Ring road

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The inner ring road of Sheffield, England Sheffield inner ring-road.png
The inner ring road of Sheffield, England

A ring road (also known as circular road,beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist in reducing traffic volumes in the urban centre, such as by offering an alternate route around the city for drivers who do not need to stop in the city core. Ring roads can also serve to connect suburbs to each other, allowing efficient travel between them.

Contents

Nomenclature

The Third Ring Road in the area of the Moscow International Business Center. Moskva-Siti i TTK (vid ot Kutuzovskogo prospekta).jpg
The Third Ring Road in the area of the Moscow International Business Center.

The name "ring road" is used for the majority of metropolitan circumferential routes in Europe, such as the Berliner Ring, the Brussels Ring, the Amsterdam Ring, the Boulevard Périphérique around Paris and the Leeds Inner and Outer ring roads. Australia, Pakistan and India also use the term ring road, as in Melbourne's Western Ring Road, Lahore's Lahore Ring Road and Hyderabad's Outer Ring Road. In Canada the term is the most commonly used, with "orbital" also used, but to a much lesser extent.

In Europe and Australia, some ring roads, particularly longer ones of motorway standard, are known as "orbital motorways". Examples are the London Orbital (generally known as the M25; 188 km), Sydney Orbital Network (110 km) and Rome Orbital (68 km).

In the United States many ring roads are called beltlines, beltways or loops, such as the Capital Beltway around Washington, D.C. Some ring roads, such as Washington's Capital Beltway, use "Inner Loop" and "Outer Loop" terminology for directions of travel, since cardinal (compass) directions cannot be signed uniformly around the entire loop. The term 'ring road' is occasionally – and inaccurately – used interchangeably with the term 'bypass'.

Background

The Sydney Orbital Network, New South Wales, Australia Sydney-orbital-black-line.png
The Sydney Orbital Network, New South Wales, Australia

Bypasses around many large and small towns were built in many areas when many old roads were converted to four-lane status in the 1930s to 1950s, such as those along the Old National Road (now generally U.S. 40 or Interstate 70) in the United States, leaving the old road in place to serve the town or city, but allowing through travelers to continue on a wider, faster and safer route.

Construction of fully circumferential ring roads has generally occurred more recently, beginning in the 1960s in many areas, when the U.S. Interstate Highway System and similar-quality roads elsewhere were designed. Ring roads have now been built around numerous cities and metropolitan areas, including cities with multiple ring roads, irregularly shaped ring roads and ring roads made up of various other long-distance roads.

London has three ring roads (the M25 motorway, the North and South Circular roads and the Inner Ring Road). Birmingham also has three ring roads which consist of the Birmingham Box; the A4540, commonly known as the Middleway; and the A4040, the Outer Ring Road. Birmingham once had a fourth ring road, the A4400. This has been partially demolished and downgraded to improve traffic flow into the city. Other British cities have two: Leeds, Sheffield, Norwich and Glasgow. Cleveland, OH and San Antonio, TX, in the United States, also each have two, while Houston, Texas will have three official ring roads (not including the downtown freeway loop). Some cities have far more  Beijing, for example, has six ring roads, simply numbered in increasing order from the city center (though skipping #1), while Moscow has five, three innermost (Central Squares of Moscow, Boulevard Ring and Garden Ring) corresponding to the concentric lines of fortifications around the ancient city, and the two outermost (MKAD and Third Ring) built in the twentieth century, though, confusingly, the Third Ring was built last.

Geographical constraints can complicate the construction of a complete ring road. For example, the Baltimore Beltway in Maryland crosses Baltimore Harbor on a high arch bridge, and much of the partially completed Stockholm Ring Road in Sweden runs through tunnels or over long bridges. Some towns or cities on sea coasts or near rugged mountains cannot have a full ring road. Examples of such partial ring roads are Dublin's ring road; and, in the USA, Interstate 287, mostly in New Jersey (bypassing New York City), and Interstate 495 around Boston, none of which completely circles these seaport cities.

In other cases, adjacent international boundaries may prevent ring road completion. Construction of a true ring road around Detroit is effectively blocked by its location on the border with Canada and the Detroit River; although constructing a route mostly or entirely outside city limits is technically feasible, a true ring around Detroit would necessarily pass through Canada, and so Interstate 275 and Interstate 696 together bypass but do not encircle the city. Sometimes, the presence of significant natural or historical areas limits route options, as for the long-proposed Outer Beltway around Washington, D.C., where options for a new western Potomac River crossing are limited by a nearly continuous corridor of heavily visited scenic, natural, and historical landscapes in the Potomac River Gorge and adjacent areas.

