....................390,000
[email protected] Av-Diamond Bar........348,000
[email protected],000
[email protected],000
[email protected] Oak Av-Encino........317,000
[email protected],000
[email protected] Av-Anaheim.........327,000
[email protected] Av-Placentia..320,000
[email protected] Av-Pasadena............310,000


----------



## Minato ku

Satistique for Paris are too old

Peripherique 1986
In 2005
Near Porte de Bagnolet more 270 000 vehicule per day.

A13 1993 
A1 1992 
A4 1993

And *N13* 160 000 car per day in 2005.


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## Manuel

minato ku said:


> Satistique for Paris are too old


Yeah but traffic on the parisian inner ring is gradually declining.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

If the A86 Périphérique d'Ile de France will be completed in several years (including tunnels), the traffic on the BP will decline for sure. Paris need an complete A104 outer ring too, for transit traffic.


----------



## brisavoine

aswnl said:


> Some useful links:
> 
> Busiest roads in the world: http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/wf.htm
> 
> in Europe: http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/euf.htm


I'm afraid your links are not very reliable. In particular, the European list forgot the A4 autoroute at the level of Saint-Maurice in the eastern suburbs of Paris: 257,000 vehicles a day in 2002 (source). The list also forgot those sections of the Paris Périphérique which see traffic in the 270,000-300,000 range. Oddly, the list gives traffic on the M25 in London higher than the more reliable BBC source I quoted in the beginning of the thread. So all in all I think your lists needs to be taken with a big grain of salt.


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## ChrisZwolle

coth said:


> hmm, 1999 was 7 years ago... i think figure for MKAD should double or triple now... plus TTK freeway was completed in 2003. It's more busier than MKAD, but 3 times shorter. definitely should be now in list.


What is the TTK freeway? Too bad that there are not figures of the MKAD. I think it's Europe's busiest, but the M30 in Madrid handles traffic numbers above 300.000 too.


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## coth

3-е транспортное кольцо. 3rd transport ring.
http://maps.google.com/?q=moscow&t=h&om=1


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## Minato ku

Chris1491 said:


> If the A86 Périphérique d'Ile de France will be completed in several years (including tunnels), the traffic on the BP will decline for sure. Paris need an complete A104 outer ring too, for transit traffic.



The traffic decline only in Paris center but in Ile de france the Traffic grow.


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## Boards

The M8 over the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow handles 176'000 vehicles a day - but interestingly that figure is taken from the southern approach which is six lanes, the bridge itself is ten lanes. Despite being very busy the bridge isnt even full access. When the M74 is finished and feeds onto the M8 its projected the busiest stretch will handle 255'000 vehicles a day. Glasgow has very low car ownership and thus traffic figures are rising more quickly than the rest of the UK as Glasgow catches up. Traffic levels in the city are projected to rise 40% by 2021.


----------



## [email protected]

Chris1491 said:


> The French "autoroute du Soleil A6/A7" is notorious for huge traffic jams from Lyon to Perpignan.


To complete:
A6: Autoroute du Soleil, from *Paris* to *Lyon*, 466km.
A7: Autoroute du Soleil, from *Lyon* to *Marseilles*, 316km.
A8: La Provençale, from *Salon de Provence* to Italian border (*Nice*-Menton), 228km.
A9: La Languedocienne-La Catalane, from *Orange* to Spanish border (*Perpignan*-Le Perthus), 277km

In terms of traffic jam, the worst section is *Valence-Sud/Montelimar-Nord* (75,000 cars/day).












Chris1491 said:


> The longest traffic jam ever was between Paris and Reims, over 180kms of traffic jam.


???????? Where did you find this ?


----------



## ChrisZwolle

i can't tell you exactly, i read this a year ago on a website. It was during a summer vacation season. 

It is recommended not to drive on a saturday in France during the summer season. Especially on the A1, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10, A31, A41, A42, A43, A46, A47 etc.


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## juanpe_r

it´s said that M-30 madrid road is one of the busiest in europe. also A-3(madrid-valencia) is colapsed o weekends. it´s 350km and sometimes you need 10 hours.... usually 1 agoust when everybody leave madrid


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## GNU

Koelner Ring: (Cologne)


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## The Boy David

http://members.a1.net/wabweb/frames/euf.htm This list is terribly inaccurate. For example:

UK
Glasgow
M8
J19-J20 Glasgow - Kinston Bridge
139.000
2001
2x3


The Kin*g*ston Bridge has just been re-strengthened, as it is now carrying in excess of 200,000 vehicles a day (10 times the amount of traffic it was designed for), making it the busiest river crossing in Europe. It is 2x5 lanes wide, not 2x3 as the list wrongly states.

The M8 is 12 lanes wide for a good stretch on the south-side of the city, and is about to be joined to the M74. This will in turn make it the busiest motorway/highway section in the UK.


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## ChrisZwolle

The van Brienenoordbridge on the A16 near Rotterdam across the Maas river, is much busier with over 250.000 vehicles/day on 4 lanes (2+2+2+2). 
The A10 Coen Tunnel near Amsterdam carries the same amount of vehicles. (2x3) There are enormous capacity problems here.

Other busy river crossings:

Germany:
A7 Elbe Tunnel
A1 Rhinebridge Köln
A5 Mainbridge Frankfurt am Main

France:
A7 Rhone crossing Lyon
BP Seine river crossing (2 times)
A4/A86 near Paris across the Seine

Belgium:
R1 near Antwerp across the Schelde (Escaut in French) river


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## [email protected]

Chris1491 said:


> Other busy river crossings:
> 
> France:
> A7 Rhone crossing Lyon
> BP Seine river crossing (2 times)
> A4/A86 near Paris across the Seine



A6 crossing Saone river in Lyon (2x3 lanes):


















A7 crossing Saone river in Lyon (pont de la Mulatiere, 2x3 lanes): 


















A7 also crosses Rhone river near Lyon (5km after)...


BP crossing Seine river (pont Aval, 2x4 lanes):










A4/A86 crossing Seine river near Paris: 










A13 crossing Seine river in St Cloud (near Paris, 2x3 lanes):










A86 crossing Seine river in St Ouen (near Paris, 2x4lanes):










A15 crossing Seine in Gennevilliers (near Paris, 2x4lanes):










A14 crossing Seine in Carrieres (near Paris, 2x3 lanes):










A14 crossing Seine in Le Vesinet (near Paris, 2x3lanes):


----------



## Smelser

Of the four highways mentioned, I don't know which is the busiest. But if the question is changed to "what freeway has the greatest relative congestion", that is, what freeway has the greatest volume relative to its number of lane-kilometres, I would expect that it's probably the Trans Canada Highway 1 in the vacinity of Burnaby, Coquitlam and Surrey in Greater Vancouver, including the Port Mann bridge. 

That's because the highway in this area is so small. There is intense, well-financed political opposition from various powerful, well-connected real estate interests, cleverly camouflaged as environmental or transit advocacy groups, to increasing the capacity of the highway or the bridge.

I will try to get some traffic counts for the Port Mann bridge, originally a four lane structure that was widened to five lanes (3 east bound, of which one is HOV, and 2 west bound) about six years ago. The BC highway system is so primitive that trying to get general traffic counts along sections of road way other than a few key bridges would probably require a full Access to Information request, and even then it's questionable if they have any data to produce.


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## Verso

^^ U must've put a lot of effort in this, thanks! IMHO Madrid's got (or has always had, I don't know) the best freeway/motorway network in Europe!


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## torke

*Madrid first round ring (M-30) of its 4 ones (M-30, M-40, M-45 and M-50) carries 330.000 car/day.*
*M-30 is 30km long, the highest density of cars/day is in the east side and it was built in the late sixties.  * 
Now a days M-30 is changing completely, is being rebuilt to improve those areas of Madrid near the freeway, especially the west side, close to the Manzanares river, the total costs of the works are *1.080.203.173 euros*. Most of the highway will be a tunnel and its capacity will be extended. The east, north and south sides, will be completely in tunnel. When finished, by spring of 2007, 100.000 more cars/day will be able to use it.



Sketch map of old M-30 and M-40:


M-30 east, looking north, cars into south close to exit number 5 (A-2), 14 lanes:


M-30 east, looking south, cars into north close to exit number 5 (A-2), 14 lanes:


M-30 east, looking north, cars into north in the right and into south in the left, close to exit number 8 (close to A-3 exit), 19 lanes:


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## coth

Verso said:


> ^^ U must've put a lot of effort in this, thanks! IMHO Madrid's got (or has always had, I don't know) the best freeway/motorway system in Europe!


well, i think moscow can easy dispute this statement.


----------



## eomer

[email protected] said:


> A4/A86 crossing Seine river near Paris:


ARGH !!!
This is MARNE river and not SEINE !!! :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash:


----------



## torke

Really?! Could u show it to us? I do not know much about Moscow and I'll like to improve my knowledge about it. I really thought there were not much money in Russia to build that much km of freeways of this kind. TELL US PLEASE, I am really interested in.


----------



## Accura4Matalan

coth said:


> well, i think moscow can easy dispute this statement.


Please show. From what I can see, Madrid takes this by a long shot. Could rival Toronto!


----------



## Accura4Matalan

Manchester is also a city with its motorway network on the rise:









M60 Manchester Ringroad.... recently widened


















M56 (only so quiet because it was closed at the time)









M62









M61









M67 (running horizontally across picture)









Mancunian Way... an elevated motorway going through the city centre.


----------



## coth

Russia is big country and is federation with many independent economies and which entire economy jumped in 3 times in last 5 years. Some parts of Russia are developed, some are developing and rural usually undeveloped. So what you heard about Russian then isn't close to realities. Moscow budget for example is $20,5bln.

As of roads you can check google maps. You can see there new MKAD, partially built 3TR (photos are from about 2003, so there is no western part with tunnels). Also you can see radial highways. 
http://maps.google.com/?q=moscow&ie=UTF8&ll=55.749917,37.619934&spn=0.12347,0.405464&t=h&om=1

Currently Moscow upgrading several radial highways and building Kranopresnenskiy Prospekt freeway. It's called avenue, but de-facto 14km freeway that will connect historical center with MKAD. Several photos and maps could be found here. Right blue and green parts are completed now. Red is tunnel and bridge currently under construction and left blue will be built to completiong of red part. It's in Russian but i think it's not problem to click on labels on map and then on photos and links to pages with photos (marked with >>)
http://www.roads.ru/kp/
several photos of red part could be found here
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=109884

this year begin construction of next 4th transport ring 61km freeway
greed will follow current streets that will be rebuild into freeway. red is new part and black are tunnels.
http://www.roads.ru/4tk/4tk_rbk.php


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## coth

some photos of moscow freeways/highways


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## Nephasto

coth, don't you have any maps to clear it up?

For example a map showing the location of the MKAD (that's the most outer ring, with a bit more than 100 km in extension, right?), and all other ring roads.


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## Nephasto

Could you also put some ID on the pictures, if possible? 

For comparising purpouses, the MKAD, would be equivalent to Madrid's M50(will have about 110 km or so) when completelly closed. This new 60 km ring would be the Moscow equivalent to M40(about 60km).


----------



## coth

Nephasto said:


> coth, don't you have any maps to clear it up?
> 
> For example a map showing the location of the MKAD (that's the most outer ring, with a bit more than 100 km in extension, right?), and all other ring roads.


map is on google. i posted link above.


----------



## Nephasto

^Yes, I can see the map on google... but for the moscow area, the road maps on google are quite bad... I mean, alll the roads have the same colour and only a few are in the map... Not like in other european countries or US where you can see the freeways on blue, etc... So it's a bit confusing.

The *outer ring is MKAD... A 110km long ring freeway*.

Then there's the *most inner ring (about 15km long)* which by looking in google earth I see it's an avenue and *not an expressway(I would consider it a fast avenue... independent from other streets in some stretches)*. (was that the one you were refering saying it was limited to 60km/h but that people drive on at at 80/100?)

Then there's *the ring between these 2 there is another ring, which I guess is a freeway, and must be about 30 km*. Is it all completed?


----------



## coth

yellow roads on map with шоссе or проспект in names are highways. all of them from soviet time. some, like varshavskoye shosse, prospekt mira/yaroslavskoye shosse, kutuzovskiy prospekt and several other was very well upgraded.

this photo is crossing of leninskiy and vernadskogo prospekts
http://foto-moscow.ru/img/fl327487672.jpg

this one is leningradskoye shosse
http://foto-moscow.ru/img/fl1044199303.jpg

this is vernadskogo prospekt enter city center
http://www.ethaniel.com/gallery_show/moscow/135_3583.jpg

as i know leningradskiy prospekt is currently under upgrade.


----------



## Verso

Nephasto said:


> ^Yes, I can see the map on google... but for the moscow area, the road maps on google are quite bad... I mean, alll the roads have the same colour and only a few are in the map... Not like in other european countries or US where you can see the freeways on blue, etc... So it's a bit confusing.


Man, u definitely need this: www.map24.com! It will clear you up what Google Earth doesn't.



Nephasto said:


> Then there's the *most inner ring (about 15km long)* which by looking in google earth I see it's an avenue and *not an expressway(I would consider it a fast avenue... independent from other streets in some stretches)*. (was that the one you were refering saying it was limited to 60km/h but that people drive on at at 80/100?)


I'm pretty sure this 15-km ring's not what 'coth' was talking about. From what I could see on Google Earth it's an 'ordinary' road with level-crossings (wide though). I may be wrong of course. To clear it up, read below.  



Nephasto said:


> Then there's *the ring between these 2 there is another ring, which I guess is a freeway, and must be about 30 km*. Is it all completed?


I think this one's what 'coth' was talking about!

:cheers: 
'coth', correct me if I'm wrong!


----------



## coth

the one small is garden ring. at least 10 lanes. actually could be considered highway as well. there are just few traffic lights, mostly does not affect traffic, like one near me in crossing with tram line. green for tram turn on every 10-15min in peak hour.


----------



## Verso

coth said:


> officially it's just a street, but de-facto powerful freeway with several exclusions.
> diameter of circle is very small - just 10km, therefore there are several turns with high degree. speed is officially limited by 60 kmph, but most of drivers moving on 80-100 kmph.
> TTK have 200 thous cars per day in average.


Thanks for that one!

