World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

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J N Winkler
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

Post by J N Winkler »

IRTAD statistics used to report deaths per VMT for motorways and non-motorways with the basis for motorways in the US being Interstates exclusively, despite the significant mileage of state and US route freeway which either (1) is Interstate-compatible outright (i.e., meets all the engineering standards applicable to Interstates) or (2) barely misses being Interstate-compatible through failing to meet design criteria in ways that are functionally not noticeable to the ordinary motorist (e.g., having right shoulders of 8 ft rather than the required 10 ft).

And the question of how to count motorways in cases where dense urban or high mountainous terrain force extreme relaxation of geometric design standards is vexed. Germany has traditionally allowed maximum grades of 8% on Autobahnen in the mountains. Do those not count? China has plenty of mountain expressway with speed limits of 80 km/h. Should they not count because they are not built for 120 km/h? I-70 through Glenwood Canyon has variable speed limits that can range from 30 MPH to 60 MPH. Should it count when the speed limit is 60 MPH and not when it is 30 MPH? There is clearly a functional difference between a motorway that devolves into a mountain pass road when it encounters extreme topographical relief, and a motorway where the owning agency spends the (stupefying) sums required to build long valley viaducts and base tunnels to enforce the same design speeds that are achievable at low cost in flat country. But I know of no easy way to gather the data required to take such choices into account in a manner that allows comparisons among countries to be kept fair: alignment choices tend to be buried in engineering drawings to which it is still very difficult to gain casual access.
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Euan
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

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Enceladus wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 09:51 A little surprised that Spain leads Europe in total motorway length (I thought the Autobahnen in Germany would have been the leader) but IMO a lot of the Spanish network sems oddly planned and there are many sections that are parallel duplicates of each other which seems a real waste of resources.

Anyhow, total length as a measure of the degree of road infrastructure development is rather crude, it should be length of motorway to population per km or mile.
As mentioned before, instances of parallel autovias and autopistas will contribute significantly to Spain's total motorway length.

I think the physical size of the country is important as well - and Spain is quite considerably larger in area than Germany (although this reasoning does not work in the case of France). Assuming the country is keen to build many motorways (as in Germany and Spain) then they will wish to cover almost every corner of the country possible with the network regardless of the country's size.

It would be interesting to compare each country by kilometres of motorway per head of population, and I'm sure that Spain (17k km of motorway, population ~45m) and Portugal (3k km of motorway, population ~10m) would rank quite high in that list.
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exiled
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

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Euan wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 12:18 As mentioned before, instances of parallel autovias and autopistas will contribute significantly to Spain's total motorway length.

I think the physical size of the country is important as well - and Spain is quite considerably larger in area than Germany (although this reasoning does not work in the case of France). Assuming the country is keen to build many motorways (as in Germany and Spain) then they will wish to cover almost every corner of the country possible with the network regardless of the country's size.

It would be interesting to compare each country by kilometres of motorway per head of population, and I'm sure that Spain (17k km of motorway, population ~45m) and Portugal (3k km of motorway, population ~10m) would rank quite high in that list.
There is one other factor to through in. Spain is a highly decentralised country, and Germany is a federal republic. Both have local sources of power that have influence over infrastructure or ability to commission motorways themselves. France is still very centralised in comparison.

The governance issue can be seen in the UK where the Welsh and Scottish Governments have been shown to be more willing to commit to upgrades on roads which prior to devolution were 'good enough' and are still 'good enough' in regional England where that level of decision rests in the hands of Chris Grayling.
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

Post by lefthandedspanner »

Silly Romanians. Everybody knows that if you want safer roads you shouldn't built any new ones, but reduce the limits on all the existing ones to 40 km/h or less, and enforce the limit with gatsos and heavy fines.
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

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lefthandedspanner wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 21:09 Silly Romanians. Everybody knows that if you want safer roads you shouldn't built any new ones, but reduce the limits on all the existing ones to 40 km/h or less, and enforce the limit with gatsos and heavy fines.
As far as safety is concerned it is far easier to build a brand new road suitable for modern transport needs from scratch than to try and upgrade an existing one, especially given that more dangerous roads will probably be more difficult and costly to upgrade. Ideally you want to try and remove the bulk of the traffic away from the dangerous roads.
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

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exiled wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 13:34
Euan wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 12:18 As mentioned before, instances of parallel autovias and autopistas will contribute significantly to Spain's total motorway length.

