Spaghetti Junctions: Extensive Highway Interchanges
 

Spaghetti Junctions: Extensive Highway Interchanges

I am surprised there is no forum yet on this topic (I couldn't find one).

Here is one that I recently visited in Shanghai, Puxi side (not my photos):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...C_Shanghai.jpghttp://www.inautonews.com/wp-content...nal1-m5ehi.jpghttp://www.inautonews.com/wp-content..._shanghai3.jpg
wikimedia commons; inautonews.com

This scary bastard (Tom Moreland Interchange) in Atlanta:
http://roclar.net/RP/AtlantaSpaghettiJunction.jpg
roclar.net

On google maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&...,0.009978&z=17

The High-Five of Dallas:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-High_Five.jpg
wikimedia commons

The Judge Harry Pregerson Monster of Los Angeles:
http://img.desktopwallpapers.ru/worl...05ef5-1600.jpg
desktopwallpapers.ru

The Basketweave, on the 401, Toronto:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...weave_Crop.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tweave.svg.png
wikimedia commons

The turcot interchange in Montreal (under reconstruction):
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7YFMAsf5he...0/turcotte.jpg
c/o Richard at the Eco-Senior

The one you showed in L.A.'s definitely one of the worst, MolsonExport. There are numerous ones in the L.A. area that are insanely complicated. Some of the ones in Houston and Dallas are crazy as well. And that stretch of the 401, well, I'll get to experience that one this coming weekend, especially since that photo is only a few kilometers from my aunt's place! :)

Aaron (Glowrock)

The Pragerson (better known as the 110/105) is complicated for a number of reasons: of course, it has huge amounts of traffic, but it also has multiple levels of regulated and priority lanes and a transit station and related facilities and parking.

Quite a view from the air.

Great picture. Probably former Soviet design.

btw, are you an information theory buff? Your quote from Rumsfeld is a layman's summary of one of the tenets leading to the conclusion that it is impossible to create algorithms to fully analyze axiomatic models. Comes up in strategic defense planning. I assume Rumsfeld picked it up either at Princeton or at his several tech CEO positions.

Biggest in the DC area is the Springfield Interchange, which includes both of these. It's 24 lanes in the space between them. The construction you see is the addition of HOT lanes to the Beltway, which will add even more ramps to the left one.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8448/7...433b1fd9_b.jpg

I'm aware of that, pesto. I've driven the 110/105 interchange a number of times. Not too many 5+ level interchanges around, Dallas's High Five notwithstanding...

Aaron (Glowrock)

chicago's largest is the circle interchange where the dan ryan/kennedy intersects with the ike, just southwest of downtown, but it's an outmoded design from the 60s that has notorious back-ups. i've heard that it's the worst interchange in the nation in terms of back-ups.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ge_Chicago.jpg
source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ge_Chicago.jpg







milwaukee has a 5 level interchange, the recently re-opened marquette interchange, just south west of downtown.

http://www.hntb.com/sites/default/fi...I_2009_072.jpg
source: http://www.hntb.com/sites/default/fi...I_2009_072.jpg

Miami has the Golden Glades. The intersection of I-95, Palmetto Expressway, US441 (surface) and SR9 (surface), It's not that impressive looking but it is hell to navigate. It's the only interchange I've seen where you have to exit onto surface roads, including a stop light, to get from one highway to another.'

But it also has a great view of Miami's skylines from atope the HOV lane which flys over the whole thing.

http://www.crte.org/images/freeways/08-ggx.jpg

not per se, but I am a prof (marketing) and I teach research methods, thus I dabble in theory. I've always liked Rummy's quote on multiple levels.

East St Louis is building a new one for the new bridge, with this one just a few miles away.

http://www.skylinescenes.com/gallery...line_98932.jpg

I'm always fascinated by these things. BTW, I can see the house my mother grew up in and her high school (Robert E. Lee) in this pic.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8448/7...433b1fd9_b.jpg

... He says while using a picture that shows the circle nearly empty :).

But it's worth pointing out that the interchange actually has a very small footprint in the scheme of things. I'm anxious to see what happens when they eventually rebuild it.

Shanghai has a bunch of these, but the largest is probably the Xinzhuang Interchange in south Shanghai. It has 4 freeways (S4 - bottom right, S20 - top centre - centre right, G60 - centre left, Humin Elevated Road - top right) plus surface streets, and passes over both intercity and metro rail.

