# First 2x3-laned or wider road in your country?



## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

italystf said:


> Italy:
> first 3x2: A27 Mestre-Conegliano 1972
> first 4x2: A1 Modena-Bologna 2005


wow, what a surprise, i had no idea that A27 was the first! i was always wondering why was it 3+3, never saw some extremly hard traffic there. any particular reasons for that?


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

x-type said:


> wow, what a surprise, i had no idea that A27 was the first! i was always wondering why was it 3+3, never saw some extremly hard traffic there. any particular reasons for that?


Back in the 60s it was planned to become the main highway to Austria and Germany (it would have crossed into Austria near San Candido), until they decided that main routes would be via Brenner and Tarvisio.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

So, tu sum up:
First "super two" (2-lanes expressway): A8 Milan-Varese, 1924
First 2x2 road w/o grade-separation: SS36 Milan-Giussano, somewhere in the 1950s
First 2x2 motorway: A1 Milan-Parma (except Po bridge), 1958
First 3x2 motorway (w/o shoulders): A4 Turin-Milan, 1962
First 3x2 motorway (w shoulders): A27 Venice-Conegliano, 1972
First 4x2 motorway: A8 Milan-Lainate, 1999


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

^^ 4 carriageways with each 2 lanes?

We're used to 2x4 instead of 4x2...


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

^ It's 2×4.


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

4x2 is also possible, when two carriageways are the main ones with the through traffic and two side ones are for those exiting and entering the highway (in Polish we call them "collective carriageways", I don't know if it's international). Like here: https://goo.gl/maps/4nUXFcnTFHQ2 (although it's not 4x2, but rather 2+3+3+2).


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

^^ In the Toronto region we call them "collector lanes" vs the "express lanes" in the middle, but at least we are not so cheap with the asphalt 
https://www.google.pl/maps/place/To...23555502ab4c477!8m2!3d43.653226!4d-79.3831843


I really like the setup on A4 through Katowice, I found it a pleasure to drive.
in Toronto the road is much wider, often 4+4+4+4 now, but tempo 100 in all lanes  
Polish at least made much better speed limit determination 
That said, in Toronto one is usually very happy to drive 100 km/h instead of the more typical 10 km/h on this road. But at night we all run 140...

---
For the on-topic, I believe the Hwy 401 through North York was expanded to 2x3 motorway around 1956, and expanded to 4x3 starting in 1966.

In Montreal, Canada the 2x3 Metropolitan Boulevard (today A-40) was opened as an elevated motorway starting in 1959.

For surface streets 2x3 was common for years before. Dorchester St (today's boulevard Rene-Levesque) was 2x4 in the 1950's for example (today the same road is 2x2 + bus lane )


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

Kpc21 said:


> 4x2 is also possible, when two carriageways are the main ones with the through traffic and two side ones are for those exiting and entering the highway (in Polish we call them "collective carriageways", I don't know if it's international). Like here: https://goo.gl/maps/4nUXFcnTFHQ2 (although it's not 4x2, but rather 2+3+3+2).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-express_lanes


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Another English term is frontage road.
In Italian we say _complanare_ (that means 'in the same plane').


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

^^ frontage road is similar, but it has no access control, it allows direct access to all the adjacent properties, often also is bidirectional like this setup:
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Oa...5037b28c7231bd0!8m2!3d43.467517!4d-79.6876659


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## michael_siberia (Jul 9, 2009)

Poland:

First 2x3: "Trasa Łazienkowska" in Warsaw, in operation since 22nd July 1974
First 2x4: Grot-Rowecki Bridge in Warsaw, in operation since 27th November 1981


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## Autobahn-mann (Mar 1, 2013)

A similar situation in Italy is in Bologna, where the "Tangenziale" (Ringroad) aka RA1 goes alongside with A14 motorway; so we have 4x2...


