Early on in my life I took an interest in more efficient road systems (in general terms). Out of this interest came the following three ideas.
1) A Better Motorway Crossover System
There are several systems that have been devised for motorway crossovers. The best known is the “clover leaf” which I show next to here. But I think the system I have devised is better than these (but I could be biased). My system is shown below.
So my system involves splitting the different directions of the motorway. And this means that a roundabout can be formed in the middle. This allows the vehicles, wishing to turn right, to use this roundabout. So these vehicles only need to turn 90 degrees, instead of the 270 degrees, which is needed in the clover-leaf solution. (Thus there are less roads).
If you carefully do the sums, then you will find that this system involves building less extra roads and there will be less bridge building. (But this calculation is quite complex. There are actually more bridges to be built. But these bridges are not as big.) So this is a slight advantage.
But the main advantage of this system is that this form can use the full wealth potential associated with a motorway crossover position.
A motorway crossover position is a wonderful place to be at. It is a place where there are perfect roads going to the four fundamental directions. Thus this is a perfect place to get to (or to leave). We must take full advantage of this perfect position.
The best place to be is within the roundabout area. From here a person can come and go to anywhere. So we must use this wonderful position. So there should a large round building here many stories high. The bottom levels would contain car servicing facilities and temporary parking. The next levels would be for rest rooms and eating facilities. And the higher levels would be for meeting rooms and halls. This is the perfect place for people to meet from all the surrounding country for important discussions.
But this idea should be extended further. So there should also be an underpass to one of the corners. And here there should be overnight parking, playgrounds, motels, backpacker accommodation, etc.
The advantages of a motorway crossover position should be taken full advantage of. And my form of crossover allows this potential to be used very easily indeed.
2) One-way Roads only in Cities
This idea is related to the previous idea. Again we should try to keep the lanes, going in opposite directions, separate.
The first reason is because turning right in a two way road system always causes huge problems. But if all roads are just one-way, there is no such problem at all. A person can turn right just as easily as a person can turn left. And in a city there are plenty of roads, so it is fairly easy to divide the roads into one-way roads and streets.
The other reason is associated with the traffic lights on the major roads. The lights on the major roads can be sequenced so that all cars, travelling at the optimum speed, can travel on green light until they meet another major road. This can be a very significant advantage.
3) A No-Pass Line for Merging Traffic
If there is one feature of Australia, which exasperates we more than anything else, is the way that the road system always kills off the slow lane rather than the fast lane. Thus the normal good citizen travelling within the speed limit (which most people don’t) is rewarded for their good behaviour by finding that their lane is frequently chopped off. So, without almost any warning, they have to either accelerate to try and merge with the fast lane (and of course they may not let him in) or else stop completely and wait till there is a complete break in the traffic. Naturally it is far too much to expect to change the Australian psyche to socially beneficial behaviour rather than anti-social behaviour.
However there would seem to be a simple easy solution that I think must eventually come into being. Simply, when there is a merge situation, there should be a clear definite line across the two merging lanes after which no car can pass another in the two lanes i.e. the merge sequence is clearly defined at the ‘no-pass-line’. Thus, if you have slow and fast lanes merging before the ‘no pass line’, cars in the fast lane can overtake cars in the slow lane. However, after the ‘no-pass-line’, the cars in the fast lane must slow down and dove-tail in after the car that was in front at the ‘no-pass-line’. Possibly this system exists already somewhere in the world. But it seems such an obvious solution that I made a prediction that ‘no-pass-lines’ will become standard in all road merge situations in the world.
But I made this prediction 20 years ago. And such “no-pass lines” have not yet appeared. So what I imagine to be obvious may not be obvious to other people. So this is why I include this little idea in my inventions.
You might now also like to look back at:
my “Home Page” (which introduces this whole website andlists all my webpages).
My next webpage is “A New Easy-to-Use Bedding-Package System”.
Updated on 14/11/2016.