# The First motorway of your country?



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

ChrisZwolle said:


> No, it's not.


Yes it is . It was controlled-accessed and had pretty high standards. It was not 2+2 though


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

So it was not a motorway. 2x2 with a physical divider or wide median is one of the absolute minimum requirements for a motorway, none of the pre-1950's Italian autostrades had it. It could be considered a tolled express road.


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

ChrisZwolle said:


> So it was not a motorway. 2x2 with a physical divider or wide median is one of the absolute minimum requirements for a motorway, none of the pre-1950's Italian autostrades had it. It could be considered a tolled express road.


Funny. It's as if you said "ancient roman roads were not real roads because no car ever drove on them".


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Calling a road a motorway doesn't make it a motorway. It needs to meet certain requirements, at least 2x2 with a barrier or wide median and grade-separation and preferably a shoulder. The Autostrada dei Laghi did not had all that in the 1920's. 

The Long Island Motor Parkway was a 1x2, grade-separated road with tolls and opened in 1908.


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

ChrisZwolle said:


> Calling a road a motorway doesn't make it a motorway. It needs to meet certain requirements, at least 2x2 with a barrier or wide median and grade-separation and preferably a shoulder. The Autostrada dei Laghi did not had all that in the 1920's.


So if in the near future you change the definition of motorway, stating that "a motorway is at least 3x3 grade separated", you retroactively declass those which are 2x2? Nonsense.
Besides, your definition stated above "at least 2x2 with a barrier or wide median and grade-separation and preferably a shoulder" describes also superstrade, which instead are NOT motorways.



> The Long Island Motor Parkway was a 1x2, grade-separated road with tolls and opened in 1908.


In fact, this thread is "first motorway of your country". In Italy, that is Milano-Laghi, whether you agree or not.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

g.spinoza said:


> So if in the near future you change the definition of motorway, stating that "a motorway is at least 3x3 grade separated", you retroactively declass those which are 2x2? Nonsense.


With that kind of reasoning even a cobblestone road could've been a motorway as long as it was called that way. 



> Besides, your definition stated above "at least 2x2 with a barrier or wide median and grade-separation and preferably a shoulder" describes also superstrade, which instead are NOT motorways.


Yes, and many of those have motorway design standards, or what would be motorway design standards in other countries. Others are substandard motorways. 



> In fact, this thread is "first motorway of your country". In Italy, that is Milano-Laghi, whether you agree or not.


The first motorway in Italy in a modern sense was the A1 Milano - Parma in 1958, definitely not the Autostrada dei Laghi just because it was called an autostrada but did not meet design standards of a motorway. The most lacking issues were the lack of a divided roadway, a two-lane setup and what appears to be at-grade splits. 

That's really not much different why some of the earlier parkways in New York City could not be considered motorways, or why AVUS is usually not considered the first real motorway of Germany. 

There's no need in overstretching the definition of a motorway just to be the first. It's like calling a kite the world's first airplane just because it flew.


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

ChrisZwolle said:


> With that kind of reasoning even a cobblestone road could've been a motorway as long as it was called that way.


No, it would be a road, though.



> There's no need in overstretching the definition of a motorway just to be the first. It's like calling a kite the world's first airplane just because it flew.


No overstretching here, and we're definitely not the first, since you mentioned that 1908 road in USA. It's just giving the proper name to things, and not changing it because "standards changed". Autolaghi was the first Italian "motorway", i.e. road specifically designed for motorvehicles. The Italian name has the same meaning, auto (automobile) strada (road). It's as simple as that, A8 was the first autostrada and, even if in between definition changed, it still is.

It's like stating that an Italian guy born in Istria when it was part of Italy is not Italian because the "definition" of Italy changed. No sense at all.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

The Autostrada dei Laghi was Italy's first Autostrada. It was not Italy's first motorway. The definition of Autostrada changed over time to conform to contemporary motorway standards as discussed before. If a road like the Autostrada dei Laghi would be constructed today, it would not be a motorway, but a high-standard non-urban road. However, if a 1930's Dutch or German motorway would've been built today, it could be considered motorway standard.