When referring to a road encircling a capital city, the term "beltway" can also have a political connotation, as in the American term "Inside the Beltway", derived metonymically from the Capital Beltway encircling Washington, D.C.

Impact

Ring roads have been criticised for inducing demand, leading to more car journeys being taken and thus higher levels of pollution being created. By creating easy access by car to large areas of land, they can also act as a catalyst for development, leading to urban sprawl and car-centric planning. [1] Ring roads have also been criticised for splitting communities and being difficult to navigate for pedestrians and cyclists. [2]

Examples

The Leeds Inner Ring Road in England was built in a series of tunnels to save space and avoid physically separating the city's centre from its suburbs. Nuffield Hospital, Leeds - geograph.org.uk - 104749.jpg
The Leeds Inner Ring Road in England was built in a series of tunnels to save space and avoid physically separating the city's centre from its suburbs.
Sardar Patel Ring Road, Ahmedabad Sardar Patel Ring Road Ahmedabad.png
Sardar Patel Ring Road, Ahmedabad

Most orbital motorways (or beltways) are purpose-built major highways around a town or city, typically without either signals or road or railroad crossings. In the United States, beltways are commonly parts of the Interstate Highway System. Similar roads in the United Kingdom are often called "orbital motorways". Although the terms "ring road" and "orbital motorway" are sometimes used interchangeably, "ring road" often indicates a circumferential route formed from one or more existing roads within a city or town, with the standard of road being anything from an ordinary city street up to motorway level. An excellent example of this is London's North Circular/South Circular ring roads, which are largely made up of (mainly congested) ordinary city streets.

In some cases, a circumferential route is formed by the combination of a major through highway and a similar-quality loop route that extends out from the parent road, later reconnecting with the same highway. Such loops not only function as a bypass for through traffic, but also to serve outlying suburbs. In the United States, an Interstate highway loop is usually designated by a three-digit number beginning with an even digit before the two-digit number of its parent interstate. Interstate spurs, on the other hand, generally have three-digit numbers beginning with an odd digit.

United States

I-275 passing through Sharonville (suburb of Cincinnati, OH) I275 in Sharonville.jpg
I-275 passing through Sharonville (suburb of Cincinnati, OH)

Circumferential highways are prominent features in or near many large cities in the United States. In many cases, such as Interstate 285 in Atlanta, Georgia, circumferential highways serve as a bypass while other highways pass directly through the city center. In other cases, a primary Interstate highway passes around a city on one side, with a connecting loop Interstate bypassing the city on the other side, together forming a circumferential route, as with I-93 and I-495 in the area of Lawrence, Massachusetts. However, if a primary Interstate passes through a city and a loop bypasses it on only one side (as in the Wilmington, Delaware, area), no fully circumferential route is provided. Within cities, ring roads sometimes have local nicknames; these include Washington DC's Interstate 495 (The "Capital Beltway"), Interstate 270 in Columbus, Ohio (The "Outerbelt"), and Interstate 285 in Atlanta (The "Perimeter").

Route numbering is challenging when a through highway and a loop bypass together form a circumferential ring road. Since neither of the highways involved is circumferential itself, either dual signage or two (or more) route numbers is needed. The history of signage on the Capital Beltway around Washington, D.C., is instructive here. Interstate 95, a major through highway along the U.S. East Coast, was originally planned as a through-the-city route there, with the Beltway encircling the city as I-495. The portion of I-95 entering the city from the south was soon completed (and so signed), primarily by adapting an existing major highway, but the planned extension of I-95 through residential areas northward to the Beltway was long delayed, and eventually abandoned, leaving the eastern portion of the Beltway as the best Interstate-quality route for through traffic.

This eastern portion of the Beltway was then redesignated from I-495 to I-95, leaving the I-495 designation only on the western portion, and the completed part of the planned Interstate inside the Beltway was redesignated as a spur, I-395. A few years later, the resulting confusion from different route numbers on the circumferential Beltway was resolved by restoring I-495 signage for the entire Beltway, with dual signage for I-95 for the highway's concurrent use as a through Interstate on its eastern portion.