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg69/...pg&res=landing

Though not exactly a highway interchange, I've always found Toronto's Pearson Airport to be an impressive example of spaghetti manglery:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=...13164&t=k&z=17

More of Atlanta's Tom Moreland Interchange:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5265/5...c5e6ab3c_b.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanon52...n/photostream/

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3293/2...1160165d_o.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/swampzo...n/photostream/

Atlanta's I-20/I-75/I-85 interchange:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3034/2...3d64db6b_b.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blech/2...n/photostream/

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/7/1106...78e69150_o.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benandl...n/photostream/

Man I've always loved these.

Gah, I've been through that interchange with The Connector and I 20 a few times coming from Birmingham. I hate that thing...

Huntsville has one (I-565/US 231/US 431 plus Washington St, Jefferson St, and Oakwood Ave) that's about 3 to 4 miles long. It's more of a slender spaghetti, but it's no less confusing and ineffective (despite it's more recent construction).

I respect how Chicago generally has undersized expressway infrastructure-with some notable exceptions-in a city with otherwise massive infrastructure. If Chicago was in the sunbelt, the Circle would probably be the largest spaghetti clusterfuck east of California, or worse.

Of course, I've been stuck in fubar circle induced traffic ...mental convulsions.

Some of these things are unbelievably huge. Nothing mammoth in my city. I think Pittsburgh must have some of the smallest parkways around the city core for any city its size. 4 lanes from the airport to downtown!

I just noticed that PGH doesn't quite have a bonafide beltway. Our beltway is what was one of the daggers into our downtown.

I despise each and every one of these. Disgusting blights on the landscape.

I-17/I-10 interchange west/northwest of Downtown Phoenix, aka "The Stack"

http://image.shutterstock.com/displa...a-79364155.jpg
Source

The I-10/AZ 51/AZ 202 "Mini Stack." This one's even more complicated than The Stack, IMO:
http://image.shutterstock.com/displa...a-82854472.jpg
Source

milwaukee's is surprisingly large for the size of the metro.

@tredici: yes, the 20/75-85 interchange is fucking terrible. considering it's size, atlanta should probably have more than just one stack interchange, 285/85.

the mother city of stack interchanges:

• Video Link
• Video Link

I assume Chicago's Circle, if rebuilt, will probably resemble the Shanghainese compact stack shown in the thread's first picture, probably with a distortion to allow faster speeds and wider turns on the Eisenhower-Dan Ryan ramps.

The one is Shanghai is awe inspiring, the one in Dallas (High Five) is probably the cleanest and most elegant spaghetti junction I have seen while the huge on in LA is probably the most depressing looking of the bunch. Don't know why but it has always looked sad to me.

As for Canada, outside of the one in Montreal (which is being replaced) Canada does not really have spaghetti junctions. Metro Toronto and other areas do have impressive interchanges, but none of them to the scale of the High Five or other such spaghetti junctions show.

Metro-Vancouver really has nothing to show currently, outside of the semi-large 99/91/Knight Street interchanges in Richmond.

That being said, this beast is currently u/c and will be complete next year:

The new Cape Horn

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5059/5...b38f407e_b.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2699/4...bc895040_b.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30634635@N03/

i don't think it's as much about sun-belt vs. rust belt as it is about available land. just compare chicago's downtown interchange with milwaukee's. both cities have an interchange to the southwest of their respective downtowns where the major north/south expressway intersects with the main east/west expressway. in milwaukee, they had far more land to work with, so when it came time to replace the outmoded marquette interchange, they were able to shoe horn in a modern 5 level stack interchange. chicago's circle interchange will need to be replaced someday, but there just isn't the same degree of land available at that location to do a conventional modern stack interchange, so the engineers are going to have to come up with some sort of scrunched-up hybrid that will still likely require slower speeds and lead to back-ups all the same. there just ain't enough land there to have a major expressway interchange designed for 55mph ramps.

Maybe some kind of giant loop would be better with spinoff routes.

the Turcot Interchange of Montreal. Less impressive now that most of the rail lines have been removed (passing over the CN rail main line, it was partially astride a CN shunting yard, and next to an escarpment, hence the verticality). Very cool but scary, as chunks of concrete regularly fall of and many rusty reinforcing rods show through the structure.

http://static4.businessinsider.com/i...eal-canada.jpg
businessinsider

It is being completely rebuilt from scratch.

redesign render
http://spacingmontreal.ca/wp-content...nterchange.jpg
spacingmontreal.ca

Atlanta's freeway system, while vastly superior/modern in general quality to virtually any other very large metro in the countr, still is disfunctional. The Connector is the biggest cluster fuck on Earth, and I don't think that will ever change. I mean, a 12 lane wide freeway between two interchanges in Huntsville does nothing to ease congestion.

