Otoyol - Turkish Motorway Network

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Brenley Corner
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Otoyol - Turkish Motorway Network

Post by Brenley Corner »

I have a tenuous family connection to Turkey and have been surfing around about Turkish Motorways; I was impressed to find out how extensive the network is, how much has been built in the last 10 years, and the ambitious construction programme. It is is also very interesting to note that most motorways in Turkey are generously engineered - being built with 3 lanes in either direction (even in remote areas) and that many junctions are at the end of spur roads (some quite lengthy) from the legacy network rather than direct connections - they just love their trumpet interchanges.

”Otoyol” Controlled-Access Highways (Wikipedia)

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ChrisH
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Re: Otoyol - Turkish Motorway Network

Post by ChrisH »

We went on holiday to Turkey in 2014 and did a fair amount of driving around, including from Ankara all the way south-east to Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Mardin and Diyarbakir.

You're absolutely right that the standards of their full motorways are very high and the provided capacities seem extremely generous... or perhaps just future-proofed?

In 2020 they opened a big chunk of O-21 linking Ankara down to Adana (previously the southern half was open); the O-5 linking Istanbul down to Izmir, and the O-7 which bypasses Istanbul to the north including some very chunky infrastructure around their new airport.

They are also building a motorway link across the Dardanelles which would provide a shorter link between Izmir and the Greek/Bulgarian borders.
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jackal
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Re: Otoyol - Turkish Motorway Network

Post by jackal »

Yes, Turkey has an impressive motorway network. Four way system interchanges are largely cloverleafs, as in much of the world, though in the Istanbul area they are often upgraded with one or two direct left turns.

This interchange connecting the new O-21 with the Ankara ring road is incredibly large - though essentially a semi-directional T it's far bigger than Croft or any other interchange that comes to mind.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@39.78438 ... 451964,15z
mwacuk
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Re: Otoyol - Turkish Motorway Network

Post by mwacuk »

I've spent some considerable time looking at the road network in Turkey as well as generally exploring turkey on streetview. I haven't been to Turkey since Antalya in 2005 (pre-google street view / satellite images). At the time, I thought the D-400 along the Mediterranean coast was a full-blown motorway in Turkish standards. This route is a dual-carriageway with many at-grade junctions - I can see that even this route has been improved considerably since then.
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