The longest complete beltway in the United States is the Charles W. Anderson Loop, a 94-mile (151 km) loop in Texas that forms a complete loop around the Greater San Antonio area. [3]

The longest complete belt road, or a beltway that is only two lanes, in the United States is Hawaii Belt Road, a 260-mile (420 km) belt in Hawaii that forms a complete belt road around Hawaii Island. [4]

Other major U.S. cities with such a beltway superhighway:

There are other U.S. superhighway beltway systems that consist of multiple routes that require multiple interchanges and thus do not provide true ring routes. Two designated examples are the Capital Beltway around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania using Interstate 81, Interstate 83, and Pennsylvania Route 581 and “The Bypass” around South Bend, Indiana using Interstate 80, Interstate 90, U.S. Route 31, and Indiana State Road 331.

Canada

The Anthony Henday Drive ring road in Edmonton AnthonyHendayDrive.JPG
The Anthony Henday Drive ring road in Edmonton

Edmonton, Alberta, has two ring roads. The first is a loose conglomeration of four major arterial roads with an average distance of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the downtown core. Yellowhead Trail forms the northern section, Wayne Gretzky Drive/75 Street forms the eastern section, Whitemud Drive forms the southern and longest section, and 170 Street forms the western and shortest section. Whitemud Drive is the only section that is a true controlled-access highway, while Yellowhead Trail and Wayne Gretzky Drive have interchanges and intersections and are therefore both limited-access roads. 170 Street and 75 Street are merely large arterial roads with intersections only. [5] The second and more prominent ring road is named Anthony Henday Drive; it circles the city at an average distance of 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from the downtown core. It is a freeway for its entire 78-kilometre (48 mi) length, and was built to reduce inner-city traffic congestion, created a bypass of Yellowhead Trail, and has improved the movement of goods and services across Edmonton and the surrounding areas. It was completed in October 2016 as the first free-flowing orbital road in Canada. [6] [7]

Stoney Trail is a ring road that circles the city of Calgary, Alberta, for an entire length of 101-kilometre (63 mi). [8]

Winnipeg, Manitoba, has a ring road which is called the Perimeter Highway. It is designated as Manitoba Highway 101 on the north, northwest and east sides and as Manitoba Highway 100 on the south and southwest sides. The majority of it is a four-lane divided expressway. It has a second ring road, planned since the 1950s and not yet completed, called the Suburban Beltway. It consists of several roads—Lagimodière Boulevard, Abinojii Mikanah, the Fort Garry Bridge, the Moray Bridge, William R Clement Parkway, Chief Peguis Trail and the Kildonan Bridge.

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has a ring road named Circle Drive. It is cosigned as Saskatchewan Highway 16 and Saskatchewan Highway 11 along the whole route since the 2013 opening of Circle Drive South.

Regina, Saskatchewan has a partial ring road that is named Ring Road; however, due to the city's urban growth since the road was originally constructed, it no longer functions as a true ring road and has instead come to be used partially for local arterial traffic. The Regina Bypass, a new partial ring road, has replaced it.

Hamilton, Ontario, has the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway, Highway 403 and the Red Hill Valley Parkway which form a ring on three sides.

Sudbury, Ontario, has a partial ring road consisting of the Southwest and Southeast Bypasses segment of Highway 17, and the Northwest Bypass segment of Highway 144.

Europe

Vienna's Ring Road with the opera house, in 1905 S 65 Abb 15 Opernring.jpg
Vienna's Ring Road with the opera house, in 1905

Most major cities in Europe are served by a ring road that circles either the inner core of their metropolitan areas or the outer borders of the city proper or both. In major transit hubs, such as the Île-de-France region surrounding Paris and the Frankfurt area, major national highways converge just outside city limits before forming one of several routes of an urban network of roads circling the city. Unlike in United States, route numbering is not a challenge on European ring roads as routes merge to form the single designated road. However, exit and road junction access can be challenging due to the complexity of other routes branching from or into the ring road.

One of the most renowned ring roads is the Vienna Ring Road (Ringstraße), a grand boulevard constructed in the mid-19th century and filled with representative buildings. Due to its unique architectural beauty and history, it has also been called the "Lord of the ring roads", and is declared by UNESCO as part of Vienna's World Heritage Site. [9] [10]

Major European cities that are served by a ring road or ring road system:

In Iceland, there is a 1,332 km ring road, called the ring road (or Route 1), around most of the island (excluding only the remote Westfjords). