Portal:Roads

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The World Roads Portal

A road is a thoroughfare from one place to another, primarily used for movement of traffic. Many roads are paved.

The words "road" and "street" are commonly considered to be interchangeable, but the distinction is important in urban design. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. Roads also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads.

There are many types of roads, including parkways, avenues, controlled-access highways (freeways, motorways, and expressways), tollways, highways, local roads, public roads and private roads.

The primary features of roads include lanes, sidewalks (pavement), roadways (carriageways), medians, shoulders, verges, bike paths (cycle paths), and shared-use paths. (Full article...)

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A freeway is a type of road designed for safer high-speed operation of motor vehicles through the elimination of at-grade intersections. This is accomplished by preventing access to and from adjacent properties and eliminating all cross traffic through the use of grade separations and interchanges; railroad crossings are also removed. Such highways are usually divided with at least two lanes in each direction. Because traffic never crosses at-grade, there are generally no traffic lights or stop signs. Some countries have roads that function as freeways but use different names. These include autobahn, autovía, autoroute, autopista, autostrada, autosnelweg, motorway (in the UK and Ireland) and expressway (in India and Asia).

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The following are images from various road-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The schedule of maximum tolls allowed on the Woodstock to Rollright Turnpike Trust on the Great Road to Worcester in 1751 (from History of road transport)
Image 2Utrecht has specially painted bicycle-only lanes. (from Road safety)
Image 3Replacing the old road with concrete pavers in Bo'ao Road area, Haikou City, Hainan, China. (from Roadworks)
Image 4John Metcalf, also known as Blind Jack of Knaresborough. Drawn by J R Smith in The Life of John Metcalf, published 1801. (from History of road transport)
Image 5Modes of road transport in Dublin, 1929 (from History of road transport)
Image 6A road being resurfaced using a road roller (from Road surface)
Image 7Car fatalities per pax-km vs. car usage per pax-day; in Europe. It seems, at least in these European countries, that car fatalities per person-km have no strong correlation with massification of car usage. The average car usage in these countries is around 30km per person-day with varying number of fatalities ratios. These differences might be related with different cultural approaches to traffic codes, or more safety measures implemented on such countries. (from Road safety)
Image 8Vehicles experiencing a breakdown or an emergency can stop in the emergency lane; these lanes may themselves present risks to traffic. (from Road safety)
Image 9Guard rail on road in Kaluga Oblast (Russia) (from Road safety)
Image 10Jan Brueghel (I) - Travellers on the Way, second half of 16th Century (from History of road transport)
Image 11According to Eurostat, there is almost a linear proportion between the total number of passenger-km driven by car and road fatalities. (from Road safety)
Image 12A US poster from the 1940s (from Road safety)
Image 13Worn asphalt concrete being removed before laying a new layer in Roberttown, UK (from Roadworks)
Image 14Annual traffic deaths sign over I-95 in Georgia, US, indicating more than three deaths per day (from Road safety)
Image 15Closeup of asphalt on a driveway (from Road surface)
Image 16The Great North Road near Highgate on the approach to London before turnpiking. The highway was deeply rutted and spread onto adjoining land. (from History of road transport)
Image 17Replacing the old road with concrete blocks in Bo'ao Road area, Haikou City, Hainan, China (from Road surface)
Image 18Different layers of road including asphalt layer. The total thickness of a pavement can be measured using granular base equivalency. (from Road surface)
Image 19Polymer cement overlaying to change asphalt pavement to brick texture and color to create decorative crosswalk (from Road surface)
Image 20Concrete pavers (from Road surface)
Image 21According to Eurostat and European Railway Agency, in European railway mode of transport, there is a fatality risk for passengers and occupants 28 times lower compared with car usage. Based on data by EU-27 member nations, 2008–2010. (from Road safety)
Image 22A concrete road in Ewing, New Jersey (from Road surface)
Image 23An example of composite pavement: hot-mix asphalt overlaid onto Portland cement concrete pavement (from Road surface)
Image 24Construction crew laying down asphalt over fiber-optic trench, in New York City (from Road surface)
Image 25Cracked asphalt surface (from Road surface)
Image 26An orange diamond sign for upcoming roadworks. The worded legend shown here is banned by the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, but is allowed in the 2009 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. (from Roadworks)
Image 27A patched road rut at a Portland Oregon bus stop. During the summer this part of the road will be hot and combined with a bus’s high ground pressure will compress and deform part of the road. Due to the lower elevation from the driveway, a large portion of the buses weight leans on one wheel causing damage to the road. Despite the repairs, you can see the patch is already damaged. This happens yearly. (from Road surface)
Image 28Pavement ends and turns into gravel surface road. (from Road surface)
Image 29The Dutch Reach - Use far hand on handle when opening to avoid dooring cyclists or injuries to exiting drivers and passengers. (from Road safety)
Image 30The Autostrada A20 (Italy) with large central median (from Road safety)
Image 31Laying asphalt (from Road surface)
Image 32Brick paving machine (from Road surface)
Image 33Safe from traffic for cycling along a fully segregated Fietspad, properly designed cycling infrastructure in Amsterdam (from Road safety)
Image 34Thomas Telford, the "Colossus of the Roads" in early 19th century Britain (from History of road transport)
Image 35Concrete roadway in San Jose, California (from Road surface)
Image 36Crack sealing machine in Dnipro, Ukraine. (from Road surface)
Image 37Sacrifices to the Modern Moloch, a 1923 cartoon published in St. Louis Star, criticizing the apparent acceptance by society of increasing automobile-related fatalities (from Road safety)
Image 38Red surfacing for a bicycle lane in the Netherlands (from Road surface)
Image 39Speed limits in different areas; here unusually with only a "recommended" limit (Richtgeschwindigkeit) of 130 km/h on the Autobahn in Germany (from Road safety)
Image 40Map of Roman roads in 125 AD (from History of road transport)
Image 41German roadworks sign. Similar signs are used in other European countries. (from Roadworks)
Image 42A right-hand driving car on the right-hand side of the road in France at night (from Road safety)
Image 43Gravel road in Namibia (from Road surface)
Image 44The Italian Autostrada dei Laghi ("Lakes Motorway" in the 1950s; now parts of the Autostrada A8 and the Autostrada A9), the first controlled-access highway ever built in the world (from History of road transport)
Image 45Old Roman road, leading from Jerusalem to Beit Gubrin, adjacent to regional highway 375 in Israel (from Road surface)
Image 46Deteriorating asphalt (from Road surface)