Btw, the 4th ring?! :runaway: 
From the pic I can't really figure out where it's gonna be located, inside the 3rd ring or outside of it. Answer, please!  



And as for the Moscow - Madrid battle  from this point I'd say that Madrid still whoops Europe's ass  , but god knows what happens when all the Moscow projects are finished. We'll see...


----------



## coth

Verso said:


> Thanks for that one!
> 
> Btw, the 4th ring?! :runaway:
> From the pic I can't really figure out where it's gonna be located, inside the 3rd ring or outside of it. Answer, please!
> 
> 
> 
> And as for the Moscow - Madrid battle  from this point I'd say that Madrid still whoops Europe's ass  , but god knows what happens when all the Moscow projects are finished. We'll see...


it will be between 3rd and MKAD.

and i would say not. moscow within city limits has tones of radial highways, 2 ring freeways and one ring highway.


----------



## Verso

coth said:


> it will be between 3rd and MKAD.


Ok, yeah, what a dumb question actually, since it's the 4th ring-road, it's (pretty) obvious that it's gonna be outside of the 3rd one! :stupid:  



coth said:


> and i would say not. moscow within city limits has tones of radial highways, 2 ring freeways and one ring highway.


Yeah well, but every city's got tons of wide roads, it's the motorway/freeway network we're talking about. I'm sure many cities even have a lot of wide-road-rings (I know, it's not in dictionary  ), but not so many have motorway/freeway rings. And a city like Moscow would need more than one (I think only MKAD counts here for now; it's actually a fast road/expressway with 100 km/h, but ok, doesn't matter). And from what I've seen on Google Earth it has some huge traffic jams despite its 8 - 10 lanes (the pic could be taken at some special time though). Madrid on the other hand's got... shit I don't know how many, but at least 3 or 4 freeway rings (or at least bypasses which almost create circles; I know there's at least 1 true ring) and I think all can count especially since the very inner one has the most lanes, as I understood it.


----------



## Nephasto

www.viamichelin.com <-- Undoubtedly the best road map for central/western europe there is- 

Map of Madrid in a 1cm=10km scale










Map of Madrid in a 1cm=4km scale










As you can see, there is a bit of the northern part of the M-30 (the inner freeway ring) that it's just a dual carrigeway (an avenue with 2 roundabouts). But a freeway bypass (bypass norte) to that will be built probably between 2007 and 2011 or so, so it will be all freeway.
The section which has the river runnning in the middle is freeway too, although it may not look like that in the map.

M-40 is the next ring (a full ring, although not very circular).

M-45 is south of the M-40 (between the M-40 and the M-50) and is just a bit of a ring.

And the M-50 is the outer ring, which is not completed in the north. But there are plans to close it... the problem is that a 10 km tunnel with have to be done under the "Monte del Prado"... and for ecological reasons, probably there won't be allowed any ventillacion shafts (to not do any damage to the mountain), so it will be tricky. But will probably be done in the next few years.... there are already projects.


----------



## brisavoine

torke said:


> *MADRID's first round round ring (M-30) of its four ones (M-30, M-40, M-45 and M-50) east side: 330.000cars/day.*
> 
> *M-30 east, looking north, cars are going north on the right and south on the left, the picture was taken over a bridge next to exit Nº8 (close to A-3). M-30 has between R-3 (Eje O'Donnell) and A-3 (Valencia) 3x5 lanes and 1x4 lanes: 19 total lanes. *


This is not a single freeway, but rather several separate freeways side by side. This is not a unique case in Europe. In Paris, for example, there are freeways side by side to the north and south of Central Paris.

Here is the A6 freeway in the southern suburbs of Paris (14 lanes plus 4 emergency lanes):









Another section of the A6 freeway, closer to Central Paris (17 lanes plus 2 emergency lanes):









Here is the A1 freeway in the northern suburbs of Paris (14 lanes plus 2 emergency lanes):









Another section of the A1 freeway, near CDG Airport (15 lanes plus 4 emergency lanes):









By the way, a higher number of lanes doesn't necessarily mean higher traffic. The 8 lanes Périphérique, for instance, handles more traffic than the 14 lanes A1 freeway.


----------



## coth

Moscow from there with same zoom. Unfortunately this zoom is not enough to see all city. So there is only within MKAD.
A bit outdated. Somewhere from 2003.


----------



## torke

As u can see, Great Madrid has a hugh real net of highways.

A-1 / M-40:


A-5 / M-50:


A-6 / M-30:


A-2 / M-50:


----------



## Minato ku

*Paris*

Paris freeway plan 

....................................................................................
425  detective conan special 2006


----------



## brisavoine

Better than a link, here is the map itself.

Freeway network in the Paris metro area (scale at the bottom left of the map):









More detailed map:


----------



## Verso

Time to clear up some myths here!

Warner Bross presents the most extensive freeway network in Europe:








Oh boy, we rock :nocrook: 


(hope u see the ring  )


----------



## Nephasto

^Lovely charming city Ljubljana is. 
Calm, peacefull and cozy... not exactly a city with some of the busiest motorway sections in Europe, but a damn fine city.


----------



## Nephasto

brisavoine, how did you did to make than huge map in only one image?


----------



## Nephasto




----------



## Nephasto

Btw, for a city of it's size, Ljubljana has a very good freeway ring!


----------



## Verso

^^ :cheer: And a Portuguese is telling me that... :runaway:


----------



## Verso

^^ Oh lol, you're here too?  

It'll be a little harder here than in the Moscow battle  but could compete with Toronto, at least by the NUMBER of freeways.


----------



## Nephasto

^Why?... Should we portuguese not like you?! Lol!

I loved Ljubljana by the way.... a capital of a country, but i feels like a small town (in a good way  )


----------



## Verso

^^ Certainly not lol!  It's me using wrong words I guess! I meant you're so far away, never thought of Iberians, especially the Portuguese knowing 'anything' about that area. But I've noticed a huge increase of the Portuguese car plates 'outside of your peninsula'! If it means anything, I think it does. Must be hard for you to play tourists in Europe, being on the edge of it!


----------



## Verso

^^ Ok, now we've got cheap flights and everything, but wasn't always like that.


----------



## CborG

Oh i love Viamichelin, i made this map of Randstad Holland a while ago:


----------



## Nephasto

Verso said:


> ^^ Certainly not lol!  It's me using wrong words I guess! I meant you're so far away, never thought of Iberians, especially the Portuguese knowing 'anything' about that area. But I've noticed a huge increase of the Portuguese car plates 'outside of your peninsula'! If it means anything, I think it does. Must be hard for you to play tourists in Europe, being on the edge of it!



I've been in Ljubljana and I got there by train (doing an interrail  ).

I've allways had my vacations out of portugal... traveling through europe, so I can't say I'm a typical portuguese in that.
But with nowadays cheap plane travels, portugal is not farther away than any other european country.


----------



## Verso

Nephasto said:


> But with nowadays cheap plane travels, portugal is not farther away than any other european country.


It's good to hear that! :cheers1:


----------



## Verso

Accura said:


> M60 Manchester Ringroad.... recently widened


This one's nice, just those roadworks :bash: (look kinda nice though :tongue2: ) and driving on the left. :laugh: When was the last part of the motorway(s) to enclose the Ring finished? I've got an opinion it's rather new.


----------



## Verso

Nephasto said:


> www.viamichelin.com <-- Undoubtedly the best road map for central/western europe there is-


True, Map24 could be 'a little' more updated in 'New Europe'  ! :bash: 

But I'm using it because it's VERY easy to use it. In case you haven't tried it yet, I strongly recommend it.

I see though that it's got a lot more appropriate travel times! On Map24 looks like they are using 60 - 70 km/h speed on motorways although it says 70 miles/h lol...


----------



## Ali_B

This is the top 5 of Belgians busiest motorway stretches. These figures indicate the mean daily traffic in 2003/2005*

- A4/E411 Brussels - Namur (Leonard Junction - Jezus-Eik Exit): *123 300*
- A3/E40 Brussels - Louvain - Liège (St.-St.-Woluwe Junction - Sterrebeek Exit): *122 500*
- A10/E40 Brussels - Ghent (Wetteren Exit - Merelbeke Exit): *113 700*
- A7/E19 Brussels - Mons (Ruisbroek Exit - Beersel Exit): *112 800*
- A3/E40 Brussels - Louvain - Liège (Sterrebeek Exit - Bertem Exit): *111 000*


This is the top 5 of Belgians busiest ringroad stretches. These figures indicate the mean daily traffic in 2003/2005*

- R0 Ringroad Brussels North (UZ Jette Exit - Wemmel Exit): *164 500*
- R0 Ringroad Brussels East (Diegem Woluwelaan Exit - Machelen Junction): *146 000*
- R0 Ringroad Brussels East (Zaventem Exit - St.-St.-Woluwe Junction): *146 000*
- R0 Ringroad Brussels North (UZ Jette Exit - Zellik Exit): *145 400*
- R0 Ringroad Brussels West (Anderlecht North Exit - Anderlecht South Exit): *136 000*

* The figures of daily traffic on Flemish motorway stretches were taken in 2005, those of Wallonia in 2003.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

You can see Dutch Motorways are much busier.

Here's our top:

A16 Rotterdam-Centrum - Rotterdam-Feijenoord 230.255
A16 Rotterdam-Feijenoord - Knooppunt Ridderkerk-Noord 226.716
A15/A16 Knooppunt Ridderkerk-Noord - Knooppunt Ridderkerk-Zuid 224.426
A12 Utrecht-Kanaleneiland - Utrecht-Hoograven 215.293
A12 Nieuwegein - Utrecht-Kanaleneiland 210.082
A12 Knooppunt Oudenrijn - Nieuwegein 209.828
A16 Rotterdam-Kralingen - Rotterdam-Centrum 207.538
A4 Prins Clausplein - Knooppunt Ypenburg 205.661
A10 Amsterdam S108 - Knooppunt De Nieuwe Meer 204.982
A12 Utrecht-Hoograven - Knooppunt Lunetten 203.969
A16 Rotterdam-Prins Alexander - Rotterdam-Kralingen 200.736


----------



## yayoo

Around 1,2 million vehicles a day for the awful ringroad of Paris (périphérique)


----------



## Minato ku

NO 1.2 million vehicule per day is for the whole motorway 

Peripherique is around 300,000 vehicules per day in the busiest section
but a similar thread was already created.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=345486


----------



## CrazyAboutCities

Chris1491 said:


> Are you sure? I have a recent document from the California Transportation Officials which shows the AADT of roads in California.
> 
> Peaks:
> 
> US 101 Encino, Havenhurst Avenue: 333.000
> I-405 Seal Beach, Junction I-605: 398.000
> 
> These numbers are BACK AADT. I'm not sure what they mean, should i add the AHEAD AADT to them?
> 
> That would make the US 101 647.000 and the I-405 almost 800.000
> That sounds kind of unlikely to me. You need about 50 lanes to process so much traffic.


Yes I read that back in 2002 when Ventura County was planning to wide 101 Freeway from 6 lanes to 12 lanes to handle the traffics and rebuild Santa Clara River Bridge between Ventura and Oxnard. It said so on Ventura County Star newspaper. I looked it up to show the reference but it is not there because it is old news. I am not sure if it is still busist by now but last time I went there to see my old friends and traffics got much worse than did in 2002. I believe it is still busiest by now.


----------



## Ali_B

Top 5 of busiest highway stretches in Switzerland in 2005

- A3/E25/E60 Basel - Lüzern/Zürich (Muttenz, Hard): *119 100*
- A1/E60 Zürich - Bern/Basel (Baden, Bareggtunnel): *109 800*
- A1/E25 Zürich - Bern (Schönbühl, Grauholz): *98 800*
- A1/E41/E60 Zürich - Winterthur - Stuttgart/Innsbrück (Brüttisellen): *95 000*
- A20/E60 Ringroad Zürich North (Affoltern): *94 100*


----------



## Verso

^ Interesting; could you give us the link, please? I'm wondering what the amount of traffic is on the A1 and A2 where they are united (between Härkingen and Wiggertal).


----------



## erbse

Where do you all got these facts from? Would like to post statistics like that from german motorways (that should be the busiest in Europe)


----------



## ChrisZwolle

erbsenzaehler said:


> Where do you all got these facts from? Would like to post statistics like that from german motorways (that should be the busiest in Europe)


German motorways are not so busy. I heard the busiest motorway in the Rhine-Ruhr area has only 140.000 kfz/tag (AADT). that is really not much for such an urban motorway.


----------



## lpioe

Verso said:


> ^ Interesting; could you give us the link, please? I'm wondering what the amount of traffic is on the A1 and A2 where they are united (between Härkingen and Wiggertal).


Here (2.3mb) you can find a document which shows a map with AADT on page 21. The AADT for the stretch you mentioned is 77'900.


----------



## Verso

^ Thanks.


----------



## Marek.kvackaj

*Bussiest highway in Czech Republic D1
*
*D1 Praha-Brno 120 000 cars/per day *
(boths directions)


----------



## Bori427

European highways aren't so busy for what I can see...

You guys use mass-transit a lot!


----------



## Verso

^ No, we use it more than Americans for example, but we don't use it much.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

Bori427 said:


> European highways aren't so busy for what I can see...
> 
> You guys use mass-transit a lot!


Around Metropolian area's, motorways are mostly extremely busy, comparable to midsize to large American cities traffic. 

But for example, Germany, has good urban transport, so not EVERYBODY needs a car to go to work (like Los Angeles). 

Where they use mass-transit a lot, is in eastern asia.


----------



## x-type

Marek.kvackaj said:


> *Bussiest highway in Czech Republic D1
> *
> *D1 Praha-Brno 120 000 cars/per day *
> (boths directions)


it seems to be way to much. can you post a source of that data?


----------



## LtBk

Chris1491 said:


> Around Metropolian area's, motorways are mostly extremely busy, comparable to midsize to large American cities traffic.
> 
> But for example, Germany, has good urban transport, so not EVERYBODY needs a car to go to work (like Los Angeles).
> 
> Where they use mass-transit a lot, is in eastern asia.


Yet they still have traffic jams in East Asia, and its much worse that what we have.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

x-type said:


> it seems to be way to much. can you post a source of that data?