I think the physical size of the country is important as well - and Spain is quite considerably larger in area than Germany (although this reasoning does not work in the case of France). Assuming the country is keen to build many motorways (as in Germany and Spain) then they will wish to cover almost every corner of the country possible with the network regardless of the country's size.

It would be interesting to compare each country by kilometres of motorway per head of population, and I'm sure that Spain (17k km of motorway, population ~45m) and Portugal (3k km of motorway, population ~10m) would rank quite high in that list.
There is one other factor to through in. Spain is a highly decentralised country, and Germany is a federal republic. Both have local sources of power that have influence over infrastructure or ability to commission motorways themselves. France is still very centralised in comparison.

The governance issue can be seen in the UK where the Welsh and Scottish Governments have been shown to be more willing to commit to upgrades on roads which prior to devolution were 'good enough' and are still 'good enough' in regional England where that level of decision rests in the hands of Chris Grayling.
That's a very valid point. I know that there are quite a lot of motorways in Italy, especially in the north which is quite far from Rome. Would Italy fall into the same category as Spain and Germany in terms of decentralisation with its regions? I'm not aware of any similar arrangement that is in place for the different parts of Romania.
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

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FosseWay wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 14:35My point was more that many other countries' definitions of "motorway" would easily encompass long stretches of what the UK classifies as A-road.
Wegenwiki says the UK began last year with 2870km of motorway-like roads.
France has as nearly 1000 more kilometres of voie express (3863km).
Italy's super strade network is slightly bigger (3016km).
Germany's autobahnähnlich roads total 2434km - nearly 85% of the UK's figure.

Even if you reckon the 2870km is an underestimate, it's clear that the other big European countries (apart from Spain) have similarly large amounts of these roads that are motorway-equivalent, but not motorway-classified.
Chris5156 wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 14:54The trouble with this statistic is that it counts whatever each country decides to classify as motorways. If Spain says those roads are motorways, they count! There's no other universally accepted definition that can be used.
The one in the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic without the "specifically signed as a motorway clause"? Seems to be what various international road forums are using.

Wegenwiki gives figures that try and accurately represent the amount on a level playing field.
  1. China 142.500 km
  2. USA 108.075 km
  3. Spain 15.578 km
  4. France 15.557 km
  5. Germany 15.461 km
  6. Japan 11.138 km
  7. Italy 10.185 km
  8. Mexico 9.174 km
  9. Brazil 7.400 km
  10. Canada 7.242 km
  11. UK 6.124 km
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exiled
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

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Euan wrote: Sat Mar 23, 2019 08:21 That's a very valid point. I know that there are quite a lot of motorways in Italy, especially in the north which is quite far from Rome. Would Italy fall into the same category as Spain and Germany in terms of decentralisation with its regions? I'm not aware of any similar arrangement that is in place for the different parts of Romania.
Italy is more decentralized than the UK, but infrastructure has always been seen as a way of making a unified Italian identity.
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Re: World’s smallest motorway built to shame a nation

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exiled wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 14:37
FosseWay wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 14:33
exiled wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2019 14:25 We also have things like the ... South Wales M3.
¿Qué?
Oops, I meant of course the M5, err, M4
There's only a brief section of the M4 in Wales that is poor - the bit squeezed between houses and hills on one side and the industrial blot on the landscape (aka Port Talbot) on the other. It is subject to a 50 limit, and it very similar to the poor section of A34 immediately west of Oxford.

Either side of that, the M4 in Wales is a perfectly good road. A Welsh rugby commentator might even say that it's [cue Welsh accent] "maj-jest-tik!"
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