Motorway Directions

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Chris Bertram
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by Chris Bertram »

jgharston wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:12
orudge wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:11 Not a motorway, but I always think of the A96 as westbound/eastbound rather than northbound/southbound, which I know a number of other folk use. While the road as a whole does run from Aberdeen north to Inverness, it reaches a northernmost point around Elgin then runs southbound to Inverness, whereas the road remains pretty consistently westbound or eastbound.
On a similar theme, I am continually correcting people who refer to travelling "north" from Whitby if they are referring to a land route. If you travel north from Whitby you will get wet.
If you travel *due* north, certainly. Routes towards Teesside travel towards a more northerly latitude, A174 more quickly than A171.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by M4Simon »

jgharston wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:12
orudge wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:11 Not a motorway, but I always think of the A96 as westbound/eastbound rather than northbound/southbound, which I know a number of other folk use. While the road as a whole does run from Aberdeen north to Inverness, it reaches a northernmost point around Elgin then runs southbound to Inverness, whereas the road remains pretty consistently westbound or eastbound.
On a similar theme, I am continually correcting people who refer to travelling "north" from Whitby if they are referring to a land route. If you travel north from Whitby you will get wet.
I remember getting bogged down on a "20 questions where am I quiz" on SABRE many years ago because of the difference between "Am I north of London?" and "Am I further north than London?" Holyhead (for example) only qualifies as yes to one of those questions.

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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by ellandback »

orudge wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:11 Not a motorway, but I always think of the A96 as westbound/eastbound rather than northbound/southbound, which I know a number of other folk use. While the road as a whole does run from Aberdeen north to Inverness, it reaches a northernmost point around Elgin then runs southbound to Inverness, whereas the road remains pretty consistently westbound or eastbound.
I agree, for precisely the reasons you state. The road as a whole is predominantly E/W; referring to it as N/S only makes sense between Aberdeen and Elgin, and even then not to any greater extent than E/W also makes sense for that stretch.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by bart »

Was92now625 wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:57
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:50
Was92now625 wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:05 Of course, the "decision" is made more "official" in e.g. USA. The number (in certain categories of road) is odd or even depending on which direction the road is deemed to run.
Causes problems when a road runs diagonally though - for example I-44.
Yes. There is the actual direction and the "official direction" the road is "deemed" to run.
The US directions are based on the local geometry of the road. So US 101 goes along the west coast and then around the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. If you travel all the way along it from LA, it's mostly signed "North" but towards the end you will pass signs that say "East" and eventually "South".
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by Bryn666 »

bart wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 19:38
Was92now625 wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:57
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:50

Causes problems when a road runs diagonally though - for example I-44.
Yes. There is the actual direction and the "official direction" the road is "deemed" to run.
The US directions are based on the local geometry of the road. So US 101 goes along the west coast and then around the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. If you travel all the way along it from LA, it's mostly signed "North" but towards the end you will pass signs that say "East" and eventually "South".
The best ones are examples like the Bayshore Freeway north of Oakland, which is north-south but signposted as East I-80 and West I-580 due to the way the roads multiplex.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by SteelCamel »

ais523 wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 20:29
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 18:51Nope. Up and Down, as per the railways, with Up meaning towards London, in England and Wales, anyway.
This has its own issues: if you look at the mileposts for a railway line which doesn't go to London, it can be very hard to guess which direction is up and which direction is down! (I think at least one that I used to use regularly reversed milepost direction at some point.)

Using a system like that on the roads would be even worse; there are more roads than railways, and they're more likely to be driven on by unfamiliar drivers.
In some cases it's up to London, but by a line that no longer exists. Or by a circuitous route that's long since been bypassed by a more direct line. Then there are stations like Edinburgh and Exeter St Davids where both ways go to London.

But the motorways already have this system - "down" is "A", going away from the datum (London, or some other "beginning" of the road) and "up" is "B", going towards the datum.