Yay Southern Freeways...

While not particularly complicated, the sheer amount of land the M-5/I-96/I-969/I-275 interchange in Novi in western Metro Detroit takes up is just ridiculous:

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2...ingbowlnd2.jpg

BTW, while neither particularly large or complicated, Detroit's main street, Woodward Avenue, has some fairly interesting crossings for a main street at 8 Mile and 696. It's a technically a state highway, but functions as a main street through much of its course, so it's weird when you hit the grade separations.

I don't really agree that Atlanta's freeway system is disfuntional/dysfunctional especially when you consider the amount of traffic it carries and the distances that people commute daily on them. I think the secondary streets are lacking in function more than the freeways but a lot of that has to do with topography and politics/jurisdiction.

The winding streets (especially outside of Midtown and Downtown) creates odd intersections with other winding streets and may cause confusion. Also the seemingly constant changing of street names may also add to confusion. This situation sometimes make some certain streets underutilized even when the freeway is congested.

I have lived in Atlanta many years and know it pretty well but I still find out things on how streets connect here. Until recently, I didn't know that Juniper Street, Courtland Avenue and Washington Street share the same road alignment (same street - name changes) through Midtown/Downtown. It's an excellent alternative to a congested Downtown Connector if you are traveling south. I have never had a terrible commute living in Atlanta but I've always lived inside the city or inside/near the Perimeter. I also seek and utilized alternatives to the freeway like the secondary streets and MARTA.

Also, GA400 and the Northern Arc of 285 are bigger "cluster fuck" to the Downtown Connector IMO. They carry just as much traffic, their exits are further apart, and they have less alternatives.

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x...cinCebolao.jpg Link

In São Paulo, this quite simple one, comparing yours is so called Cebolão, which means big onion. There is also the Cebolinha, small onion, this one

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3168/2...b67_z.jpg?zz=1 link


cool thread btw.

^cool shots. I have such a love/hate feeling about these myriad-lane monsters.

reconstructed acadie circle interchange in Montreal:
http://www.snclavalin.com/upload/exp...inf_acadie.jpg
snclavalin

http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/wp-co...lusion-web.jpg
bricoleururbanism

had to post it. :D

there's a similar land monster in chicagoland where I-90, I-190 & I-294 all collide out in suburban rosemont. it's not super complex, but like the one in michigan, it eats up an egregious amount of land.

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3020/interchange.jpg
source: google maps

A few from Japan... All images from Google Earth.

Ōyamazaki JCT / IC
Two tollways over a Shinkansen line (plus one future tollway)
http://goo.gl/maps/lVUp3

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/8720/oyamazakiic.jpg

Kawasaki Ukishima JCT / IC
Three tollways meeting in a cross, with three legs as tunnels
http://goo.gl/maps/I7dJ4

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/9...ukishimaic.jpg

Tarumi JCT
Three tollways with connectors in concentric circles
http://goo.gl/maps/dbfqF

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/6310/tarumijct.jpg

California represent (just some of the few):

http://www.virtualtripping.com/wp-co...tersection.jpg
http://www.virtualtripping.com/calif...e-driving-ban/

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5016/...5fa73e99e3.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5016/...5fa73e99e3.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nterchange.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lo...nterchange.jpg

http://www.visualphotos.com/photo/2x..._u28898455.jpg
http://www.visualphotos.com/image/2x...rchange_in_los

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-ge...A-AHLB5870.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&c...r:0,s:42,i:211

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-ge...o-AHLB3191.jpg
http://aerialarchives.photoshelter.c...00063kLEp08Fus

http://www.stockphotopro.com/photo-thumbs-2/ABN7JD.jpg
http://www.stockphotopro.com/photo_o...Freeway_and_14

http://legalplanet.files.wordpress.c...nterchange.jpg
http://legalplanet.wordpress.com/201...ement-efforts/