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## niskogradnja (Feb 8, 2010)

In the Balkans, we have the youngest motorways in Europe. If they were built in the 1930s, they would be considered the best roads ever been built anywhere:lol:


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

ChrisZwolle said:


> *If a road like the Autostrada dei Laghi would be constructed today*, it would not be a motorway, but a high-standard non-urban road.


But it wasn't. That's the whole point of the discussion.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

My reasoning is: autostrada dei laghi was built as a high-speed access controlled way for cars to move fast and free of other interferences. Up to that point, all roads over which cars traveled were old farm roads, roman alignments or other carriage ways meant for other uses ( especially horse-drawn carriage ways) and merely adapted for cars


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## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

the whole Yugoslavia called road 1 from Jesenice (Slovenia) to Gevgelija (Macedonia) "autoput" what means "motorway", but nobody says it was a motorway, it was just 1+1 grade separated road with large curves' diameters.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

I wonder what the first motorway of Asia is... Several countries began building motorways or local equivalent in the 1960's, such as Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and maybe Iran. The first expressway in Japan opened in 1962.


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## ea1969 (Oct 6, 2007)

x-type said:


> the whole Yugoslavia called road 1 from Jesenice (Slovenia) to Gevgelija (Macedonia) "autoput" what means "motorway", but nobody says it was a motorway, it was just 1+1 grade separated road with large curves' diameters.


... and it was not fully grade separated as there was a section between Beograd and Zagreb (not the whole stretch but at least a significant proportion of it) with level junctions as well.


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## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

ea1969 said:


> ... and it was not fully grade separated as there was a section between Beograd and Zagreb (not the whole stretch but at least a significant proportion of it) with level junctions as well.


i am not sure in this, especially for section Zagreb - Beograd. do you know where it was not grade separated?


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

If we go by Italian definition, then our first "motorway" was the old Ljubljana-Kranj road built by Hitler. 









http://www.panoramio.com/photo/11829501


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Verso said:


> If we go by Italian definition, then our first "motorway" was the old Ljubljana-Kranj road built by Hitler.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It seems a normal state road where pesestrians and bycicles are allowed and where there may be at-grade intersections and private driveways.


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

it has only one grade separated exit AFAIK. http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=4...0.01623,0.0421&mra=mift&mrsp=0&sz=15&t=m&z=12

btw, wasn't that road built in '40 already?


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

italystf said:


> It seems a normal state road where pesestrians and bycicles are allowed and where there may be at-grade intersections and private driveways.


I'm not sure, but I think bicycles and pedestrians aren't allowed (I'll check next time). You're right about at-grade intersections and private driveways (although there're also two grade-separated interchanges and hardly anyone enters or leaves the road elsewhere), but now it's just a local road, perhaps it resembled an expressway more in the past. Anyway, it was our first good road (concrete on the pic is still original, but I think it's all asphalted now, I'm not sure though).



hofburg said:


> it has only one grade separated exit AFAIK. http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=4...0.01623,0.0421&mra=mift&mrsp=0&sz=15&t=m&z=12


And this one.



hofburg said:


> btw, wasn't that road built in '40 already?


Sorry, I don't know much about this road, I thought Hitler built it.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Verso said:


> I'm not sure, but I think bicycles and pedestrians aren't allowed (I'll check next time). You're right about at-grade intersections and private driveways (although there're also two grade-separated interchanges and hardly anyone enters or leaves the road elsewhere), but now it's just a local road, perhaps it resembled an expressway more in the past. Anyway, it was our first good road (concrete on the pic is still original, but I think it's all asphalted now, I'm not sure though).
> 
> And this one.
> 
> Sorry, I don't know much about this road, I thought Hitler built it.


Interesting. You have an unclear knowledge about a road that connect your city with another. I guess you take the motorway every time you go to Kranj, thanks to the yearly vignette system. Unfortunately in Italy, the toll system force us to know very well all state roads in our region.hno:


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