I guess it's only a small portion near Praha. The D1 near Praha is 2x3 lanes.


----------



## Marek.kvackaj

x-type said:


> it seems to be way to much. can you post a source of that data?


link *for 2005 year* (only Czech language)D1 Jizni spojka 120 000 cars

BTW
D1 highway :is also main transport route for goods 
from *West* (Germany, Belgium, Holland, Netherland even UK) 
with *East* (Slovakia, Ukraine, Hungaria, Balkan-Romania, Bulgaria..)

and also has lower fee then Austrian highways


----------



## Bori427

Freeway 18 in San Juan,Puerto Rico-about 300,000 vehicles daily

San Juan population-430,000

We have a really good metro here but since it was finished in 2004 it only has 16 stations and people here use their cars too much so traffic congestion here is horrible


----------



## ChrisZwolle

How many vehicles DO travel on the 401?


----------



## phattonez

For its length, I think the 405 portion of the San Diego Freeway is the busiest. It's getting a carpool lane on it, so expect those numbers to increase drastically.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

the 405 is the busiest in the US.


----------



## CrazyAboutCities

Funny thing... Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle have I-405 freeways too. Which one? :lol:


----------



## ChrisZwolle

The Los Angeles 405 ofcourse


----------



## jess19

aerial of the 401's sheer size


----------



## phattonez

^^And I'm sure that it stays that wide for the entire distance. hno:


----------



## CrazyAboutCities

^^ Why double freeways?


----------



## pwalker

Crazy, I don't know Toronto, but that shot looks like two highways converging. Or perhaps they are local and express separations. 

Don't forget, Seattle's I-5 is a double (sort of) highway as well with the express lanes. Seattle's I-5 express lanes are among the biggest and widest in the US. Some good forsight planning there, not common in Seattle!


----------



## Tuscani01

CrazyAboutCities said:


> ^^ Why double freeways?


Its not double freeways... One side is for the express lanes, the other side is for collectors.

If you want to drive through the city, the express lanes have no exits or on ramps. If you want to get off at a certain street, the collector lanes are the ones with access to the off ramps. They also take traffic from the on ramps. 

There are points along the highway where you can transfer from express to collector or vice versa... the picture above shows one of the transfers.


----------



## CrazyAboutCities

pwalker said:


> Crazy, I don't know Toronto, but that shot looks like two highways converging.
> 
> Don't forget, Seattle's I-5 is a double (sort of) highway as well with the express lanes. Seattle's I-5 express lanes are among the biggest and widest in the US. Some good forsight planning there, not common in Seattle!


Okay I got it now. Thanks!


----------



## CrazyAboutCities

Tuscani01 said:


> Its not double freeways... One side is for the express lanes, the other side is for collectors.
> 
> If you want to drive through the city, the express lanes have no exits or on ramps. If you want to get off at a certain street, the collector lanes are the ones with access to the off ramps. They also take traffic from the on ramps.
> 
> There are points along the highway where you can transfer from express to collector or vice versa... the picture above shows one of the transfers.


Okay I get it now. Just like Pwalker just used local Seattle's I-5 freeway as example for this "double" freeways. I undertand completely now. Thanks!


----------



## Booyashako

phattonez said:


> ^^And I'm sure that it stays that wide for the entire distance. hno:


you'd be surprised...


----------



## ChrisZwolle

jess19 said:


> aerial of the 401's sheer size


The mother of all freeways :banana: :lol:


----------



## CrazyAboutCities

That picture of 401 freeway is seen like it haven't caused suburbs to boom just like almost every city in USA, Canada, Austrailia, and New Zealand yet... What's up with that?


----------



## Tom 958

Arguably OT:

isaidso wrote:

" The expansion to 23 lanes of that large highway in Atlanta, USA ..."

How did you hear about that? And do you remember which highway it was? I-20, maybe, or some other road?


----------



## TheCat

phattonez said:


> ^^And I'm sure that it stays that wide for the entire distance. hno:


It is not always THIS big, but it is huge in most of its length through Toronto. However, the 401 is a pretty long highway (over 800 km), and is a 4- (sometimes 6-) lane highway in most of its rural length. However, the part that goes through Toronto (not a small part, for sure) is very large.


----------



## SSC

401 all the way m))


----------



## Gaeus

Its really a good thing that Greater LA got vast complex of Interstate Highways and Behemoth Interchanges or else the Santa Monica Freeway will surpass the Toronto 401 as the busiest interchange very easily. But who cares, LA freeways are still more advanced than other freeways of the world even though its almost 40 year old.


----------



## jess19

Gaeus said:


> Its really a good thing that Greater LA got vast complex of Interstate Highways and Behemoth Interchanges or else the Santa Monica Freeway will surpass the Toronto 401 as the busiest interchange very easily. But who cares, LA freeways are still more advanced than other freeways of the world even though its almost 40 year old.


This is about the busiest freeway, not the busiest interchange. And what are you basing LA's "advanced" freeway system on?


----------



## ChrisZwolle

jess19 said:


> Yeah .. it "was" the most advanced. I'm pretty sure other major metropolises around the world have networks and systems that are equivalent to, or surpass LA's.


Name one. Even the Chicago/New York networks aren't that extensive as LA's.


----------



## LtBk

Chris1491 said:


> Name one. Even the Chicago/New York networks aren't that extensive as LA's.


Madrid.


----------



## sbarn

^^ Madrid has an extensive network, but still doesn't match LA.

Madrid:









Los Angeles:


----------



## ChrisZwolle

That Madrid map is outdated. There is an M50 for a while.

It is still unclear which European road is the busiest; the Madrid M30 or the Moskovian MKAD. The London M25 would end high too, so is the Rotterdam A16.


----------



## jess19

Chris1491 said:


> Name one. Even the Chicago/New York networks aren't that extensive as LA's.


The Quebec City / Windsor Corridor network; serves about 15.6 million people with an area about 1,550 kilometres in length. Comprises the 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 409, 410, 416, 417, 420, 427, as well as the gigantic autoroute system.


----------



## sbarn

^^ This comprises several cities... you're comparing a regional highway network with that of a single metropolitan area. If you want to compare California's interstate network which serves 35 million people, with the Quebec City/ Windsor corridor, go ahead.













^^ Madrid certainly has an impressive highway network... it seems quite compact however. What are the capacity of these highways? Are they mostly 8+ lane freeways like LA's network?


----------



## sbarn

Is this the 401 in Toronto?










Nope, its the *New Jersey Turnpike...*


----------



## jess19

sbarn said:


> ^^ This comprises several cities... you're comparing a regional highway network with that of a single metropolitan area. If you want to compare California's interstate network which serves 35 million people, with the Quebec City/ Windsor corridor, go ahead.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ^^ Madrid certainly has an impressive highway network... it seems quite compact however. What are the capacity of these highways? Are they mostly 8+ lane freeways like LA's network?




I thought he was comparing the greater LA area as well.. oh well, Toronto still has a fairly reputable system that serves 8 million people, including Hamilton and London.


----------



## Nephasto

sbarn said:


> ^^ This comprises several cities... you're comparing a regional highway network with that of a single metropolitan area. If you want to compare California's interstate network which serves 35 million people, with the Quebec City/ Windsor corridor, go ahead.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ^^ Madrid certainly has an impressive highway network... it seems quite compact however. What are the capacity of these highways? Are they mostly 8+ lane freeways like LA's network?


No... Except for the innermost ring (M-30), where you have stretches with 12+ lanes, most of those freeways are 6 lanes (3+3), some 4 lanes (2+2) and some 8 lanes (4+4).


Madrid system, although being impressive, even more impressive for a city of it's size, can't be compared to LA's system.
You've got to rembember that Madrid's metropolitan area is home to some 5 Million people, while LA's metro has some 13 million people.
They're not in the same league.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

But Madrid has definatly Europe's best system. Compare that to the London Motorway system, which has only one orbital road and some connectors, or Paris with all the gaps in the motorways, or Berlin, which isn't that impressive too.


----------



## Gaeus

I think we need to go back to the topic :lol: . I believe those freeways the OP mentioned are currently the busiest in the world. However, China and India has the fastest growth of vehicle population. Currently, their freeways are fun to drive because there are only few vehicles but both governments are expecting heavy growth of vehicles on the next 5 - 10 years so they are now expanding those highways to accommodate such traffic. With the overwhelming population of both countries and the growing economy, I believe in 10 years, China and India may beat the freeways the OP mentioned IMHO.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

Most China Expressways between cities are generally only 2 lanes per direction. I think the Chinese government has the lack of anticipation here, if you see the congestion in European countries like Germany, Netherlands, Great Britain or Belgium, you will see that in the future in China too, but much worse, since there are a hell lot more of people in China who can own a car in the nearby future.


----------



## carfentanyl

Comparing Madrid's network to LA's network is almost ridiculous. 2 totally different cities. 

Madrid is very dense, L.A. is not at all. Madrid has a great public transport system, L.A. has not. Madrid serves 5 million, L.A. serves 13 million people. And most important, driving your car is big culture in L.A.,while in Madrid it's eating excellent food and drinking sangria and tinto's. No driving allowed then! 

So ofcourse L.A.'s freeway network is way more extensive....


----------



## LtBk

Chris1491 said:


> Most China Expressways between cities are generally only 2 lanes per direction. I think the Chinese government has the lack of anticipation here, if you see the congestion in European countries like Germany, Netherlands, Great Britain or Belgium, you will see that in the future in China too, but much worse, since there are a hell lot more of people in China who can own a car in the nearby future.


Not to mention Chinese drivers are more shitter.


----------



## TheCat

sbarn said:


> Is this the 401 in Toronto?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nope, its the *New Jersey Turnpike...*


Heh that's impressive, but I wondered why this "401" is so empty


----------



## ChrisZwolle

That's a tolled road, right?


----------



## TheCat

Chris1491 said:


> That's a tolled road, right?


The website for the NJ Turnpike has information about the E-ZPass, so I guess it is.


----------



## elkram

Hogtown said:


> forming the backbone of the system


I find there to be a problem with this perception of the interplay of Hwy 401 with the T'o area there: this 401 Hwy is virtually the lone bone to the region's whole friggin' expressway 'network' there. 

Ultimately, 401 needn't be a part of this poll.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

That Jersey TPK looks great, has even normal markings, unlike their LA counterparts.


----------



## Patrick

yeah the turnpike is in a pretty good condition as I remember


----------



## ChrisZwolle

It has only 3 lanes, which means it can carry about 132.000 vehicles a day (maybe up to 180.000, but not much more), which makes it certainly not one of the busiest roads in Europe, but maybe it is in Portugal.


----------



## leelouca

Im a Director of a Small courier company so am still on the road over the whole UK Road Network.

The M25 is Terrible. It was recently widened around Heathrow as J15-J13 i think, to 5 lanes each side, but what is the point if it will eventually come back down to 3 lanes each side it is obviously gonna cause a bottleneck situation isnt it!!! 

Today 29/08/07 i drove Clockwise from J12 all the way round to J22 at 3.30pm (before rush hour) and it took me 1hr and a half to travel about 20 miles.

there are plans to widen the M25 to 4 lanes all the wau round but it still will not be enough. 

Build More Fcukin Roads NNNNNOOOOOOWWWWWWW :bash:


----------



## beto_chaves

*Portugal's busiest Motorway*

The Portuguese's busiest motorways are in Lisbon, the national capital.

MOTORWAYS
A5:200.000 cars/per day
IC19: 120.000 cars/per day

A5 motorway connects Lisbon with Cascais/Estoril Cities and the Cascais coast line.
IC19 motorway connects Lisbon with Sintra


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

It's always a pleasure to post this pic of A4 urban stretch in Milan


----------



## x-type

what is this lane between toll barriers? is it some service lane or for emergency vehicles? i guess it is closed, right?


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

^^
Yes it is for emergency vehicles, police and so on; I don't know if it is fisically closed: I don't think so; probably they placed cameras which film infractions... 


Edit.
Wait: I see some barriers (hard to see, but there are)
Then emergency vehicles got a remote control to open the barriers electronically without stopping


----------



## keber

Chris1491 said:


> 3 lanes can NEVER handle 350.000 vehicles a day.
> 
> If you count all the capacity of all lanes, you can get some 300.000 a day with continuous traffic jams for 24 hrs, but this is highly unlikely since there are rushhours and nighthours.
> 
> The busiest 2x3 road in the Netherlands is the A20 near Rotterdam with some 180.000 vehicles a day, and it is jammed most of the day.
> 
> And Bergamo is a town of 117.000 inhabitants, and this makes it highly unlikely to generate so much traffic.
> 
> i found this quote on autostrade.it:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't speak Italian at all, but the last line says it has 140.000 vehicles a day, and 40.000 trucks a day i think?
> 
> That would make 140.000 or 180.000, and you can say it is very busy, but far from being Europe's busiest.


As I know, AADT is calculated with trucks and other large vehicles converted to "standard units" aka cars. 40.000 trucks is usually multiplied with 3 or even 4 to get AADT. Add to 140.000 vehicles and see.
And yes, A4 around Milano is mostly jammed through the day.


----------



## RawLee

Form where do you get those AADT figures? I cant find any for Hungary...can someone tell me some data regarding us?


----------



## keber

Surely your road agency/directorate/something has a web page with those data. I don't understand Hungarian, so I can't help you much.


----------



## RawLee

Thanks for the idea! It worked!
The highest number is 121774 vehicles/day(last year) on M7 between 7 and 9 km segments,weekends it was 131188.
Between 9 and 12 there were 104598 vehicles(M7),115406 on weekends.
M0 has an average of ~40000-60000 vehicles,weekends ~60000-90000.
(Weekend drive is forbidden for trucks not carrying perishable goods)


----------



## Patrick

keber said:


> As I know, AADT is calculated with trucks and other large vehicles converted to "standard units" aka cars. 40.000 trucks is usually multiplied with 3 or even 4 to get AADT. Add to 140.000 vehicles and see.
> And yes, A4 around Milano is mostly jammed through the day.


Afaik, this not done by the Germans. We count every vehicle as one vehicle and then give the number how many of these are trucks/buses etc.

