Guide to SPAIN

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Post by signol »

There are plenty of tunnels on the N340 and A7 along the Costa del Sol, some not very well lit, so be careful if you wear prescription sunglasses! I could hardly see a thing, had to remember not to wear them the next day and whilst driving!
Apart from the bypasses of Fuengirola, Marbella and Estapona, the whole route from Malaga to Algeciras is tolled. However it makes a huge difference - 2 hours coast - 1 hour A7 from Gib to Marbella! Down to lack of traffic and roundabouts!
Also note the pic of the Ronda road, with some idiot overtaking in my shot!
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by exiled »

Biggest bump ever from me, but what the heck.

We have just gotten back from Spain. Pleasant holiday but a few driving pointers have been registered in my brain.

Speed traps: One each of our journeys over 100 km we saw at least one Guardia Civil speed trap. This is usually an old (Citroen Xantia, Renault Megane I) car parked up on the side of the road unobtrusivly, followed 2 km or less by at least one, often more, GC trafico cars. These are marked and do not think to out run them, the ones we saw were Alfas and BMWs (both bikes and cars).

Speed limits: The Cortes (Spanish parliament) has just passed legislation awaiting royal assent to increase speeding penalties. The penalty according for doing 121km/h in a 120km/h zone is to be a fixed penalty of 100 euros.

Gibraltar: In May 2009 Spanish boats illegally entered UK waters off Gibraltar. The UK complained. The result is longer queues at the Spain/Gibraltar border. Madrid was not happy over some of the jingoistic coverage in the UK media. For vexologists quite an interesting border, on one side the national flag is fluttering smartly in the wind between the blue and gold EU flag and the regional flag, on the other side of the border the red and gold of the Kingdom of Spain flies alone.

On a positive point, Andalucia now has a brilliant network of free Autovias contecting it's major cities. D2 or D2M standard but with not that much traffic. The autovia signing also tends to be good both on a UK (using the numbers) and a rest of Europe(using the major cities) stand point. Though it can get confusing with the A4 (D2), A45 (D2) part of the Red de Careterras del Estado and the A92, A92 G and A92 M being Red de Careterras de Andalucia.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by J N Winkler »

exiled wrote:On a positive point, Andalucía now has a brilliant network of free Autovías connecting its major cities. D2 or D2M standard but with not that much traffic. The autovía signing also tends to be good both on a UK (using the numbers) and a rest of Europe (using the major cities) standpoint. Though it can get confusing with the A-4 (D2), A-45 (D2) part of the Red de Carreteras del Estado and the A-92, A-92G and A-92M being Red de Carreteras de Andalucía.
The signing on motorway-standard roads in Spain is very American-influenced, with no use of fork graphics on ground-mounted signs and a tendency to sign major intersecting roads in large cities (calle O'Donnell in Madrid is a case in point). It is efficient and effective but ring-road signing near major cities tends to attract complaints (see below).

Regarding autovía/autopista designations, this Wikipedia article is sketchy but gives a reasonable overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_au ... s_in_Spain

I have been told that the following rules of thumb are helpful in navigating the jurisdictional thickets of road ownership in Spain:

* Major roads will typically have a highway identification sign which gives the name of the road and the name and crest of the owning agency.

* As a generalization, autovías on the RCE will have a two-digit designation. In the case of interurban autovías which have been constructed as duplications or bypasses of existing N-roads, the autovía will have an A-road designation whose number part is the first two digits of the N-road designation (e.g., the A-62 runs in the same corridor as the N-620). The autonomous communities have their own systems which often don't follow this rule (I think Andalusia starts all of its autovías except the A-92 etc. with three digits to avoid conflicting with RCE autovías). The Basque Country also has jursdiction over N-roads and opted out of the 2006 redesignation which changed N-road autovías to A-roads, so it continues to have N-road autovías, often with three digits. Meanwhile, even on the RCE, some autovías which used to have urban designations are getting N-road numbers rather than A-road numbers (probably due to a lack of available in-zone designations between 1 and 99). Autonomous communities have their own letter designators for the autovías and other roads they maintain, though this is of no help in clarifying jurisdiction in the case of Andalusia (A) or Madrid (M) and it is often necessary to resort to digit counting (e.g., you can be pretty sure the A-8062 is a surface road on the red autónomica in Andalusia and not an autovía on the RCE).