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

michael_siberia said:


> First 2x4: Bridge in Szczecin in operation since 1996


Wow, 0.5 km of 2×4.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Collector / distributor lanes at a cloverleaf are called a _rangeerbaan_ in Dutch traffic engineering jargon. It's the same word for shunting at railroads. Though the word _rangeerbaan_ is almost never used in daily speech or press releases. It's usually called a _parallelbaan_ (parallel lane / carriageway).

Frontage roads are pretty uncommon in most of Europe. While some motorways may have short frontage roads between nearby exits, configurations as they have in Texas or Thailand are uncommon, the Spanish _vía de servicio_ or _vía lateral_ may be the closest one.


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## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

ChrisZwolle said:


> Collector / distributor lanes at a cloverleaf are called a _rangeerbaan_ in Dutch traffic engineering jargon. It's the same word for shunting at railroads. Though the word _rangeerbaan_ is almost never used in daily speech or press releases. It's usually called a _parallelbaan_ (parallel lane / carriageway).
> 
> Frontage roads are pretty uncommon in most of Europe. While some motorways may have short frontage roads between nearby exits, configurations as they have in Texas or Thailand are uncommon, the Spanish _vía de servicio_ or _vía lateral_ may be the closest one.


i usually call it laterals because i heard Spaniards to say so (ok, I've heard them to say so for those side avenues at Diagonal, BCN, but it is more or less similar).

maybe the best example of it in Europe is in Bologna.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

A14 at Bologna doesn't have frontage roads, it has collector / local lanes. 

Frontage roads are built for driveway and property access. They have traffic lights at cross-streets and connect on and offramps with cross-streets.


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## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

ChrisZwolle said:


> A14 at Bologna doesn't have frontage roads, it has collector / local lanes.
> 
> Frontage roads are built for driveway and property access. They have traffic lights at cross-streets and connect on and offramps with cross-streets.


of course. in Europe such roads are (probably) always the roads of the highest rank, (motorways) which don't tolerate frontage accesses. in USA they don't hesitate to make 6 or 8 lanes express road with intersections at 1 level, or with frontage accesses.


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## arctic_carlos (Dec 28, 2007)

ChrisZwolle said:


> Frontage roads are pretty uncommon in most of Europe. While some motorways may have short frontage roads between nearby exits, configurations as they have in Texas or Thailand are uncommon, the Spanish _vía de servicio_ or _vía lateral_ may be the closest one.





x-type said:


> i usually call it laterals because i heard Spaniards to say so (ok, I've heard them to say so for those side avenues at Diagonal, BCN, but it is more or less similar).
> 
> maybe the best example of it in Europe is in Bologna.





ChrisZwolle said:


> A14 at Bologna doesn't have frontage roads, it has collector / local lanes.


AP-7 / B-30 in the Barcelona area is a good example of a collector motorway alongside a main motorway with less exits. For a length of about 11 km it has a 2+3+3+2 configuration, where AP-7 is 2x3 and B-30 is 2x2.

https://www.google.es/maps/@41.4824152,2.0468425,382m/data=!3m1!1e3



ChrisZwolle said:


> Frontage roads are built for driveway and property access. They have traffic lights at cross-streets and connect on and offramps with cross-streets.


Then B-20 _Ronda de Dalt_ in Barcelona could be an example of that between exits 2 and 9. Here _Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron_ and _Via Favencia_ clearly act as a frontage road for about 8 km.

https://www.google.es/maps/@41.4289467,2.1437635,191m/data=!3m1!1e3


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

A12 in Belgium is also a good example south of Antwerp, even when a portion of the main carriageways are also at-grade. 

But this is a really small scale. A very large share of freeways in Texas has frontage roads. In Houston, almost any freeway has continuous frontage roads. 

Frontage roads can be one-way or two-way streets. For example on I-270 near St Louis, there are two-way frontage roads on either side.

D5788_CM_-530 by MoDOT Photos, on Flickr


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Some Italian expressways have frontage roads to access properties located along them, and for vehicles not allowed on the espressway itself.

SS16 near Bari



















SS106 in Basilicata


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