For example: In Berlin, A 100, between Dreieck Funkturm and Kurfürstendamm, there are 191400 vehicles (on 3 lanes per direction), 3,9% percent of these is heavy traffic. Or A7 between Kirchheimer Dreieck and Kirchheim, 107000 vehicles, 30,8% of these is heavy traffic.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

RawLee said:


> Thanks for the idea! It worked!
> The highest number is 121774 vehicles/day(last year) on M7 between 7 and 9 km segments,weekends it was 131188.
> Between 9 and 12 there were 104598 vehicles(M7),115406 on weekends.
> M0 has an average of ~40000-60000 vehicles,weekends ~60000-90000.
> (Weekend drive is forbidden for trucks not carrying perishable goods)


Can you provide us a link to the data?


----------



## RawLee

Chris1491 said:


> Can you provide us a link to the data?


Good luck!
http://web.kozut.hu/uploads/media/BOVITETT_MEROHELY_KIADVANY_1_2006.pdf
All in hungarian.
The sheets are approx at the middle. j/nap is vehicle/day,E/nap is same,but weekend.
Szelvény is segment.
If you are fanatic,then here are the results until 1995
http://web.kozut.hu/index.php?id=135


----------



## CborG

RawLee said:


> Thanks for the idea! It worked!
> The highest number is 121774 vehicles/day(last year) on M7 between 7 and 9 km segments,weekends it was 131188.
> Between 9 and 12 there were 104598 vehicles(M7),115406 on weekends.
> M0 has an average of ~40000-60000 vehicles,weekends ~60000-90000.
> (Weekend drive is forbidden for trucks not carrying perishable goods)


How come is busier in the weekends, even if trucks are forbidden? Maybe you switched the figures, or are there lots of people going to lake Balaton?


----------



## RawLee

CborG said:


> How come is busier in the weekends, even if trucks are forbidden? Maybe you switched the figures, or are there lots of people going to lake Balaton?


People usually leave Budapest for the weekend. Thats when major roads are repavedWe managed to repave Árpád bridge in 2 weekends
And we are a transit country,I suppose foreign vehicles are also included


----------



## keber

CborG said:


> How come is busier in the weekends, even if trucks are forbidden? Maybe you switched the figures, or are there lots of people going to lake Balaton?


I remember one weekend, when driving from Budapest to Balaton on M7 (with the old pavement :nuts, that opposite lane had about 30 km long traffic jam, in Sunday evening (people returning from Balaton to Budapest). That was in 1999, I assume, that it's even worse now.


----------



## pilotos

Attiki odos in Athens had an average of 270.000 cars per day for 2006, heard its already more that 300.000, i ll search for some recent figures later.


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## Minato ku

It is for the whole motorway or only for the busiest section ?.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

Yeah, and how many lanes has that motorway? You need like 2x7 - 2x10 lanes for that amount, and even then traffic jams will exist.

(Dutch A16 has 250.000 on 14 lanes and is often clogged up).


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## Minato ku

No the Attiki odos has only 6 lanes


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## keber

Hard to believe that numbers for only 3+3 motorway. Beside that, on almost all pictures I've seen of Attiki Odos up to now, motorway seems quite empty.


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## ChrisZwolle

150.000 will be max without major traffic jams for 6 lanes. 180.000 is also possible (Dutch A20), but will be jammed often. 300.000 is highly unlikely.

You can calculate the approximate max amount of traffic by the following;

2500 X 10 X number of lanes. Capacity of lanes becomes lower when there are over 3 / 4 lanes per direction.


----------



## Jeroen669

Maybe minato ku meant 6 lanes per direction?


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## keber

Maybe, but not in Athens.


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## Jaeger

Dartford Crossing (near London)


----------



## Jaeger

On going work to Widen the M25 'The London Orbital Motorway'


----------



## Jaeger

The M25 - 'The London Orbital Motoway'


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## ChrisZwolle

^^ I guess that pic is like 10 years old, looking at the cars.


----------



## pilotos

> It is for the whole motorway or only for the busiest section ?.


It is quite obvious that they don't count the vehicles per sections, but when they enter the motorway, so if a car enters it doesn't matters if it will leave the motorway in 1 or 60 km.



> Yeah, and how many lanes has that motorway? You need like 2x7 - 2x10 lanes for that amount, and even then traffic jams will exist.


How come and you know how many lanes you need, since you have no idea of what the length of the motorway is?

Anyway here are the figures of attica motorway from 2006:










And here for the state owned motorways along the country:


----------



## Jaeger

Chris1491 said:


> ^^ I guess that pic is like 10 years old, looking at the cars.


Well I didn't take it, but yes it probably is, and traffic is now even worse. hno:


----------



## ChrisZwolle

pilotos said:


> It is quite obvious that they don't count the vehicles per sections, but when they enter the motorway, so if a car enters it doesn't matters if it will leave the motorway in 1 or 60 km.
> 
> How come and you know how many lanes you need, since you have no idea of what the length of the motorway is?


The length is not important, you don't measure the whole motorway to say how busy it is. You can measure how busy the road is, by taking the traffic amounts (AADT) from exit to exit, not the whole length. Same as those guys saying the Paris BP has 1 million cars per day. That might be true to the whole road, but not to one section, which you need to make an objective comparison to other motorways.



> Anyway here are the figures of attica motorway from 2006:
> 
> http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1067/1418046881_5dbd95b60e_o.jpg
> 
> And here for the state owned motorways along the country:
> http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1186/1418944012_297dee3e38_o.jpg


----------



## pilotos

I understand what you are saying, but i guess the way they count traffic here is for the whole motorway, they obviously have the figures for the busiest sections of course, but i couldn't find anything on their homepage.


----------



## DanielFigFoz

Chris1491 said:


> ^^ I guess that pic is like 10 years old, looking at the cars.


There are a few newer cars.

EX. The white mercedes van in the fast lane on the right side of the picture.


----------



## keber

DFM said:


> EX. The white mercedes van in the fast lane on the right side of the picture.


... which is also around 10 years old


----------



## x-type

the newest cars there are Vectra B at second pic and BMW E39 at right side of first pic. so, the year could be oldest 1995, i wouldn't give it more, maybe 1996 because all other cars are from first half of 1990s or end of 1980s


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## DanielFigFoz

keber said:


> ... which is also around 10 years old


Is it? I uesd to think it was older but I'll take you're word for it.




95 or 96? Ok it's quite old then.


----------



## Mr. B

It's safe to say the M8 in Glasgow is the busiest Motorway in Scotland and one of the busiest in the UK, it has the busiest River crossing in Europe, the Kingston Bridge carrying over 180,000 vehicles on average every day on Ten Lanes.









South of the bridge there is a section with 16 lanes


----------



## Jeroen669

Mr. B said:


> It's safe to say the M8 in Glasgow is the busiest Motorway in Scotland and one of the busiest in the UK, it has the busiest River crossing in Europe, the Kingston Bridge carrying over 180,000 vehicles on average every day on Ten Lanes.


Don't know if it is europe busiest, but at least I know the Van Brienoordbridge in Rotterdam is much busier with over 250.000 vehicles a day, on 12 lanes.


----------



## Mr. B

Well I'll settle for it being one of the busiest. 

It's certainly the busiest bridge in the UK


----------



## dmarney

*Busy Motorways*

What is your country's buisiest and most congested motorways? I'll post pics of some busy Uk ones soon


----------



## kicksilver

Sao Paulo has a metro population of almost 20 million people, and the city alone has a 7,000,000 vehicle fleet. The whole state has more than 20,000,000 vehicles. Canada is little compared to this...


----------



## J.Paulo

ChrisZwolle said:


> 350,000 sounds plausible*. 20% trucks is a bit much though, urban roads always have a lower truck share (or a higher car traffic share) even when the truck volumes are very high in absolute numbers.
> 
> 70,000 trucks (20%) is the passenger car-equivalent of 175,000 cars, thus you need 8 lanes for trucks alone. I know truck traffic is significant in Brazil, but 70,000.... I doubt it.
> 
> * internationally seen, 350,000 is still a huge number, but not unheard of.


I understand Chris, perhaps the numbers are apples and oranges.

Take a look at this: http://www.novamarginal.sp.gov.br/noticias/lenoticia.php?id=453&c=6

It confirms that in fact it has 11 lanes (i thought 10) in both ways, which are 23,5 km long.

"Vehicles: 350.000 per day
Trucks: 70.000 per day
Motorcycles: 45.000 per day"

JP


----------



## J.Paulo

kicksilver said:


> If it's 1,2 million travels daily, I guess it's 600,000 vehicles going and coming back from work, that's why it was counted twice?


I don't know. What i see is the official information that it has 350K vehicles per day.

I think Olabil's explanation makes sense.

JP


----------



## J.Paulo

null said:


> It doesn't look like a busy road to me at all.


I don't think it is the busiest road on earth, but i can see it is pretty busy road, although the picture does not show it.

Perhaps this could illustrate: http://fotos.estadao.com.br/chuva-e...nha,galeria,2567,85521,,,0.htm?pPosicaoFoto=3

Surely is the busiest road in Sao Paulo and perhaps Brazil.

JP


----------



## kicksilver

So, according to the official site of Marginal Tiete, it has an ADDT of 420,000. That would make it the second or third busiest in the world, behind that 401 one in Canada.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

No, it has 350,000 vehicles per day consisting of 70,000 trucks and 45,000 motorcycles, the rest are passenger cars, vans, buses, etc.


----------



## vitinhooo

null said:


> It doesn't look like a busy road to me at all.


Take a look in this video






Marginal Tiete appears between 0:29-0:49


----------



## HMMS

null said:


> It doesn't look like a busy road to me at all.


You say that because you do not know Sao Paulo if you know such a thing would never talk !!!!!, this picture, of course, was taken on a weekend or holiday, when the movement is far less ...... .. thank goodness !!!!!!!!:banana:


----------



## Kjello0

Haljackey said:


> By AADT standards, this is the busiest road:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Its the 401 in Ontario, Canada. It can top 500,000 vehicles per day in some sections of Toronto during the summer months.


I'm a big fan of freeways, but that's simply a sad picture. When traffic overcome 3+3 or in some cases 4+4 you should think about other options than roads for transportation. Such as commuter trains and subways.

Even Oslo with only 1,4 million inhabitans in the Greater Oslo area has a bigger subway system than Toronto and it's 5,5 million inhabitans in the Greater Toronto area.


----------



## kalibob32

while i dont know the technical details of road capacity, etc - the toronto metro region and golden horseshoe of so.ontario top 8million

not to mention that the 401 (pictured above) is the main highway for the main economic region of canada (linking it's 2 largest cities with the united states (more or less) 

what im trying to say is that a roadway like this seems to make sense 

*but but but* i agree with you kjello that when comparing european to american transport systems, the public side is largely a joke in canada/states - where the automobile reigns supreme

there is room for improvement


----------



## Elnerico

Toronto needs big improvements and expansion to its transit system. Montreal with 2/3 the population of Toronto carries 5% more commuters.


----------



## Haljackey

A lot of people who see that image think "Why don't they put a rail line in the centre/at the side?"

While by all means that makes sense, the 401 in Toronto is much more than a simple commuter road. Just about every major highway in the province connects with it in some way, and the lack of the highways in Toronto made the few existing routes huge. 
-The 401 joins with the 400, the major gateway to northern Ontario and central/western Canada.
-The 401 connects with Quebec and eastern Canada
-The 401 gets a lot of traffic from the QEW (Queen Elizabeth way) that is not accessing the city. The QEW connects to the U.S. Northeast.
-The 401 connects with the U.S. Midwest
-It is a major recreational route
-It is a major tourist route
-It is a major inter-city and inter-regional route
-It is a major connecting route
-It is a major commuter route
-It is the world's busiest truck route

Combine all these and you get the busiest highway in the world with one of the world's widest spans. Also consider the geography of the Great Lakes Region and the impact that makes on the 401.

While huge investments in public transit would help, it would only affect the local population and won't provide much relief for the 401. But I do agree that Toronto and other cities in Ontario need much more transit funding.

Edit: Oh, and Toronto obviously has the population and density to warrant more rapid transit/subway projects. Just look at this chart:










Toronto has the highest density of any major city in Canada/U.S. and is expected to grow to 9-10 million by 2031 according to Statscan.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

Kjello0 said:


> I'm a big fan of freeways, but that's simply a sad picture. When traffic overcome 3+3 or in some cases 4+4 you should think about other options than roads for transportation. Such as commuter trains and subways.


Toronto had a bad freeway planning. If you look at the road structure, the 401 serves almost the entire metropolitan area as the fastest route for trips that do not go into the downtown area. It also serves the airport and a major industrial area that spans 17 kilometers. All through traffic uses the 401. There lacks an east-west route east of downtown, making the Gardiner a not-so-interesting alternate to the 401 for urban traffic. 

As the 401 is not a downtown-bound link, public transport would in no way reduce traffic enough to warrant a 8 lane freeway. The capability of public transport to reduce road traffic is grossly overestimated in these kind of urban areas. You only will see a significant reduction in very dense and large areas, like over 15.000 inhabitants per km² such as central Paris, Tokyo, central London, Moscow, etc. And it's not like there is no congestion there.


----------



## isaidso

The 401 may be the busiest in the world, but it's not a road. The 401 is a freeway or highway, depending on which terminology one uses. Regardless, it's going to be the busiest patch of roadway of any kind, I suppose.


----------



## TheCat

ChrisZwolle said:


> Toronto had a bad freeway planning. If you look at the road structure, the 401 serves almost the entire metropolitan area as the fastest route for trips that do not go into the downtown area. It also serves the airport and a major industrial area that spans 17 kilometers. All through traffic uses the 401. There are lacks an east-west route east of downtown, making the Gardiner a not-so-interesting alternate to the 401 for urban traffic.
> 
> As the 401 is not a downtown-bound link, public transport would in no way reduce traffic enough to warrant a 8 lane freeway. The capability of public transport to reduce road traffic is grossly overestimated in these kind of urban areas. You only will see a significant reduction in very dense and large areas, like over 15.000 inhabitants per km² such as central Paris, Tokyo, central London, Moscow, etc. And it's not like there is no congestion there.


+1

If anything, improving public transit might reduce the traffic on the DVP/Gardiner/eastern section of the QEW (especially the DVP).