* Autovías near major cities can be part of the RCE, a red autónomica, or under municipal ownership. E.g., the SE-40 second ring road of Seville currently being built is part of the RCE, while the M-40 and M-50 are owned by the Comunidad de Madrid, and a length of the M-30 is owned by the Ayuntamiento de Madrid. However, regardless of ownership, the designation tends to begin with the one- or two-letter code for the province the conurbation is in (SE = Seville, M = Madrid, V = Valencia, etc.).

* Cartouche color is occasionally a clue to constructional standard. On the red autónomica in Andalusia, A-92 takes orange background (autovía) while the A-8062 takes yellow background (conventional highway). In the Comunidad de Madrid, blue background implies autovía, while orange background implies conventional highway. Color and letter designator combinations are, however, not supposed to conflict with the assigned pairings of E-/green (for Euroroutes), N-/red (for N-roads), and A-/blue (for autovías and untolled autopistas).

The Achilles heel of Spanish direction signing on motorways is the pull-through signing on ring roads. Typically this consists of a listing on several lines of route designations and forward destinations for major roads which interchange with the ring road. Although this listing often seems random to drivers who are new to it, in actuality there is a system behind the grouping onto different lines.

Taking this example on the SE-40 near its interchange with the E-1/A-49 west of Seville:

Code: Select all

|SE-40|
|E-5| |A-4| Cádiz
|A-92| Granada
the interpretation is as follows (reading top to bottom):

* You are on the SE-40 (going counterclockwise, though the sign does not indicate orientation explicitly)

* The next major radial is the E-5/A-4, which will take you (south) to Cádiz

* The next major radial after that is the A-92, which will take you (east) to Granada

The foregoing rather sketchy discussion deals only with roads which actually have blue-background direction signing. Spain also has what might be called "white autovías," i.e. roads built to motorway standard which are nevertheless formally conventional highways and are therefore signed with white-background signs having Carretera Convencional lettering. These are the local equivalent of non-motorway HQDCs.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by exiled »

J N Winkler wrote: * Major roads will typically have a highway identification sign which gives the name of the road and the name and crest of the owning agency.

* Cartouche color is occasionally a clue to constructional standard. On the red autónomica in Andalusia, A-92 takes orange background (autovía) while the A-8062 takes yellow background (conventional highway). In the Comunidad de Madrid, blue background implies autovía, while orange background implies conventional highway. Color and letter designator combinations are, however, not supposed to conflict with the assigned pairings of E-/green (for Euroroutes), N-/red (for N-roads), and A-/blue (for autovías and untolled autopistas).
The RCE certainly had the arms of the realm on the Km posts and the RCA the logo of the Junta de Andalucia on them.

On the atlas of Spain we used roads of a similar class were in a similar colour even where the letter (Andalucia) was confusing. This appeared to be the same in Castilla La Mancha.

And both me and my navigator liked the use of the street names at junctions, this made navigation at times easier.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by carawaystick »

you're supposed to have a high viz jacket in the car definitely for the driver, but possibly for every passenger. I heard reports of the police stopping yellow reg's and asking the driver to get out of the car and booking them for not putting on the hi-viz.
This came in in about '05 or so...
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

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carawaystick wrote:you're supposed to have a high viz jacket in the car definitely for the driver, but possibly for every passenger. I heard reports of the police stopping yellow reg's and asking the driver to get out of the car and booking them for not putting on the hi-viz.
This came in in about '05 or so...
That is a useful thing to remember as the high viz requirement seems to be creeping across continental Europe with France recently adopting a similar law and pulling over foreign plated vehicles to check. Must move mine into one of the pockets in the main body of the car.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by Bryn666 »

When I was in Paris last week I ensured that for the whole week both me and the missus had a high vis on display - by draping one over each seat.