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Road interchange of Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway and Parkdale Avenue at the Ottawa River in Ottawa, as seen during a hot air balloon ride
Credit: Flickr user Shanta

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Did you know

...that completion of the West Coast Highway viaduct — the longest in Singapore — was delayed for more than two years because of the contractor's financial problems?

... that in a toll dispute between residents of Bandar Mahkota Cheras and the Cheras-Kajang Highway concessionaire, a barrier blocking a shunpike was repeatedly torn down and rebuilt?

...that road bicycle racer Gerald Ciolek became the youngest ever German National Cycling Champion, aged just 18 in 2005?

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WikiProjects

WikiProject Highways—principal WikiProject
- U.S. Roads—United States state highways and county roads
- U.S. Streets—United States city streets
- Australian Roads—Australian highways, principal roads, and main city streets
- Canada Roads—Canada provincial highways
- Canada Streets—Canada city streets
- WikiProject UK Roads—roads in the United Kingdom
  - London transport—roads, etc.
- Paris Streets
- China Transportation—includes expressways, ring roads, Roads, national highways, etc
- Germany transportation
- Indian Roads
- Nepal transportation
- Scotland transport—includes road and bus transport in Scotland

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Reggio Calabria - panorama that shows the end of A3 highway where RA04 begins connecting with SS 106
Credit: Saverio Autellitano (Salli)

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