Not to say that our public transit doesn't need improvement (we are in dire need of more subway routes, and I don't even support building LRT instead of subways, despite the fact that the LRT plans are mostly canceled too now due to lack of funding). While I like driving (as most of us do on this forum), I also take public transit every single day to university (and soon to work), and would be one of the first people to say that I think it needs to be greatly expanded.

As Chris said, the main reason for the size of the 401 is a poor freeway network, not a poor public transit network. There aren't real alternatives to the 401 because there are only 3 east-west freeways: the QEW/Gardiner (too far south), the 401, and the 407 (it is far north AND is the only toll road here, which means that most people don't drive on it; it is also quite expensive compared to toll roads elsewhere).

In addition, we have an incomplete freeway system. Highway 400 abruptly ends southbound, never reaching the Gardiner. Allen Expressway was never completed (though I somewhat agree that completing it above-ground is not necessarily a good idea, but that's a completely different and irrelevant point of discussion).

By the way, in world standards, Toronto traffic is not so bad. Even compared to many other cities with much better public transit, our traffic is not as bad. Like in any major city, during peak rush hour times pretty much all the major freeways (and many major streets) in the city are congested, but just outside of rush hour (by a small margin, in fact), traffic flows "okay" if there aren't other problems (like a major accident).

In fact, yesterday I drove to visit my friend in Mississauga from North York. I left at 4pm and the majority of my trip consisted of the 401, 427, and QEW. Despite a few slowdowns (near interchanges between freeays), I was able to drive between 80 to 120 km/h throughout most of the trip. Of course, I just beat traffic (30 minutes later the 401 would come to a stop), but around 6:30pm the flow again improves (I've driven that route at that time too). The 401 does fill up to capacity at certain times, but the capacity that it provides with its huge size is needed - it keeps traffic flowing through majority of the day. 

During my visit to New York City 3 years ago I was driven through the city a lot (I have relatives there), and it seemed that no matter what time of day it was (even quite late in the evening), the freeways were completely filled and congestion was almost constant. This despite their much more expansive subway system.


----------



## Haljackey

TheCat said:


> By the way, in world standards, Toronto traffic is not so bad. Even compared to many other cities with much better public transit, our traffic is not as bad.


Oh yeah, it's bad. Maybe the traffic isn't as bad, but Toronto has a ridiculous commute time.
_

Commute time: calculated as the average time (in minutes) of a trip to and from work, based on: US: 2008 Canada, Europe, Sydney: 2006.
_
Cities associated with low commute times are considered to be more attractive places to live.

With the highest average commute time, Toronto ranks last among the 19 metro areas for which data are available. With the exception of New York, the US cities do well on this indicator. London, Montreal and Toronto are the only cities to receive “D” grades.

# cities ranked: 19

The Grade

# - City Name - grade - average commute time in minutes

1. Barcelona A (48.4)
2. Dallas A (53.0)
3. Milan A (53.4)
4. Seattle A (55.5)
5. Boston A (55.8 )
6. Los Angeles A (56.1)
7. San Francisco B (57.4)
8. Chicago B (61.4)
9. Berlin B (63.2)
10. Halifax C (65.0)
11. Sydney C (66.0)
12. Madrid C (66.1)
13. Calgary C (67.0)
14. Vancouver C (67.0)
15. New York C (68.1)
16. Stockholm C (70.0)
17. London D (74.0)
18. Montreal D (76.0)
19. Toronto D (80.0)

Data unavailable for Hong Kong, Oslo, Paris,
Shanghai, and Tokyo.

Source: http://bot.com/Content/NavigationMenu/Policy/Scorecard/Scorecard_on_Prosperity_2010_FINAL.pdf

Interesting to see where these cities fit. Looks like cities with more highways tend to rank higher compared to those with more rapid transit systems (subways). 

Still, expanding the rapid transit/subway system in Toronto is vital to its long term economical health. But the 401, the busiest highway in the world, is vital as well.


----------



## kingfisher09

Haljackey said:


> By AADT standards, this is the busiest road:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Its the 401 in Ontario, Canada. It can top 500,000 vehicles per day in some sections of Toronto during the summer months.


Will be taking this road home in the next 25 minshno: Pray that it is moving smoothly and no lanes are blocked due to accidents.


----------



## etc

That road is awsome, I wish I could be there someday. I like Toronto and this is another reason to be more impressed by this huge city.


----------



## Minato ku

Haljackey said:


> Commute time: calculated as the average time (in minutes) of a trip to and from work, based on: US: 2008 Canada, Europe, Sydney: 2006.
> [/I]
> Cities associated with low commute times are considered to be more attractive places to live.
> 
> With the highest average commute time, Toronto ranks last among the 19 metro areas for which data are available. With the exception of New York, the US cities do well on this indicator. London, Montreal and Toronto are the only cities to receive “D” grades.
> 
> # cities ranked: 19
> 
> The Grade
> 
> # - City Name - grade - average commute time in minutes
> 
> 1. Barcelona A (48.4)
> 2. Dallas A (53.0)
> 3. Milan A (53.4)
> 4. Seattle A (55.5)
> 5. Boston A (55.8 )
> 6. Los Angeles A (56.1)
> 7. San Francisco B (57.4)
> 8. Chicago B (61.4)
> 9. Berlin B (63.2)
> 10. Halifax C (65.0)
> 11. Sydney C (66.0)
> 12. Madrid C (66.1)
> 13. Calgary C (67.0)
> 14. Vancouver C (67.0)
> 15. New York C (68.1)
> 16. Stockholm C (70.0)
> 17. London D (74.0)
> 18. Montreal D (76.0)
> 19. Toronto D (80.0)
> 
> Data unavailable for Hong Kong, Oslo, Paris,
> Shanghai, and Tokyo.
> 
> Source: http://bot.com/Content/NavigationMenu/Policy/Scorecard/Scorecard_on_Prosperity_2010_FINAL.pdf


I have the data for Paris.
The INSEE calculate the average commute in Paris metro area.
Paris would have a big D rate with an average of 82 minutes. hno:

http://www.datapressepremium.com/rmdiff/alapage331.pdf


----------



## TheCat

Haljackey said:


> Oh yeah, it's bad. Maybe the traffic isn't as bad, but Toronto has a ridiculous commute time.
> ...


I guess you are correct, and now that I think about it, I do remember seeing that article somewhere. Though, I think other variables might be at work here beside pure congestion, such as the average commute distance, which is affected by things like urban sprawl and the location of employment in relation to most residential areas. For example, there are people who live in Mississauga and work in Markham (like a friend of mine). That's a daily commute to work of 60 km one way!



> Interesting to see where these cities fit. Looks like cities with more highways tend to rank higher compared to those with more rapid transit systems (subways).
> ...


Well, then it seems we are still in agreement on the main point - the bigger reason for Toronto's congestion problem is not a lacking public transit system (which is of course lacking as I said, but then again, not so bad in North American standards either), but the incomplete freeway system that we have. For example, if you live anywhere in the north-eastern suburbs (e.g. Markham), the only freeway that will take you downtown is the DVP, which is 3x3 curvy freeway with a lower speed limit. No wonder it comes to a standstill daily during rush hour.

I am one of the people who believe that the best way to get downtown is by subway, and despite preferring to drive in many cases, I rarely bother driving downtown. But I really like the idea of having a lot of commuter parking (perhaps as big multi-level structures to avoid having huge parking lots). I actually often park my car at Downsview and take the subway down. I, however, live along a frequent bus route so it's not a necessity for me. But for people who live far in the suburbs it's a good option.


----------



## Suburbanist

TheCat said:


> +1
> 
> If anything, improving public transit might reduce the traffic on the DVP/Gardiner/eastern section of the QEW (especially the DVP).
> 
> Not to say that our public transit doesn't need improvement (we are in dire need of more subway routes, and I don't even support building LRT instead of subways, despite the fact that the LRT plans are mostly canceled too now due to lack of funding). While I like driving (as most of us do on this forum), I also take public transit every single day to university (and soon to work), and would be one of the first people to say that I think it needs to be greatly expanded.
> 
> (...)
> 
> During my visit to New York City 3 years ago I was driven through the city a lot (I have relatives there), and it seemed that no matter what time of day it was (even quite late in the evening), the freeways were completely filled and congestion was almost constant. This despite their much more expansive subway system.


If even New York, with its comprehensive subway/metro rail system, has plenty of freeway congestion, it reinforces the argument that, at a metropolitan area level, a traffic/transit plan that sees cars as "enemies" will simply not work to fit our modern contemporary personal transportation needs.

In regard of massive (like this famous one in Toronto discussed here) freeways, I'm not much a fan of them, not because of their size or b.s. about "cutting communities in half" (something railways have been doing for 150 years), but because on most circumstances it would be better to have, for instance, three 2-3-3-2 higways than one 5-5-5-5 covering the same area.

Two of the most unbeaten advantages of road transportation are its capillarity and "reroutability". This last one means that no other mode of transportation can overcome so quickly a temporary bottleneck than road. So these massive freeways that become the only viable link for a great share of regional traffic becomes very exposed (like mains rail lines...). One single truck accident can wreak havoc in the whole metropolitan traffic, whereas a more distributed system of smaller freeways can accommodate better such issues.

For instance, I take the Rhineland in Germany, with multiple not-so-large freeways covering the area from Köln to Dortmund, as a better arrangement in relation to, say, the freeway network surrounding Milano in Italy.

Sometimes it is just impossible to avoid concentrating the freeway traffic in just one big and large artery due to, say, topography, but where avoidable, dispersing traffic is a better risk-management approach.


----------



## Haljackey

TheCat said:


> I guess you are correct, and now that I think about it, I do remember seeing that article somewhere. Though, I think other variables might be at work here beside pure congestion, such as the average commute distance, which is affected by things like urban sprawl and the location of employment in relation to most residential areas. For example, there are people who live in Mississauga and work in Markham (like a friend of mine). That's a daily commute to work of 60 km one way!
> 
> 
> 
> Well, then it seems we are still in agreement on the main point - the bigger reason for Toronto's congestion problem is not a lacking public transit system (which is of course lacking as I said, but then again, not so bad in North American standards either), but the incomplete freeway system that we have. For example, if you live anywhere in the north-eastern suburbs (e.g. Markham), the only freeway that will take you downtown is the DVP, which is 3x3 curvy freeway with a lower speed limit. No wonder it comes to a standstill daily during rush hour.
> 
> I am one of the people who believe that the best way to get downtown is by subway, and despite preferring to drive in many cases, I rarely bother driving downtown. But I really like the idea of having a lot of commuter parking (perhaps as big multi-level structures to avoid having huge parking lots). I actually often park my car at Downsview and take the subway down. I, however, live along a frequent bus route so it's not a necessity for me. But for people who live far in the suburbs it's a good option.


I agree. The freeway era is dead, _that was so 20th century_... :nuts:
-You won't be seeing any new freeways in Toronto in the short to mid term that's for sure.

Now that we're a decade into the 21st centry, its time to focus on rapid transit and high speed rail infrastructure. Metropolis's are growing all around the world and megalopolis's are growing even faster. The only way to effectively relieve congestion is through smart, green investments. Light rail must also be implemented for some of the smaller municipalities as well (such as Kitchener, London and Hamilton around Toronto).


----------



## Haljackey

Toronto does not have an extensive highway network nor does it have an extensive rapid transit network. That's a leading reason why it placed dead last.

I've been to Barcelona and I agree with its #1 rank. Barcelona has excellent transport infrastructure whereas Toronto is severely lagging in transport infrastructure.

Possible solutions for Toronto:
-Get the Gardiner underground and add another lane or HOV lane in each direction
-Add HOV lanes along the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) or convert one lane in each direction to HOV lanes.
-Add more lanes to the 401 where it needs it. Fix up bottlenecks at interchanges with the 427 and 404 to relieve congestion and increase overall traffic flow
-Extensive additions to the subway network and rapid transit
-LRT and rapid transit extensions in the GTA including a line to Pearson Airport
-Introduce a congestion tax similar to London (extreme)
-Build a high speed rail line or two to reduce long distance car commuting
-Expand GO Transit extensively
-Build Highway 448 in the existing power corridor to relieve congestion on part of the DVP and 401.


----------



## ChrisZwolle

About half of the Toronto metropolitan area relies on just a single freeway to downtown (The Don Valley Parkway). This is also why the 401 is so busy, it is also used by north-south traffic which uses it to get to better north-south routes towards central Toronto. 

A congestion tax doesn't solve anything, it'll temporarily lower traffic volumes because of the "shock effect" but in a few years everything is back to normal. 

High speed rail is a stupid solution to traffic congestion, high speed rail caters long-distance traffic. Few people commute over an hour each way (maybe 60 - 80 at best). I could see why a high speed rail from Detroit to Quebec City would make sense, but it is no solution to traffic congestion in Toronto. 

*If we were back in the 1950'*s, a northern/western depressed bypass of downtown Toronto, together with at least 3 additional radiating freeways would be the best solution to the current traffic problems. 

illustration:


----------



## TheCat

Haljackey said:


> -Add HOV lanes along the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) or convert one lane in each direction to HOV lanes.


Never understood people's obsession with HOV lanes. Last time I drove on the DVP (while it was hardly moving), I saw almost no one drive on the HOV lane. It was just an empty lane 90% of the time. Sure, it's good to encourage carpooling, but in practice people just don't do it.

Either way though, converting one lane of the DVP in each direction to HOV lanes (without adding a lane)? That's gonna lead to a congestion catastrophe 

I also don't understand why the bus lanes along Dufferin/Allen Rd. are now to buses exclusively and are not available to regular cars with high occupancy and to everyone outside of rush hour (a recent change introduced with the BRT), but then again, it makes no difference because outside of rush hour there is no need for those lanes at all.

Otherwise, though, I agree with your points, although I don't believe we will ever see a major expansion of our transit network (especially if done right, using subways). At least, I don't believe that'll happen in my lifetime.


----------



## Sacré Coeur

Minato ku said:


> I have the data for Paris.
> The INSEE calculate the average commute in Paris metro area.
> Paris would have a big D rate with an average of 82 minutes. hno:
> 
> http://www.datapressepremium.com/rmdiff/alapage331.pdf


The figures provided by INSEE are not comparable with those extracted from the study "Toronto as a global city". The first one calculates the time a person spent to travel (either for going to work or something else) whereas the second one calculates the average commute time i.e. only the time to travel to and from work.