Unfortunately, this makes you look like a complete gimp, but at least you can sail past the Gendarms on the autoroutes and not be bothered by them.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by J N Winkler »

Just for fun, I am attaching an assortment of Spanish sign designs from the widening of the A-49 around the SE-40 interchange.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

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One thing else I noticed, having having driven a lot in France, was the complete lack of the priority diamonds. Not one. Nada. At most junctions the priority was clear (white lines, the odd inverted triangle, stop signs etc), but after France it came as a shock! Can any one confirm if Spain uses the diamond any where?
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by Chris Bertram »

11-year bump! Just come back from a few days in Málaga, didn't do any driving but did use buses quite a bit.

No, I didn't see any priority diamonds, but in an urban setting that may not be surprising.

Speed limits signs use digits that look amazingly like those in the UK. The borders of the circles are perhaps thicker than ours, otherwise they might be identical.

Direction signs on gantries are extensively used at junctions.

Blue diamond signs were seen saying "RED BÁSICA". Google translate tells me that this means "basic network", but I don't get the significance of this. Anyone know?

Temporary signs for road/street works feature yellow backgrounds rather than the white of permanent signs.

Traffic lights - basic sequence remains red-green-amber-red, and all signals have a yellow-painted head, with high-level signals often featuring a black backing board. Right filter arrows (rarely seen) seem to be flashing amber, probably because of a green pedestrian phase on the turn. Full RAG heads also guard ped crossings, these often show flashing amber to turning traffic when a green man is shown to pedestrians. Low-level repeaters are provided when the main signal is at the stop line, these omit the amber light. If the signal is at e.g. the far side of a ped crossing, there is no repeater. Some pedestrian crossings have countdowns both to red man and to green man, some other signals feature flashing green man, with a meaning identical to the UK. The green man is occasionally animated to "walk". There is no blackout phase.

Didn't get out in the sticks, so nothing to report from there.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by c2R »

One of the most frustrating catographic and numbering things about Spain is the entire numbering and classification system.

The end result is that openstreetmap is pretty much useless for navigation in Spain, because of the insistence that their local editors have of colouring the routes to match their prefix rather than based on the type of route and the suitability for driving on it.

A couple of extreme examples:

So, because some bypassed stretches of urban road aren't transferred to the state, they retain an N prefix, such as here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/37.3716/-3.0639 - and the Spanish OSM convention is to tag those as trunk, indicating possibly a high quality route, despite the fact that in reality it should be coloured as a residential or tertiary type road...


https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/37.3219/-4.0080
In this case, the GR-4404/GR-3410 acts as a bypass for the town - it is a modern S2 route that avoids the urban area, but because the road is managed by the town, it has a GR prefix and is coloured white. The A-335 is yellow becase it is a regional route - despite being entirely unsuitable for motor vehicles and only navigable southbound!


In reality, the responsibility for the roads needs to be swapped around, so that the national roads authority aren't managing bypassed urban stretches, in addition to the motorway bypass, and that when a municipality builds a bypass for a regional road, the region takes it over and hands the urban section over to the town - but this clearly isn't happening..... However, this is compounded by the Spanish OSM insistence that roads are coloured as per who owns them rather than on the function that the road performs..... It's just all really, really stupid....


....and that's not even getting into the fact that an "A" road could be one of several things, and that there are multiple types of motorway classification.... Aarghh!
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by Owain »

c2R wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 23:35One of the most frustrating catographic and numbering things about Spain is the entire numbering and classification system.
It is quite possibly the most incomprehensible system in the world, and surely the worst in Europe!

It seemed to be perfectly logical until they started building the autopistas, and then it just spiralled out of control.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

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Owain wrote: Thu Feb 20, 2020 22:21
c2R wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 23:35One of the most frustrating catographic and numbering things about Spain is the entire numbering and classification system.
It is quite possibly the most incomprehensible system in the world, and surely the worst in Europe!

It seemed to be perfectly logical until they started building the autopistas, and then it just spiralled out of control.
The numbering is entirely about who owns or is responsible. Which makes it confusing, Belgium has a more consistent system. Actually Belgium has a very consistent numbering system yet the federal government has virtually nothing to do with it.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by Richard_Fairhurst »

c2R wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 23:35However, this is compounded by the Spanish OSM insistence that roads are coloured as per who owns them rather than on the function that the road performs..... It's just all really, really stupid....
As ever, OpenStreetMap itself is really about the database, not the osm.org tile rendering which is essentially just a tech demo.