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3144/3...7cb0ed1c_o.jpg
Above I-10 and I-15 interchange, San Bernardino County, California by cocoi_m, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7006/6...df664e5a_z.jpg
I-710/60 Freeway Interchange, Los Angeles CA by JoeInSouthernCA, on Flickr

http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-content.../sffo-copy.jpg
http://sfcitizen.com/blog/tag/freeway/

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2005/2...289fd8a4_o.jpg
Above I-280 and Hwy 87, San Jose, Santa Clara County, California by cocoi_m, on Flickr

http://www.worldofstock.com/slides/TRC4897.jpg
http://www.worldofstock.com/stock-ph...ge-los/TRC4897

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/p...m/20387809.jpg
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/20387809

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4026/4...675dc503_b.jpg
Interchange #1 by J.G. in S.F., on Flickr

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3522/4...6c76161b_z.jpg
Sign Gantry @ Kellogg Interchange (10+57+71) by mike_s_etc, on Flickr

http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1389/8...0150db61_z.jpg
I-405 / I-105: the cathedral by gsgeorge, on Flickr

http://banbillboardblight.org/wp-con...-Center-51.jpg
http://banbillboardblight.org/?p=6850

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the massive interchange with the NJ Turnpike with I-78 right near Newark International Airport. I drove on that sucker recently, and if I'm correct with my count, I counted some 18 lanes of NJ Turnpike just north of that major interchange...

There's another notable ginormous stack interchange right near the Eastern terminus of I-70 west of Baltimore... That's four levels anyway...

Amazing shots.

Do teabaggers ever protest about the $$$$$ spent building/maintaining these monstrosities?

It's probably the busiest in the area, but if you include the suburbs, I'd say the 355/55 in Bolingbrook and the 94/80 split in South Holland (both recently rebuilt) are taller, bigger, and more impressive from an engineering standpoint.

And if we go by area and the number of ramps, cases can be made for the Hillside Strangler and the 190/90/294 interchange in Rosemont. They're Chicago's equivalents of the East LA interchange.

When they rebuild the 90/290 interchange in Schaumburg and incorporate all those collector/distributor ramps for adjacent exits, that will be Chicago's answer to the Dallas High 5 or the 105/110 in LA.

Several interchanges in Barcelona are integrated with parkland and plaza space, which is pretty cool.

Plaça de los Glories Catalanes

http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1074/4...6627717b_b.jpg
source
http://i.uride.it/b/p1432_C3z9e.jpg
source

Parc de la Trinitat

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ymx9e66vrG...00/nudo8uh.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ymx9e66vrG...600/241688.jpg
source



There's also the rail version... built OVER a highway interchange.

Nus de Mollet

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7222/7...051e5846_c.jpg
source
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6033/6...c2c1a5ab_z.jpg
source

nyc's best spaghetti junction isnt for cars, its for rail. since 1884, its broadway junction in eastern brooklyn:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=180454

Off the top of my head the most complicated major road junction (i.e. ignoring the magic roundabouts) in the UK is probably Gravelly Hill Interchange (aka Spaghetti Junction) in Birmingham. The junction consists of several roads, a roundabout, a railway line, and several canals and rivers.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...i_Junction.jpg
Source: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelly_Hill_Interchange


The closest London has to a complicated junction is probably Clapham Junction which dates back to 1838 (brick viaduct) and is technically composed of a variety of different junctions’ criss-crossing each other: https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=51.471...32187&t=k&z=15

I'm surprised nobody has posted Spaghetti Junction in Louisville.

Anthony Henday Drive (hwy 216 - ring road) and Hwy 2 interchange in Edmonton;

http://www.hotmixmag.com/images/vol1...oad-canada.jpg

Deerfoot Trail / HWY 22x interchange plans (currently under construction) in Calgary: (PDF)

Link.

SR 520 (Washington)/RH Thomson Expressway. This one was never built, but it would've been interesting:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3589/3...4f2f8e61_b.jpg
Answers, at last! by hey skinny, on Flickr

The RH Thomson was never built (except for a small section of unused roadway on the south end of the interchange), so the interchange was only partially built (2 ramps connect 520 to Lake Washington Blvd and the one which would've gone from northbound RH Thomson to westbound 520 is unused except for people diving into Lake Washington (the area around the interchange was never filled in)). What is there currently will be removed when 520 from I-5 to the Evergreen Point floating bridge is rebuilt.

Louisville's Kennedy Interchange
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4081/4...a5bc70db_z.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pikmin/...n/photostream/