Many of Roadguy’s readers are people who have visions. A few of the visions are a bit worrisome and should probably receive the kind of care that Roadguy is not qualified to give, but many of the visions are helpful and come with Web links. For example, alert reader Morg sent along a link to this map, and his e-mail’s subject line was “How interchanges SHOULD be built”:

Hey Roadguy, this is the I-75/I-696 junction north of Detroit. Almost a work of art from the air, and quite an imposing figure on the ground as well, but it eats traffic for lunch. Notice the frontage road system along the two freeways as well, carrying through the interchange.

We don’t really do interchanges this way in Minnesota; we’re more fond of the cloverleaf. But the design addresses some of the merging complaints because all of the exits are on the right, all merging traffic comes from the right, and the longer ramps give drivers more time to accelerate than loop ramps do. The downsides: These stack interchanges cost more to build – they can take up more land, and there are more elevated roadways – and in cold weather, more of the pavement can freeze up faster.

Our next vision comes from alert reader Joel:

Hey Roadguy! In the spirit of fun maps…

Imagine 10 or 15 years into the future. The Twins will have their new park. The Gophers will be playing on campus. The Hiawatha light-rail line will be 15 to 20 years old and still doing great. The Northstar commuter and Central light-rail lines will have finally opened and should be doing wonderfully. AND, if all goes well, the Southwest light-rail line will be open for service, too. There’s even an outside possibility that the Vikes will have a new stadium sitting on the Dome site.

Put it all together and what do you have? An honest-to-goodness sensible mass transportation system that serves both downtowns, the airport and MoA, the SW suburbs, the NW exurbs, and three major sporting facilities. It connects to Amtrak in St. Paul and maybe even includes a commuter line to Duluth. Downtown MPLS looks something like this…[click here]

Cool, huh? Now, what are the chances this actually happens?

Good question. Minnesota sporting events draw millions of fans each year, and a lot of the fans who sit in traffic after a game might appreciate a rail option — but all the options add up to billions of dollars. The Twins and Gophers stadiums are on their way, and the Northstar and Central lines are decent bets to follow, so it’ll be interesting to see how much of Joel’s vision comes true.

Our final vision today has no link, but it’ll draw a picture in your mind. From alert reader Andy:

I was thinking the other day … could there ever be the perfect highway?

What if we had a highway that went from the north metro, maybe Blaine as the northern part and Apple Valley as the southern part, but have it four lanes wide in each direction. We just don’t have any on-ramps along the way. There would be the normal amount of off-ramps, just nothing coming onto the highway. If you wanted to use this new “expressway” you would enter from Blaine or Apple Valley. We could also do the same for East/West cities.

Think about it, no more having to worry about those people that can’t figure out how to merge into traffic, no more being comfortable in the right hand lane, only to move over every 1/4 mile for someone to merge in. I’m guessing traffic would be moving at a pretty good pace the entire trip.

Of course we would need to have some exceptions for emergency services. So maybe we design some special on ramps for them or something like that.

Having zero on-ramps would definitely solve the merging problem, though I’m not sure the volume of Blaine-to-Apple Valley traffic would ever justify the expense of building a dedicated freeway – the right-of-way costs alone would be astounding. But Andy clearly knows that if you’re just passing through the Twin Cities from north to south, there aren’t any great routes – you pretty much have to drive through one downtown or the other, and because of weight restrictions in St. Paul, trucks have no choice but to join the herds on I-35W through Minneapolis. Roadguy’s low-cost suggestion for those who’d like to fly from one end of the metro area to the other: Try 2 a.m. on a clear, construction-free weeknight, when every usual nightmarish congestion spot is a breeze.

If you have thoughts on any of the visions above, please share them below. And if you have visions of your own, please consult your doctor or, better yet, send ‘em on in to Roadguy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 6:10 am and is filed under Transportation conversations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.