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## Grey Towers

TheCat said:


> As Chris said, the main reason for the size of the 401 is a poor freeway network,


I take issue with calling it a "poor" freeway network. I, for one, would rather live in a city with a couple or three huge freeways than one, like most American cities, that is ringed and criss-crossed by many different freeways.
Freeways create dead zones, and I'd rather those be limited to a few areas of the city than more evenly spread out.


----------



## Suburbanist

Grey Towers said:


> I take issue with calling it a "poor" freeway network. I, for one, would rather live in a city with a couple or three huge freeways than one, like most American cities, that is ringed and criss-crossed by many different freeways.
> Freeways create dead zones, and I'd rather those be limited to a few areas of the city than more evenly spread out.


Completely disagree... A lot of structures "criss-cross" cities, beginning with overground rail tracks and those huge rail yards. They are not less disruptive than any freeway junction.


----------



## I-275westcoastfl

Grey Towers said:


> I take issue with calling it a "poor" freeway network. I, for one, would rather live in a city with a couple or three huge freeways than one, like most American cities, that is ringed and criss-crossed by many different freeways.
> Freeways create dead zones, and I'd rather those be limited to a few areas of the city than more evenly spread out.


You are so wrong, I live in a metro that lacks freeways and let me tell you its a major pain. Cities that are like this spend a ton of money upgrading the freeways they have and trying to make little improvements here and there. Getting around becomes a hassle since most traffic either crams the highways or the artery roads become clogged with traffic. Cities with adequate highways are much better off as commute times are usually lower and the quality of life is better.


----------



## Haljackey

Grey Towers said:


> I take issue with calling it a "poor" freeway network. I, for one, would rather live in a city with a couple or three huge freeways than one, like most American cities, that is ringed and criss-crossed by many different freeways.
> Freeways create dead zones, and I'd rather those be limited to a few areas of the city than more evenly spread out.


Sorry, but I have to disagree with your comment as well.

The main reason why the 401 is the busiest highway on earth is because it has to take the burden equal to the amount of traffic 3-4 highways receive simply because they aren't there. That's why its such a monster.

If the highway network wasn't crammed into one corridor, there would be less congestion because it is more spread out and better connected.

Its planning that matters most here. You can avoid "dead zones" by creating a large right of way and various other ways. Having a "criss-cross" makes sense depending on the size, population, density, and geography of the city at hand.

Toronto is a lakefront city, so it can't be crissed-crossed as much as a landlocked city. Thus, compromises need to be met to help plan and strengthen the network. 

Of course, investments in public transport will also help curb commute times, but its good planning that will do the most.

Just look at Barcelona, #1 on the list. Good planning. Good freeway network. Good public transit. Low commute times.


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## LtBk

NYC metro expressways are so congested because they are over capacity and built before interstate standards. Also, millions of people live in car centric Long Island.


----------



## Grey Towers

I-275westcoastfl said:


> You are so wrong, I live in a metro that lacks freeways and let me tell you its a major pain. Cities that are like this spend a ton of money upgrading the freeways they have and trying to make little improvements here and there. Getting around becomes a hassle since most traffic either crams the highways or the artery roads become clogged with traffic. Cities with adequate highways are much better off as commute times are usually lower and the quality of life is better.


Well, Toronto usually ranks near the top of "quality of life" surveys, so it can't be that.
I agree that congestion is a problem, but a greater concentration of freeways is not the answer. Better transit is. We have a laughable subway system, unlike the multi-tentacled ones that so many other world cities have (New York, London, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, et al). Unfortunately, our politicians can't seem to get the simplest transit projects done, let alone with some sense of purpose and haste. A commuter link to the airport, for which tracks _already largely exist_, has been talked about ad nauseam for decades.


Haljackey said:


> The main reason why the 401 is the busiest highway on earth is because it has to take the burden equal to the amount of traffic 3-4 highways receive simply because they aren't there. That's why its such a monster.


Don't forget about the >$1 billion in trade that flows along the 401 every day. It's not only the busiest stretch of road in the world, but probably also the most economically important.


> If the highway network wasn't crammed into one corridor, there would be less congestion because it is more spread out and better connected.


No argument there, but then Toronto, this city of so many disparate highly appealing residential neighbourhoods, would be completely different. It would be partitioned by freeways.


----------



## Nexis

Haljackey said:


> Toronto does not have an extensive highway network nor does it have an extensive rapid transit network. That's a leading reason why it placed dead last.
> 
> I've been to Barcelona and I agree with its #1 rank. Barcelona has excellent transport infrastructure whereas Toronto is severely lagging in transport infrastructure.
> 
> Possible solutions for Toronto:
> -Get the Gardiner underground and add another lane or HOV lane in each direction
> -Add HOV lanes along the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) or convert one lane in each direction to HOV lanes.
> -Add more lanes to the 401 where it needs it. Fix up bottlenecks at interchanges with the 427 and 404 to relieve congestion and increase overall traffic flow
> -Extensive additions to the subway network and rapid transit
> -LRT and rapid transit extensions in the GTA including a line to Pearson Airport
> -Introduce a congestion tax similar to London (extreme)
> -Build a high speed rail line or two to reduce long distance car commuting
> -Expand GO Transit extensively
> -Build Highway 448 in the existing power corridor to relieve congestion on part of the DVP and 401.


Even the new planned Transit system is in Trouble. Honestly i don't think Toronto can survive another 10 years without a great Transit System. It will slowly collapse in on itself , first Companies will start leaving then droves of people.












ChrisZwolle said:


> About half of the Toronto metropolitan area relies on just a single freeway to downtown (The Don Valley Parkway). This is also why the 401 is so busy, it is also used by north-south traffic which uses it to get to better north-south routes towards central Toronto.
> 
> A congestion tax doesn't solve anything, it'll temporarily lower traffic volumes because of the "shock effect" but in a few years everything is back to normal.
> 
> High speed rail is a stupid solution to traffic congestion, high speed rail caters long-distance traffic. Few people commute over an hour each way (maybe 60 - 80 at best). I could see why a high speed rail from Detroit to Quebec City would make sense, but it is no solution to traffic congestion in Toronto.
> 
> *If we were back in the 1950'*s, a northern/western depressed bypass of downtown Toronto, together with at least 3 additional radiating freeways would be the best solution to the current traffic problems.
> 
> illustration:


More Freeways aren't the answer , unless you place them underground. Toronto Needs more Transit , There Rush Hours are hell , worse the NYC.



TheCat said:


> Never understood people's obsession with HOV lanes. Last time I drove on the DVP (while it was hardly moving), I saw almost no one drive on the HOV lane. It was just an empty lane 90% of the time. Sure, it's good to encourage carpooling, but in practice people just don't do it.
> 
> Either way though, converting one lane of the DVP in each direction to HOV lanes (without adding a lane)? That's gonna lead to a congestion catastrophe
> 
> I also don't understand why the bus lanes along Dufferin/Allen Rd. are now to buses exclusively and are not available to regular cars with high occupancy and to everyone outside of rush hour (a recent change introduced with the BRT), but then again, it makes no difference because outside of rush hour there is no need for those lanes at all.
> 
> Otherwise, though, I agree with your points, although I don't believe we will ever see a major expansion of our transit network (especially if done right, using subways). At least, I don't believe that'll happen in my lifetime.


They removed are HOV lanes here in NJ during the late 90s , its a pity because we can really use them. With the New Republican Governor forcing NJT to raise fares by 25%.hno:



Suburbanist said:


> Completely disagree... A lot of structures "criss-cross" cities, beginning with overground rail tracks and those huge rail yards. They are not less disruptive than any freeway junction.


Depends , some of the Rail yards in the Northeast are bigger then Interchanges , but there less dirty and don't cause a whole lot of fumes or noise.



I-275westcoastfl said:


> You are so wrong, I live in a metro that lacks freeways and let me tell you its a major pain. Cities that are like this spend a ton of money upgrading the freeways they have and trying to make little improvements here and there. Getting around becomes a hassle since most traffic either crams the highways or the artery roads become clogged with traffic. Cities with adequate highways are much better off as commute times are usually lower and the quality of life is better.


You don't have any Transit , and it seems you won't for a while, sadly. Although you do have HOV lanes on the Freeways.



LtBk said:


> NYC metro expressways are so congested because they are over capacity and built before interstate standards. Also, millions of people live in car centric Long Island.


Car Centic? Well idk about that , you'd be suprised. Alot of Long Islanders want more Transit options , the LIRR plans on restoring or Expanding the system by 300 miles over the next 10 years.



Grey Towers said:


> Well, Toronto usually ranks near the top of "quality of life" surveys, so it can't be that.
> I agree that congestion is a problem, but a greater concentration of freeways is not the answer. Better transit is. We have a laughable subway system, unlike the multi-tentacled ones that so many other world cities have (New York, London, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, et al). Unfortunately, our politicians can't seem to get the simplest transit projects done, let alone with some sense of purpose and haste. A commuter link to the airport, for which tracks _already largely exist_, has been talked about ad nauseam for decades.
> 
> Don't forget about the >$1 billion in trade that flows along the 401 every day. It's not only the busiest stretch of road in the world, but probably also the most economically important.
> 
> No argument there, but then Toronto, this city of so many disparate highly appealing residential neighbourhoods, would be completely different. It would be partitioned by freeways.


I rode your subways , very bad. Even compared to NYC , old cars ,stations were confusing.hno: As for High Speed Rail in Canada, Ontario needs to work better with Amtrak , CSX and private investors to hook up the planned Empire HSL with the Niagara Peninsula / GTA. Also Canada needs to push for more Freight lines. The Canadian Freight system is laughable compared to the US & European networks.hno: You will see by the end of this decade on how great our Northeastern Passenger / Freight network will be , along with Balanced Transit systems across the region, except in a few areas.

~Corey


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## Xusein

Toronto should strengthen it's commuter rail system, it has plenty of spare railroads that go through possible corridors. Problem is though, the railroads are owned and used by the freight companies which keep it's potential usage stunted.

Compared to the commuter rail systems of the Tri-State (NY, NJ, CT), Boston, and Chicago, GO Transit is very small in scope and coverage.

Driving on the 401, 427, or Gardiner is usually a mess. Every time that I visit that city, I end up in massive traffic in whatever time you could think of, except nights. Even on Sundays, it's not unusual to be in traffic on the Don Valley Parkway. And it takes forever to get from Northeast Scarborough (Malvern) to downtown regardless of the way you go, transit or by car. 

It's worse than New York for sure, a city that has almost 4 times as much people!


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## TheCat

Nexis said:


> Even the new planned Transit system is in Trouble. Honestly i don't think Toronto can survive another 10 years without a great Transit System. It will slowly collapse in on itself , first Companies will start leaving then droves of people.


As far as I know most of that new planned system is canceled, not simply in trouble hno:.



> More Freeways aren't the answer , unless you place them underground. Toronto Needs more Transit , There Rush Hours are hell , worse the NYC.


More transit is definitely badly needed. However, I do not believe it will reduce traffic jams. Two problems that are related but do not affect each other directly. That is, of course, unless you integrate the two systems well instead of demonizing the drivers completely. For example, as I previously said, I rarely drive downtown because I believe the subway is much better. However, I think parking at the subway station works well for me, and I don't even mind the (cheap) $4 parking rate that was introduced last year.



> They removed are HOV lanes here in NJ during the late 90s , its a pity because we can really use them. With the New Republican Governor forcing NJT to raise fares by 25%.hno:


Well, we have HOV and bus lanes in different locations. Some of those are a good idea and work (especially some bus lanes), some, at least from what I personally saw, are not used (many of the freeway HOV lanes). I'd rather these lanes be opened to general traffic than simply remain empty.



> Depends , some of the Rail yards in the Northeast are bigger then Interchanges , but there less dirty and don't cause a whole lot of fumes or noise.


Not sure about that. Many people in Toronto talk about the Gardiner being a major divider between downtown and the harbourfront, but the railway tracks that run parallel to it are much (and I mean, MUCH) wider, much more difficult to cross, and IMHO are a much bigger barrier.



> You don't have any Transit , and it seems you won't for a while, sadly. Although you do have HOV lanes on the Freeways.


Here I pretty much agree with you, though, I wouldn't say we don't have any transit. We still have very big ridership compared to many other NA cities. Our subway/RT (again, I emphasize the subway) is way too small, but in general Toronto is quite convenient to get by with PT as long as you don't go deep into the suburbs.



> I rode your subways , very bad. Even compared to NYC , old cars ,stations were confusing.hno:


Strongly disagree. I rode the subway in NYC, and found it much more confusing and more dirty (stations with crumbling ceilings and water pouring from them down onto the platform). I also had a "safety" incident there (sort of a minor mugging, though not exactly), but I'm not going to talk about it  The trains on some lines are a bit newer than ours (though our T1 trains are fairly new, and the Toronto Rocket trains that will be arriving soon are newer than NYC's), but in general we have the same trains, made by the same company.

Size-wise of course there is simply no comparison, but in the other qualitative aspects I don't quite agree.



> As for High Speed Rail in Canada, Ontario needs to work better with Amtrak , CSX and private investors to hook up the planned Empire HSL with the Niagara Peninsula / GTA. Also Canada needs to push for more Freight lines. The Canadian Freight system is laughable compared to the US & European networks.hno: You will see by the end of this decade on how great our Northeastern Passenger / Freight network will be , along with Balanced Transit systems across the region, except in a few areas.


Can't comment much here because I don't know much about this area. High speed rail is nice but has little to do with Toronto's traffic problems. AFAIK most freight does pass in Canada via rail (our system is much smaller than the US, but don't forget that we have a much smaller population and are more spread out), but you may be right overall, I know little about freight transport.



Xusein said:


> Driving on the 401, 427, or Gardiner is usually a mess. Every time that I visit that city, I end up in massive traffic in whatever time you could think of, except nights. Even on Sundays, it's not unusual to be in traffic on the Don Valley Parkway. And it takes forever to get from Northeast Scarborough (Malvern) to downtown regardless of the way you go, transit or by car.
> 
> It's worse than New York for sure, a city that has almost 4 times as much people!