Of course on the railways, (most of the time) when you're going up the mileage is going down and vice versa. And then there's mountain railways, where the usual convention would have "down" going up the mountain and "up" coming down it...
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by bart »

Bryn666 wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 20:59
bart wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 19:38
Was92now625 wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:57

Yes. There is the actual direction and the "official direction" the road is "deemed" to run.
The US directions are based on the local geometry of the road. So US 101 goes along the west coast and then around the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. If you travel all the way along it from LA, it's mostly signed "North" but towards the end you will pass signs that say "East" and eventually "South".
The best ones are examples like the Bayshore Freeway north of Oakland, which is north-south but signposted as East I-80 and West I-580 due to the way the roads multiplex.
That's a converse example to US 101 then, as the local geometry is north-south, so maybe there's no standard. I see from GSV that an on-ramp to I-25 near Santa Fe, NM is signposted "North I-25" (which is the local direction) but, when you join the freeway the route confirmation signs say "South I-25" (which is the overall direction).
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by Bryn666 »

Indeed, the point I was making is the US system pretends it is strict and structured but like any system, it just isn't.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by Gareth Thomas »

The M2 and M20 are usually referred to as “Londonbound” and “coastbound” in local Kent media, such as newspapers and radio station traffic alerts.

Personally I would refer to the M20 as west to east rather than north to south. Whilst it is true it runs northwest to south east, as a whole it travels further from west to east than it does north to south. If you were to draw a line from its northern terminus at Junction 1 and another line at its southern terminal at Junction 13, the distance between them would be less than the distance between the lines from its western and eastern termini, if that makes any sense! Similarly the A21 would be a north to south road as while it too travels north west to south east, it travels further south than it does east.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by KeithW »

Bryn666 wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 09:00 Indeed, the point I was making is the US system pretends it is strict and structured but like any system, it just isn't.
Making a sweeping statement about the US Road numbering system is an error in my opinion. At best at the level of US Highways and Interstates there are guidelines, the main one is that the roads that trend mainly North South get odd numbers and those east west even numbers. So the main highways between South West and North West is US 101 and I-5

These numbers are actually assigned by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) . This is NOT a branch of the federal government it is rather the a grouping of US States which cooperated to try and produce a semblance of order in much the same was roads were classified here in the 1920's . It is at best structured but not strict. US 101 was assigned that number quite late in the day. It was originally several separate roads including the Coast Highway, Oregon Coast Highway etc.

At the state level all bets are off, they all do it differently, indeed in many parts of the mid west the minor road numbers are simply alphanumeric codes assigned by the surveyors to identify land allocation under the homestead act while in New England roads more closely follow the pattern used in England before 1922

What is now I-95 in Connecticut was originally called by various names including The Connecticut Turnpike, Governor John Davies Lodge Turnpike and the Waterford Parkway, it is one of the exceptions in regard to numbering as that section runs mainly east west due to the local geography. As the original names suggest they were toll roads just as were the contemporary Turnpike Roads in England.

http://www.american-historama.org/1801- ... he%201800s.

One of the first roads funded at the Federal Level was what is now US 40 which at the time was called The National Road.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by SteveA30 »

Radio traffic reporters refer to the M3 as both northbound/southbound and eastbound/westbound. It is both really, either side of Popham, J8.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by trickstat »

I do think on each individual motorway there probably ought to be an agreed standardised description for each direction that is used for the whole route regardless of any more specific quirks of the route. For the M25, this would be clockwise and anti-clockwise, as used on the radio IME, rather than the cardinal directions that seem to be increasingly used on overhead warning messages. For the M6 and the M40 this would be northbound and southbound as that would be more meaningful for long distance travellers who may be less aware of the more east-west nature of the southern parts of each road. While someone travelling from Rugby to Birmingham or Denham to Oxford is certainly going more east-west, I don't think they are likely to be confused by a description of the carriageways heading towards Manchester or Birmingham as being northbound. As someone who comes from just north of London, I do tend to think of the M3 as a north-south route as it is a route towards much of the south coast.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by WHBM »

KeithW wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 08:11
These numbers are actually assigned by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) . This is NOT a branch of the federal government it is rather the a grouping of US States which cooperated to try and produce a semblance of order in much the same was roads were classified here in the 1920's . It is at best structured but not strict. US 101 was assign
The AASHO is like road numbering, and other co-ordinated aspects, being handled in the UK by the Institute of Civil Engineers. In retrospect not a bad idea.

Before the US numbering standard approach, it was done by a number of private companies associated with selling their road maps. These showed numbered routes, and each company went out and affixed their own, each distinctively shaped, numbers and arrow directions to any convenient telephone pole. Rand McNally were a pioneer. As multiple different publishers did this on the same route, with different numbers, it became a complete mess. This was also the forerunner of today's different-shaped "shields" for official US road numbers, whether interstate, US, State or Local. It's also why the USD is so wedded to numbers, with their North/South plate underneath, rather than destinations.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by Micro The Maniac »

WHBM wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 13:50 The AASHO is like road numbering, and other co-ordinated aspects, being handled in the UK by the Institute of Civil Engineers. In retrospect not a bad idea.
Agreed. And it works in other situations...

