How Are Highways Designed?
3,079,573
Published 2020-07-07
Although many of us are regular drivers, we rarely put much thought into roads. Thatโs on purpose. If youโre thinking about the roadway itself at all while youโre driving, itโs probably because it was poorly designed. There are so many factors that go into highway safety, many of which are more philosophical or psychological than pure physics and engineering. But to a certain extent, highway design is an art form.
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Writing/Editing/Production: Grady Hillhouse
Editing and Direction Help: Wesley Crump
This video is sponsored by Ting.
All Comments (21)
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๐ท Enjoying the series on roadways? More are coming! Subscribe to follow along: practical.engineering/email-list โ๏ธ Get $25 off of you first month with Ting Mobile practicalengineering.ting.com/
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This man can make anything interesting. He single-handedly brought back my interest in learning about engineering. Legend
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True story: Where I live, the main street is perfectly straight the whole way through the town. It used to have a speed limit of 40 MPH. Then a family whose house was right on Main Street complained about the speed and asked the city if they could lower it. The city looked into it... and changed it to 45 MPH.
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Practical Engineering: There are many factors that come into play when designing a highway My city: We don't do that here
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I recall, as a young engineer in the '70s, being told that interstates were designed to hide changes of direction at the crest of slopes to make the road appear straight. Also one of my pet peeves with modern highways are the spirals on exit ramps that sneak up on the driver and all of a sudden they are going too fast; a big problem on a motorcycle.
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In Australia where I live, potholes and kangaroos determine highway speedlimits. Actually almost crashed into a kangaroo whilst passing over a crest as it appeared out of nowhere, just like you said. Thats why I always slow down when I'm going over crests or around tight corners where my sight distance is impeded. It surprises me how fast many people go when they are literally driving blind around these bends/curves.
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9:17 Draws a perfect moose/deer, contrasted with a brick "car" ๐
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I found this extremely interesting :-)
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Practical Engineering: How are highways designed? Cities Skylines players: Write that down! Write that down!
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"Not many people think about roads" Me: a loyal subscriber with post notifications who pesters my friends about why theres cracks in side walks and about all the layers that go into road construction
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I never cared about civil engineering until I found your channel. Now I gradually start to see the world I live in with different eyes. Thank you for widening my horizon ๐
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man i love your channel. I worked on the design side for almost 10 years for roads and bridges.
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I'd love to hear more about railroad engineering - how are new railroad formations settled on? And how do they get the transitions and radii just right? I reckon that would be a fantastic video. Keep up the great work!
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I'm a Civil Engineering graduate and due to a monotonous, quality lacking, banal and unfair education system and working culture, I've lost interest but your channel keeps me motivated. Thank you so much :) I wish I had a teacher like you. This is how Civil Engineering should be taught. Thank you once again. :)
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Lane widening in curves is also very helpful when you're pulling a long trailer or driving something wide. Less chance of less skilled drivers getting too close to you
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As an ex-Road engineer, great video! you covered up the basics very well! Just another thing to add, the transition length for straight to curve is also dependent on the transition length required to transition from crown to Super elevation.
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Just took my route engineering class last semester and did a group project where we designed roughly 2 miles of a highway. Way more intricate that I ever imagined.
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4:37 "If the superelevation angle is just right, and you're traveling at a right speed, your cup of coffee won't spill around the bend" EUROBEAT INTENSIFIES
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Hills? What is this magic you're talking about? - The Dutch.
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Love this video: I consistently think about roads and their slopes as I'm driving on them. Thank you for sharing so much of your knowledge!