Again, I simply do not know where these figures are coming from. Today, again, I visited my friend in Mississauga. I decided to wait out the 5pm period because it is, indeed, congested. I left around 6:30pm and drove on the 401, 427, and QEW, and maintained an average speed of 100 km/h. Mind you, it was unusually congested eastbound (I guess that direction is always worse, though I think there was a problem today), but I had absolutely no problems westbound.

Again, I'm not denying that congestion exists because I've driven through the worst of it, but outside of the peak rush hour times, it's not that bad. In fact, some routes are much worse (for example, turning left onto Eglinton Str. from Allen Expressway is always horrible at most times of day), but I would never say that driving on the 401/427 is horrible at all times of day if there are no other problems such as accidents or lane closures.

You are correct somewhat about the Don Valley Parkway though - that freeway has no capacity and no alternatives, and is always jammed, although I've driven it without problems outside of rush hour many times as well.

---

Either way, though, the reality is that indeed no more freeways will (or even can be added). Underground is nice but realistically will never happen in our lifetimes. A good transit network is badly needed, and some stuff might happen, but it's unrealistic to expect it to grow to such huge proportions that it will reach all suburbs and therefore cars will become secondary. Just have to look at things realistically instead of idealistically. This is my opinion.


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## carewser

I can't _imagine_ why this debate went on as long as it did.












Haljackey said:


>


These two pictures tell it all. The road in Sao Paulo doesn't even come close to the 401 in Toronto.

The thing that blows me away is that there are no freeways in Shanghai, Los Angeles, Tokyo or New York that are bigger than the 401 in Toronto.


----------



## Suburbanist

Xusein said:


> Toronto should strengthen it's commuter rail system, it has plenty of spare railroads that go through possible corridors. Problem is though, the railroads are owned and used by the freight companies which keep it's potential usage stunted.


Given the scope of American and Canadian freight origin-destination demands, the relatively lack of viable inland waterways, the huge distances from coast of major production centers, I wouldn't prey on freight railroads to divert their well-managed cargo operations to divert capacity to rail traffic.

I doubt people would like to see coal trucks (and the sheer electricity price increase...) or soybean trucks or corn trucks or lumber trucks clogging highways if freight cargo were to be diverted to highway.

Moreover, given the fiscal constraints in both countries (to a lesser degree in Canada), I doubt very much that loss-generating passenger rail operations would stand a big expansion chance in current political environment.


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## Nexis

Suburbanist said:


> Given the scope of American and Canadian freight origin-destination demands, the relatively lack of viable inland waterways, the huge distances from coast of major production centers, I wouldn't prey on freight railroads to divert their well-managed cargo operations to divert capacity to rail traffic.
> 
> I doubt people would like to see coal trucks (and the sheer electricity price increase...) or soybean trucks or corn trucks or lumber trucks clogging highways if freight cargo were to be diverted to highway.
> 
> Moreover, given the fiscal constraints in both countries (to a lesser degree in Canada), I doubt very much that loss-generating passenger rail operations would stand a big expansion chance in current political environment.


Ummmm, what are you talking about? Freight shares with Passenger trains everyday , Metro Chicago and the East Coast are a great example of that. More Tracks can easily be added to meet demands. Some Freight companies run lines for Metra. We are currently expanding and upgrading are entire rail system atm , most states and a few provinces. The Northeast & Midwest are doing it at a very fast pace and Quebec is doing it at a decent pace aswell. + Quebec is really make attempts to strength Passenger connections between them and New England via restoring and upgrading lines. So the fact that Go Transit can't expand there network do Freight traffic is BS , its more on the lines that Ontario is a very Car centric societyhno:


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## caserass

carewser said:


> The thing that blows me away is that there are no freeways in Shanghai, Los Angeles, Tokyo or New York that are bigger than the 401 in Toronto.


I don't know about tokyo or NY but Paris has a freeway network of about 800 kilometers. I guess that's the difference between these cities and toronto.

Paris









London









New York









Tokyo









Toronto


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## Minato ku

^^ Big means wide in carewser post.
He is right, in Shanghai, LA, New York, Tokyo or London, Paris... there are no highway wider than the 401 in Toronto.

In Central Tokyo, the average 2x2 lanes by exemple.


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## Haljackey

http://youtu.be/Z_gVmOfAvG4


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## Martin Ferraro

Blackraven said:


> If one would ever plan a road trip between Madrid and Gibraltar, will one get a chance to travel that road? If yes, then it would be neat
> 
> Anyways
> Not necessarily related to busiest........but in some places somewhere around the world, more lanes are being added.
> 
> I think one of the lane expansions is in America:
> -California (Interstate 5 near I-805 and California Route 36)
> I heard they wanna make it into something like 22 or 24 lanes (or maybe 26, I dunno)
> -Texas
> Interstate 10 (some call it the Katy Freeway). More than 22 lanes.
> 
> *Btw, there's this road in Argentina that is also massive.....and it's not a controlled-access or limited access roadway.
> 
> July 9 avenue is what it's called*
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_de_Julio_Avenue


Proyectos:


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## Winged Robot

UD2 said:


> it means Toronto have really bad traffic planning and congustion. which is true.
> 
> this really is nothing to be proud of. Although the fact that 40% of the cars dash down the road at 140km/h also help to speed things up.


If Highway 401 is designed to handle such a large amount of traffic in the Toronto area (which it seems to be with many lanes in a collector-express system, cameras, etc.), then I don't see a problem with it's numbers. It actually meant they planned or adapted to the situation well if that's the case.


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## gmanucci

*IMIGRANTES ROAD, IN SÃO PAULO

TAKE A LOOK*


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## Haljackey

lol

With volumes that high, why not switch to electronic tolling?


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## turangalia

Paris peripheric Boulevard ( ring road freeway) has 300 000 vehicles per day.


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## Martin Ferraro

Algunos datos de América Latina...
Actualizo los datos de los accesos a BsAs...
1- Marginal Tiete - Sao Paulo (2010): 380.000
2- Acceso Norte - BsAs (2011): 355.443
3- General Paz - BsAs (2009): 316.500
4- Periférico Norte - Ciudad de México (2010): 303.000
5- Acceso Oeste - BsAs (2012): 287.876
6- PR18 - San Juan (2008): 286.800
7- PR22 - San Juan (2008): 257.000
8- Autopista a La Plata - BsAs (2011): 230126
9- Richieri - BsAs (2012): 214.156
10- PR 26 - San Juan (2002): 160.100
11- PR 52 - San Juan (2003): 166.493
12- PR 2 - San Juan (2009): 117.238
13- PR 30 - Caguas (2004): 113.300
14- PR17 - San Juan (2005): 107.300
15- Autopista Central (rama este) - Santiago (200?): 75.858
16- Puente Rafael Urdaneta - Maracaibo: 50.760 

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=101436912#post101436912


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## alesmarv

I believe the Margina Tiete is the busiest now and the numbers presented in this thread would support it as they are from a few years ago and the traffic volumes have significantly grown since then. I lived a 10 min walk from Marginal Tiete (location of the bellow picture) and this is a picture I found from late 2011 at around 8-9pm at night on a work day.









The highway is congested virtually 24-7 now, it is not just peak hours but all hours and continues to undergo expansions.

I will see if I can dig up the most up to date traffic counts but if anyone else can get a hold of them and post them please do so. I know the 401 is massive, but the Marginal Tiete has certainly surpassed it since the beginning of this thread. Also of note there are other massive highways in the city as well that would rank pretty high in terms of traffic volumes.


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## alesmarv

Haljackey said:


> lol
> 
> With volumes that high, why not switch to electronic tolling?


1) These pictures are from holidays when everyone tries to get out of the city and to the beach.
2) Sao Paulo is not a city where you can relax and go for a stroll in a park and hence why everyone tries to get out during holidays, the city is the last place people want to spend their time off. Its not like what you are used to in Ontario / Toronto.
3) This is why there is such a huge swing in traffic volumes on the Imigrantes, 95% of the time if there is no fog or accidents the highway and toll booths are just fine to handle demand. On weekends and holidays traffic volumes shoot through the roof more then other places.

I suppose you would need to live there to understand, the amount of people leaving the city during holiday's is much higher then in Toronto.


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## Yuri S Andrade

I guess after the "Nova Marginal" upgrade back in 2010, *Marginal Tietê* might carry more cars than Highway 401:


Source

During the rush hour: http://blogpontodeonibus.wordpress....-faz-prefeitura-pensar-em-transporte-publico/


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## ChrisZwolle

That is possible, but I haven't seen reliable roadway segment traffic counts of the Marginal Tiête.


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## Yuri S Andrade

^^
Yes, I've googled it and I found nothing. Chris, is it possible to estimate, based on the number of lanes, how many cars go through Marginal Tietê every day?

As São Paulo's car fleet keeps growing fast, Marginal Tietê is already slower than before the lane addition. I guess the north section of Rodoanel will offer some relief when completed:



Yuri S Andrade said:


> *São Paulo Rodoanel, 177 km*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _R7_
> 
> West and South sections completed. East under construction and North to be started. About *19 million people* and *8 million cars* are inside the ringway.


Looking quickly on a Brazil's map, São Paulo might look peripheral, but it's actually THE crossroad of Brazil. An huge share of Brazilian goods go through São Paulo's highways, including Marginal Tietê. So it's not only about São Paulo's already big fleet, but cars and trucks from all over the country using SP's highway complex.


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## ChrisZwolle

Yuri S Andrade said:


> Chris, is it possible to estimate, based on the number of lanes, how many cars go through Marginal Tietê every day?


The outer lanes of the Marginal Tietê would not be considered a part of the freeway in most countries, because it has driveway and side street access, and in some cases sidewalks. However they are free-flowing, there are no pedestrian crossings or traffic lights.

The express lanes are mostly 12 - 14 lanes wide, and the local lanes generally have 3 lanes each way, which brings the total of this free-flow corridor to as much as 20 lanes.

If you use certain rules of the thumb (2200 vehicles/hr * 20 lanes * 12 hrs), a traffic volume of 500,000 vehicles per day is not impossible. Which could make it the busiest road in the world, but as you found out, there are no reliable traffic counts available. I personally think 400,000 - 450,000 is a more plausible volume.


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## Haljackey

Video I made about 2 months ago that shows the 401's busiest segment. 





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miErXMuzxAA

Skip to about 8 mins in to see it


----------



## Martin Ferraro

Martin Ferraro said:


> Algunos datos de América Latina...
> Actualizo los datos de los accesos a BsAs...
> 1- Marginal Tiete - Sao Paulo (2010): 380.000
> 2- Acceso Norte - BsAs (2011): 355.443
> 3- General Paz - BsAs (2009): 316.500
> 4- Periférico Norte - Ciudad de México (2010): 303.000
> 5- Acceso Oeste - BsAs (2012): 287.876
> 6- PR18 - San Juan (2008): 286.800
> 7- PR22 - San Juan (2008): 257.000
> 8- Autopista a La Plata - BsAs (2011): 230126
> 9- Richieri - BsAs (2012): 214.156
> 10- PR 26 - San Juan (2002): 160.100
> 11- PR 52 - San Juan (2003): 166.493
> 12- PR 2 - San Juan (2009): 117.238
> 13- PR 30 - Caguas (2004): 113.300
> 14- PR17 - San Juan (2005): 107.300
> 15- Autopista Central (rama este) - Santiago (200?): 75.858
> 16- Puente Rafael Urdaneta - Maracaibo: 50.760
> 
> http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=101436912#post101436912


Actualizando:

1- Marginal Tiete - Sao Paulo (2010): 380.000
2- General Paz - BsAs (2012): 376.800
3- Acceso Norte - BsAs (2011): 362.000
4- Periférico Norte - Ciudad de México (2010): 303.000
5- Acceso Oeste - BsAs (2012): 287.876
6- PR18 - San Juan (2008): 286.800
7- PR22 - San Juan (2008): 257.000
8- Autopista a La Plata - BsAs (2011): 230.126
9- Richieri - BsAs (2012): 214.156
10- PR 26 - San Juan (2002): 160.100
11- PR 52 - San Juan (2003): 166.493
12- PR 2 - San Juan (2009): 117.238
13- PR 30 - Caguas (2004): 113.300
14- PR17 - San Juan (2005): 107.300
15-Acceso Norte Ramal Tigre - BsAs (2012): 98400
16- Autopista Central (rama este) - Santiago (200?): 75.858
17- Circunvalación - Rosario (2012): 62.400
18- A004 - BsAs: 57.000
19- Puente Rafael Urdaneta - Maracaibo: 50.760 

http://transito.vialidad.gov.ar:8080/SelCE_WEB/tmda_libro_web_2012/


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## Penn's Woods

I suppose (hope...) someone's already said so in the *eight years* since this thread was launched...I'm certainly not going to go back and read it all...but how can a question of fact be the subject of a poll? Whether or not you believe, say, Paris is the most populous city in France, it is.


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## Yuri S Andrade

^^
Good point! :lol:


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## Langeveldt

Haha I true, I thought that.. The Marginal Tiete looks an interesting road, are they counting both sides of that river? I can see five separate freeways going in the same direction!


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## Yuri S Andrade

^^
Yes, in Marginal Tietê (and Marginal Pinheiros as well) the river splits the traffic flow. In the picture I posted, we have 11 lanes in one side (right, west-east) and 11 in the other (left east-west)

P.S. The newest São Paulo's CBD developed along Marginal Pinheiros, which makes it visually more interesting than Marginal Tietê:


SKY LINE SAO PAULO PONTE ESTAIADA por MARCELO DONATELLI, no Flickr


MARCELODONATELLI 762 por MARCELO DONATELLI, no Flickr









Source

I think it has 8-9 lanes in each side of the river in the widest part.


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## Langeveldt

Just a ridiculous city, buildings that stretch to the horizon as high as the highest in my country


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## xrtn2

Marginal Tietê são paulo


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## Yuri S Andrade

As we were talking about Marginal Tietê and Marginal Pinheiros lately, here some aerial views posted by Hello_World in his most recent thread:

Tietê










Pinheiros


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## Yuri S Andrade

Anothe contender. Posted by Chris few days ago:



ChrisZwolle said:


> Traffic on I-10 in West Houston has grown to become the busiest stretch of freeway in Houston in 2012. The AADT east of the Beltway 8 interchange has exploded to 360,000 vehicles per day. Traffic grew by 100,000 vehicles in just 5 years. If current trends continue, it will become the busiest freeway in the U.S. in a year or two, overtaking I-405 near Long Beach, CA.


