I was doing some exploration of Taiwan via Google Earth recently - following the route of the railway around the island which I had travelled on last year. At one location I had photographed a divided 4-lane road passing under the railway. It had no traffic on it. It was also in a rural area, yet had decorative footpaths with young trees planted, streetlighting and fencing much like you'd expect in a busy built-up area on the western side of Taiwan.
Well, Google Earth revealed all to me. This rather elaborate road seems to be a bypass for a small town that probably doesn't know about traffic problems yet. It has large intersections for narrow farm lanes, pedestrian crossings and what is more, it doesn't actually go anywhere - or at least it didn't when the satellite photo was taken. You can marvel at this amazing piece of infrastructure on Google maps here
Notice the rural 2-lane road that the bypass connects to.
As you scroll south along the bypass, you will only find one car on it. Eventually you'll see that it simply ends. If you follow the "earthworks" a little further you'll join up again with the 2-lane road (after crossing the railway). Keep going south and you should see another uncompleted road running east-west just before the highway and railway cross a river. To the west is a wide road fed only by a couple of lanes running along the northern bank of the river. That's odd enough. But follow the road to the east along the river bank and you will see something quite bizarre. Something you'd expect to see in a cartoon. Not real life.
B 67 wrote:But follow the road to the east along the river bank and you will see something quite bizarre. Something you'd expect to see in a cartoon. Not real life.
If others want to find out for themselves, don't click this link. However, I assume B76 means this anomaly!
B 67 wrote:But follow the road to the east along the river bank and you will see something quite bizarre. Something you'd expect to see in a cartoon. Not real life.
If others want to find out for themselves, don't click this link. However, I assume B76 means this anomaly!
Who's this B76 person? Never heard of him.
But yes Paul. That is the anomaly I was referring to. Good to know that my directions were able to be understood.
I've found other oddities in Taiwan. But that one takes the cake so far. Thing is, if you were actually driving along that road, it probably wouldn't be so obvious how the road builders cocked up. Still, it's annoying to know I was so close to these roads and didn't get to explore them. Oh well. Another time perhaps.
Roadtripper_Ian wrote: Has that D2 got traffic lights every time a farm track crosses it?
Not that there's anyone to be held up as it doesn't go anywhere.....
Hard to tell from the images if traffic lights had actually been installed. Certainly the line-marking suggests traffic lights. If you look carefully at the farm tracks though, you can see that many of them do have street lights. This is quite normal in Taiwan. Traffic lights or at least flashing red and amber lights are common in rural areas.
Also, imagine the inconvenience for users of some of those lanes to cross the new road. If they follow the rules, they'd have to travel to the next intersection, do a U-turn and go back to continue travelling along the lane. The wheel tracks suggest that they just drive down the wrong side of the road to the nearest intersection and turn there. Again, relatively standard driving practice in Taiwan.