Spain is a challenge, as you note, because of the classification system. But if you look at the US, another country where classification is wildly inconsistent, the mappers there have tried to classify roads by function rather than by administrative category/ownership, and it doesn't really work any better. OSM is all about mapping objective facts, and function isn't really an objective fact, it's a judgment. So you end up with wildly varying practice from one state or even county to another.

It's certainly possible to get decent results from OSM data in Spain (or the US) with a bit of thought - so, for example, cycle.travel will happily plan a bike route along the quiet N-630 (even though it's tagged as trunk) because it supplements the core OSM data with additional input relevant to bike routing. (Typical example: https://cycle.travel/map?from=41.9097,- ... 24,-5.8042 ) I would hope that any consumer-facing site using OSM data would do similarly.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

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Chris Bertram wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 14:11Speed limits signs use digits that look amazingly like those in the UK. The borders of the circles are perhaps thicker than ours, otherwise they might be identical.
Spain uses a variant of Transport alphabet for non-motorway road signs, so it will be virtually identical. It's slightly heavier than our Transport Heavy but to all intents and purposes it's the same font.
Blue diamond signs were seen saying "RED BÁSICA". Google translate tells me that this means "basic network", but I don't get the significance of this. Anyone know?
It sounds like it's the network of main streets used for traffic movement in Malaga. This document (PDF) sets it out in law; one paragraph (translated) explains it like this:
"The definition of the Basic Road Network has the objective of determining the set of large avenues, accesses, and urban axes that constitute the hierarchical network of the first order in relation to its functionality and intensities of the city's circulation."

I can understand why a city might develop a hierarchy of roads and treat some as the principal streets for the movement of motor traffic. I don't know why they would then put up blue diamond signs to show it off. But then - as discussed upthread - there is much about the Spanish road network that is needlessly and unfathomably bureaucratic.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by James »

Its a symptom of how the country works. Different layers of bureaucracy, nobody talks properly to each other, everybody does different things.

The system absolutely isn’t designed in the interests of the road user, more to satisfy the bodies that look after the roads.

At the start of any stretch of local/regional roads they do like to put up a lot of signs letting you know where it goes (good), but then need to constantly remind you who looks after the road (pretty much pointless).

Where in the UK you simply have M, A and B

In my region I have
A/AP Motorways – why we have 2 types? (I know the historic reasons but still unnecessary)
A Roads of Andalucia – normally 3 or 4 digits but can also be an Autovia as well!
CA/MA Roads of Malaga/Cadiz provinces, and can also be an Autovia

One example the CA-34 near La Linea, should be a province road based on number, but seems to be a national road. Blue signs, but not actually a motorway here (but is further up), if this was a national road it should be Axx, still the actual motorway bit is pathethic anyway
https://goo.gl/maps/xF4dm19Q2pURvZbK7

The ex-N340 road was generally upgraded to motorway standard, and later changed to be the A-7. Except where they didn't upgrade it between Estepona and Guariaro to anything better than a D2 with roundabouts. Still called the A-7 though so the sign writers got totally confused

Motorway?
https://goo.gl/maps/qUjMw8Mfg4ap57Ye6
https://goo.gl/maps/gVrodDX27o9PYKrj6

Not motorway?
https://goo.gl/maps/K1NGUeoTBUktrSXb6
https://goo.gl/maps/4TPDcp5WBz8crAyy5

Not to mention most of the marker posts still say N340, and even some of the route confirmation signs

The Spanish build some great infrastructure, but are awful at managing it in a coherent way
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by James »

Part2 - sorry

Take this location here
https://goo.gl/maps/fWor2ve5FXVjdb5Q8

A nice GSJ in 1km. All fine in its-self but Spanish roads seem to have vastly different signage standards for different types of junctions. This 1km sign is for an standard/normal GSJ.