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## mopc

^^ the massiveness, the quality :drool:


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## vitacit

*...*

what is this pyramide on the very right side ? 



Yuri S Andrade said:


> Anothe contender. Posted by Chris few days ago:


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## Blackraven

mopc said:


> ^^ the massiveness, the quality :drool:


Agreed. 

With that said:
Only enviro-hippies, anti-road and anti-car whackos will brand something like this as 'evil', 'polluting' and 'harmful to mankind' :lol:

Thank god that such kinds of losers are nonexistent here on "Highways and Autobahns" forum


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## Haljackey

The Katy Freeway is one of a kind.

-----

Highway 401's busiest segment can be seen in this new *Freewaybrent *video.


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## Yuri S Andrade

People just posted this chart on *São Paulo Highways* thread back on Brazilian forum:










Apparently, it counts only the hinterland-capital flow. Estimates provided by the road departament but I can't tell how accurante they are. If those numbers are right, those roads are one of the busiest in the world.

Anhanguera & Bandeirante - to Campinas (north)
Castello Branco & Raposo Tavares - to Sorocaba (west)
Régis Bittencourt - to Curitiba (southwest)
Imigrantes & Anchieta - to Santos/coast (south)
Ayrton Senna & Dutra - to São José dos Campos/Rio de Janeiro (east)
Fernão Dias - to Belo Horizonte (northeast)


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## ChrisZwolle

Figures like that tend to be the number of toll transactions, or total number of vehicles using the entire road (irrespective of length), that is not how AADT figures are compared.

For example it is pretty much impossible to have 400,000+ counts on road segments with less than 16 lanes.


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## Haljackey

A couple weeks ago I made a timelapse driving video of the 401 through Greater Toronto.

It is likely the busiest in terms of AADT between two interchanges.


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## Yuri S Andrade

ChrisZwolle said:


> Figures like that tend to be the number of toll transactions, or total number of vehicles using the entire road (irrespective of length), that is not how AADT figures are compared.
> 
> For example it is pretty much impossible to have 400,000+ counts on road segments with less than 16 lanes.


Everything I know about this stuff I learned here and I remember you said something about that. That's why I found the numbers odd. Out of those, I guess Imigrantes is the widest with 12 lanes, but that's not all the way.

Said that, São Paulo is THE Brazil's crossroads. Pretty much everything goes through it at some point. Even though the macrometropolitan area is very big per se (around 32 million people), creating a lot of traffic by the own, we have trucks from all over the country just passing by.


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## ChrisZwolle

Marginal Tietê is capable of handling 400,000+ vehicles per day. To my knowledge, that is the only road that can compete with Toronto's Highway 401, but I haven't been able to find accurate recent traffic counts of Marginal Tietê.


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## Innsertnamehere

Not the busiest part of the 401, but still a great photo of the 401 / 404 interchange..


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## Kanadzie

LOL, you see the tire, not another stowaway is it? :lol:


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## Ders453

I-69 US-59 Southwest Freeway Houston, TX


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## Martin Ferraro

Any numbers from Dubai???
It is incredible!!! huuuuge expressways! (but a very short metro system and a poor bus system).

Sorry for my english!!!


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## Innsertnamehere

Dubai is too small of a city to have significant enough traffic numbers to come close to the 500,000 AADT of the 401. Sheikh Zayed Road is only 10 lanes wide, and is likely far and away Dubais busiest road.


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## Martin Ferraro

Innsertnamehere said:


> Dubai is too small of a city to have significant enough traffic numbers to come close to the 500,000 AADT of the 401. Sheikh Zayed Road is only 10 lanes wide, and is likely far and away Dubais busiest road.


Are you sure?
I mean... i was there only 3 days but some expressways looks really bussy to me.

And i am almost sure that there is one or two roads with 16 lanes or more.


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## ChrisZwolle

Los Angeles shows that up to 300,000 vehicles per day are possible on 10 lanes. Although Dubai is not incredibly big in population, nearly all activities are along the Sheikh Zayed Road, so it could carry more traffic than the population figures may suggest.


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## Innsertnamehere

I can assure you that if you were to drive on the 401 in Toronto through its busiest stretch you would feel it is even busier. Its nearly twice as wide at 18 lanes, its essentially a 10 lane highway like Sheikh Zayad road plus an addtional 8 lane highway running right beside it.

the 401 at 18 lanes sits in traffic for probably 10 hours a day.. its really, really, really busy.


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## ChrisZwolle

In employment terms, the 'real' central business district of Toronto is the strip of land running alongside the 401. 

Toronto has a system with relatively few freeways (compared to Northeast US), but very wide ones. There is no feeder system, everything is dumped onto the massive 200,000+ vehicles per day freeways via parclos.


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## Innsertnamehere

I wouldn't say that, the downtown still holds 25% of employment, but yes, our road structure is different than most. The local arterial tend to be a bit more "urban" than US arterials, with strong bus service, which helps a lot with local demand and congestion. the way the city is laid out puts probably close to 30% of employment along a single roadway.

This is a typical street corner just off the 401:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.7897...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1skZpux1F0FElcxLZJv-NTrA!2e0


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## ChrisZwolle

Innsertnamehere said:


> the downtown still holds 25% of employment


I've read figures in the 10% range, but perhaps it's the difference between municipal and metropolitan employment. 

In the U.S., the CBD employment as a share of the metropolitan area is usually under 10%, with some notable exceptions of New York (22%), San Francisco (14%) and Washington (13%). In Phoenix, it is 1%.

http://www.demographia.com/db-cbd2000.pdf


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## RV

I wonder, what would be the AADT of the MKAD (Moscow belt)? I remember reading it is something like 250 000-300 000 at least... In any case, it is surely as busy as M30 in Madrid, and Peripherique in Paris.


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## Innsertnamehere

Looked it up, core employment is at roughly 17%, but "shoulder" areas of the core would probably push it above 20%. Roughly 570,000 out of 3,400,000.

Getting a bit off topic now, but Calgary probably has the highest % in north america.


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## Blackraven

I wonder if it's possible to add extra lanes on the 401.

Something like from 18 lanes to 20+ (or even 26 lanes........similar to that Interstate 10 road in Texas, USA)

:banana::cheers::lol:


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## Innsertnamehere

You could probably make the 18 lane section 20 lanes (5+5+5+5), but there is no real point. the busiest portion was actually just widened to 15 lanes (4+4+4+3) a year or two ago, but is as wide as it can be currently.

The Houston highway is also 16 lanes (6+2+2+6) on the expressway portion from my understanding, its "total" lane count includes two 4 lane frontage roads.


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## Suburbanist

In Toronto, there is no grade-separated connection between the NE end of 407 and anything else (401 or 115)


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## Innsertnamehere

This is what the Toronto Highway network looks like today. The 401 is the one that follows the lake on the right side of the image, and is the top highway exiting the image on the left. The busiest portion is between the intersection with the highway on the left that is running from the top of the image (400) and the small "connector" highway that goes off the 401 forming a sort of triangle in the middle of the image (409). The 18 lane section, the widest part of the highway, runs between the 403 (the part that turns north to the left of the "triangle"), and the 427, which is the highway that forms the left side of the "triangle". 

The 407, Toronto's second "ring road", is yellow.

This is the current setup of the highway network, note the lack of the reconnection with the 401:










This is what the network will look like by the end of 2015, note how the 407 now reconnects with the 401.










and this is how it will look like in 2020, when the 407 is further extended to 115, and includes another connection to the 401:


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## Xusein

Sorry for the off-topic, but are they using for criteria for CBDs in that pdf file. 
NYC is in the unique position of having two CBDs by default, Midtown and Lower Manhattan (or downtown) and they aren't continuous.

As for that map of the GTA growing highway network, other than Durham region there is no change. Should help growth in those areas. I guess mass transit improvements are the only solution for Toronto proper, and I believe they are starting a plan on that at the same time. The 401 is hopeless.


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## Haljackey

Xusein said:


> The 401 is hopeless.


I wouldn't say that.

The fact that the the highway is being widened continuously helps alleviate some pain. Currently there are projects underway to extend the collector-express system east and west, as well as some widening on the stretch through Toronto. A reconstruction of the 400 interchange is also planned, which is a major source of congestion on the highway's busiest stretch.
-Example: an additional eastbound lane currently is being squeezed in between Allen Road and Yonge Street

A light rail line is also planned along Sheppard Avenue, a busy arterial that parallels the 401 to the north. Part that road of already has a subway underneath it.

Another possibility is to mark the leftmost express lane for HOV use only. That would not increase the 401's vehicle capacity, but its people-moving capacity instead.


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## Innsertnamehere

Not included in that image of course is major transit expansion including what is possibly the worlds largest regional rail upgrade, large amounts of other transit projects, and a bunch of highway widening projects throughout the highway network. By 2020 over 9 million people will be living in that image, its needed.

To find my downtown employment figure I used the cities data, which includes most of downtown. The large employment nodes along the yonge subway aren't included however, and only 1 of the 4 major nodes along it is really serviceable by the 401, or any highway for that matter. access to that employment is essentially just as restricted for car access as the downtown, if not more so.


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## Kanadzie

^^ I know Toronto talk is all transit transit transit but I can't imagine it working to the extent it really needs to - like all the additional transport demand from today to the future being met entirely by a handful of transit projects. It seems totally impossible. There are various road plans on the margins mostly links out to the exurbs, but that crucial east-west movement across the middle has no hope...


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## Innsertnamehere

yea, the 401 is sort of unfixable so to speak, there is no real solution to it. The only thing you can do is direct traffic around it and try and minimize its use.

GO transit (regional transport) ridership is growing at 6% annually with service increases only keeping up with demand, once its more recent projects which include expansion beyond demand response, it will likely pick up even more. The TTC is roughly growing at the rate of population growth, 2%, but its really suffering due to a lack of investment right now (which will be changing in the future).

Transit can absolutely take a lot of demand off of highways, but don't expect rush hour to go away any time soon, or for it to even really get better. The transit projects are largely designed to make traffic stop getting worse, not make it better.


MTO is still expanding highways as needed as well, its not like they are abandoning the highway file for transit. Ontario is moving away from the north american model of 90% of transport money going to highways to a more european style ratio of roughly 50-50%.


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## BriedisUnIzlietne

Innsertnamehere said:


> The transit projects are largely designed to make traffic stop getting worse, not make it better.


It's quite true - when people have the possibility, they will choose the road over transit (Who wants to be in a packed public vehicle when you can ride in your private one on an even slightly congested road). Which means that the road will pretty much always be used up to it's maximum whether it's 2 lanes wide or 20, and car amounts won't decrease. Without increasing the cost of driving, it's impossible to relieve congestion.


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## Kanadzie

^^ Not really, just make the road large enough to handle the people who want to drive, then its easy... a 2x2 lane road in most parts of Latvia for example solves the problem entirely 

Toronto's problem even with its 12-lanes road is that it has too many people and not enough 12-lane roads. A lot of it is because of Toronto's shape - because it is on the lake Ontario, it isn't a normal circular shape, but a flat one with downtown on the bottom, so the suburban "depth" is double what it would be otherwise and there is no road on the south side.

I do wonder though if in the future considering strong growth of the GTA we might see some kind of Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line style highway running in the lake from Burlington to like Scarborough or Darlington... maybe in 100 years


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## Innsertnamehere

so I'm guessing with a 30x5 road widening for the 401 will make you happy?

Rural expressways in countries with low auto ownership rates are one thing, another in a city of 6 million in one of the worlds wealthiest countries.


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## Kanadzie

it would be so amazing  I mean, it sucks to be stuck in the traffic on it, 1st gear 2nd gear, 3rd, stop, 1st again... 30 lane hwy seems probably impractical, more roads would be a better way through it. I mean I drive into TO all the time I'm not going to drive 5 hours to Scarborough, abandon my car to be stolen on Morningside or Kingston Rd and take transit to Mississauga... and I'm too cheap to pay for the 407 (it sucks much for Quebecer as the cost is extremely high. For Albertans apparently Alberta refuses to share details with 407ETR and so it's pretty sweet deal )


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## BriedisUnIzlietne

Kanadzie said:


> ^^ Not really, just make the road large enough to handle the people who want to drive, then its easy...


You can do that but it seems unlogical - already in the suburban shopping districts around 401 more space is taken up by road and parking than by the actual buildings that people want to get to. Eventually you'll have roads wider than city blocks 

For example the entire 18 lanes of 401 could be transformed into a train line just 2 tracks wide. The capacity would grow to as much as 3 700 000 people per day and it free up about 230 feet of land on the sides of the tracks for offices, shops, schools, housing, parking.

But that's never gonna happen, because



Kanadzie said:


> I mean I drive into TO all the time I'm not going to drive 5 hours to Scarborough, abandon my car to be stolen on Morningside or Kingston Rd and take transit to Mississauga...


this is the problem with transit and suburbs. The building density is too low to have convenient and frequent transit routes. So people will need a car anyways to get to the transit. And they will probably drive it to their destination - not some Park&Ride kind of stuff.

I myself live in the suburbs. There are two infrequent (one every 16-30 mins) bus routes. One doesn't go to the city center which increases the ticket costs by 60% and the other was recently made even slower than it used to be by creating a special bus way (with 30 kph speed limit).

So, if I was old enough to drive a car, I would. And using any park&ride would be slower than sitting in congestion so I'd drive to the very city center.


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## Blackraven

Innsertnamehere said:


> so I'm guessing with a 30x5 road widening for the 401 will make you happy?


150 Lanes? HOLY S**T HAHA (maybe in 200 years......but by then we might flying cars or teleportation) 

Anyhow, I think a more realistic and more feasible approach for the current era:
For the 401 roadway:
-increase lane count to at least 20 lanes on widest (if they can do more than 26 lanes and surpass I-5 in Texas USA, then go for it. If they want 30 lanes, then they can do that as well............since Canada has smaller total population yet bigger land area compared to USA.)

In short, if USA can do it, so can Canada 

then followed by:
-improvements in the train transportation sector (which is already being done)

I think that works well. You have both road and rail covered


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