The UK's Wiring Regulations (officially BS 7671) are actually "owned" by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (nee Institution of Electrical Engineers) but published with their BS number for regulatory reasons.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by matt_outhwaite »

Interestingly on the M6 front, it is (or at least was) referred to as both N/S and W/E around Junction 1.

If you approach on the A426 from Rugby, at the roundabout before the motorway junction (Central Park/Rugby Gateway) the painted markings indicate left lane for M6N and right lane for M6S: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.40139 ... 312!8i6656

However, when you are on the roundabout above the motorway, M6 West and East are painted on the road in the right hand lane when crossing the motorway on each side: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.40803 ... 312!8i6656https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.40818 ... 384!8i8192

I suspect the W/E markings have been lost during the excessive redesign and excavation of the roundabout for the new services - money would be far better spent on the Gibbet Roundabout where the A426 crosses the A5, or including an M1N access from the M6S at Catthorpe... but I'll save that for another topic!
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by KeithW »

matt_outhwaite wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 23:43 I suspect the W/E markings have been lost during the excessive redesign and excavation of the roundabout for the new services - money would be far better spent on the Gibbet Roundabout where the A426 crosses the A5, or including an M1N access from the M6S at Catthorpe... but I'll save that for another topic!
And it has been discussed in regard to the Catthorpe redesign. As I recall the levels of traffic using that movement were so low that it was deemed unnecessary, the levels of traffic on the A426 are low enough (12k) to suggest this was a reasonable decision. Anyone who recalls the old junction will now what a disaster that was.

As for the Gibbet Roundabout its not a point where I have been delayed by heavy traffic on the A5.
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by matt_outhwaite »

KeithW wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 08:40
matt_outhwaite wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 23:43 I suspect the W/E markings have been lost during the excessive redesign and excavation of the roundabout for the new services - money would be far better spent on the Gibbet Roundabout where the A426 crosses the A5, or including an M1N access from the M6S at Catthorpe... but I'll save that for another topic!
And it has been discussed in regard to the Catthorpe redesign. As I recall the levels of traffic using that movement were so low that it was deemed unnecessary, the levels of traffic on the A426 are low enough (12k) to suggest this was a reasonable decision. Anyone who recalls the old junction will now what a disaster that was.

As for the Gibbet Roundabout its not a point where I have been delayed by heavy traffic on the A5.
The A426 is regularly queuing most of the way back to the M6 from the Gibbet roundabout at peak times.

When approaching from Lutterworth, near misses happen regularly for various reasons. It is not a good roundabout.

Catthorpe is massively improved, without question. However, I'm fairly sure at a time when any traffic studies were completed, the volume of traffic leaving Rugby heading north on the M1 has increased significantly, and it seemed short sighted to not include that option.

Either way, this topic is about motorway directions, and my post was about paint on the road! :D
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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by Jhammond »

At the end of the M40, the M42 is either north or West.

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Re: Motorway Directions

Post by Vierwielen »

trickstat wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 13:03 I do think on each individual motorway there probably ought to be an agreed standardised description for each direction that is used for the whole route regardless of any more specific quirks of the route. For the M25, this would be clockwise and anti-clockwise, as used on the radio IME, rather than the cardinal directions that seem to be increasingly used on overhead warning messages. For the M6 and the M40 this would be northbound and southbound as that would be more meaningful for long distance travellers who may be less aware of the more east-west nature of the southern parts of each road. While someone travelling from Rugby to Birmingham or Denham to Oxford is certainly going more east-west, I don't think they are likely to be confused by a description of the carriageways heading towards Manchester or Birmingham as being northbound. As someone who comes from just north of London, I do tend to think of the M3 as a north-south route as it is a route towards much of the south coast.
AS someone who lives close to the M3, I tend to think of it as an east-west motorway up to Junction 8 and then as a north-south motorway from Junction 8 onwards. My grandmother used to live in Dorset and my aunt in Devon, so to visit them I would join the M3 and Junction 4a or Junction 5, head westwards and and Junction 8 continue westwards while the M3 swung south.
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