It ignores the
1) Compact GSJ in 500m ahead
2) The roundabout with the great 3 lane-approach-to-2-lanes-oh-crap-moment https://goo.gl/maps/qnGhVFDris6pQRdT6
3) Followed by the service road exit off the roundabout
4) Then you find the exit here https://goo.gl/maps/8irkRwFtLSAQtaCt7

Yikes!
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by c2R »

I agree that all of that *is* nasty... However, I give you this as the nastiest of nasty, poorly designed junctions on the entire continent...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sevil ... -5.9844589

Just try going from clockwise SE30/A4 to Eastbound A-92

Edit - I mean, it's got everything...


Property accesses and parking: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3878768 ... 312!8i6656 including a bar: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3867645 ... 312!8i6656

Signage that couldn't possibly be mixed up with the signage on the main line: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3889199 ... 312!8i6656


Clear advance signing for the city versus Granada: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3869266 ... 312!8i6656

Great forward visibility to a roundabout: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3865903 ... 312!8i6656

Fantastic NMU provision: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3864545 ... 312!8i6656

Approach to a roundabout driving on the left https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3865869 ... 312!8i6656 with poor signage as to what to actually expect (in terms of the incoming road on the right: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.386508, ... 312!8i6656

After the roundabout, now get in lane: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3867268 ... 312!8i6656 (but of course the markings on the road now say Malaga instead of Granada) The sign to the right may help.... if you can read it.

Now do a complete 180 degrees.... and under the motorway to now face back towards Seville. And then to an immediate U turn here: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3856579 ... 312!8i6656

...and build up speed to merge: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3860509 ... 312!8i6656
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by Bryn666 »

James wrote: Tue Mar 03, 2020 21:21 Part2 - sorry

Take this location here
https://goo.gl/maps/fWor2ve5FXVjdb5Q8

A nice GSJ in 1km. All fine in its-self but Spanish roads seem to have vastly different signage standards for different types of junctions. This 1km sign is for an standard/normal GSJ.

It ignores the
1) Compact GSJ in 500m ahead
2) The roundabout with the great 3 lane-approach-to-2-lanes-oh-crap-moment https://goo.gl/maps/qnGhVFDris6pQRdT6
3) Followed by the service road exit off the roundabout
4) Then you find the exit here https://goo.gl/maps/8irkRwFtLSAQtaCt7

Yikes!
The less said about the old N340 the better.
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Re: Guide to SPAIN

Post by James »

c2R wrote: Tue Mar 03, 2020 21:57 I agree that all of that *is* nasty... However, I give you this as the nastiest of nasty, poorly designed junctions on the entire continent...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sevil ... -5.9844589

Just try going from clockwise SE30/A4 to Eastbound A-92

Edit - I mean, it's got everything...


Property accesses and parking: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3878768 ... 312!8i6656 including a bar: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3867645 ... 312!8i6656

Signage that couldn't possibly be mixed up with the signage on the main line: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3889199 ... 312!8i6656


Clear advance signing for the city versus Granada: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3869266 ... 312!8i6656

Great forward visibility to a roundabout: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3865903 ... 312!8i6656

Fantastic NMU provision: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3864545 ... 312!8i6656

Approach to a roundabout driving on the left https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3865869 ... 312!8i6656 with poor signage as to what to actually expect (in terms of the incoming road on the right: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.386508, ... 312!8i6656

After the roundabout, now get in lane: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3867268 ... 312!8i6656 (but of course the markings on the road now say Malaga instead of Granada) The sign to the right may help.... if you can read it.

Now do a complete 180 degrees.... and under the motorway to now face back towards Seville. And then to an immediate U turn here: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3856579 ... 312!8i6656

...and build up speed to merge: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3860509 ... 312!8i6656
Wow that is truly awful. I've been up to Seville a few times but approach from the Cadiz direction, so haven't had the pleasure (yet) of that abomination of a junction. Its impressive in how badly its designed and integrated.

They've just opened a new bypass in Estepona (I snapped a picture here)
https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/ind ... tepona.jpg

Its the the first part of a new ring road with a nice segregated cycle route. The area is hilly and for some reason the cycle route deviates from the already hilly road (with great blind crests) onto a route even more hillier and less direct route.

Meanwhile the serious cyclists that may appreciate this cycle on the road anyway, and everyone else can't be bothered with the hilly route - so nobody uses it.
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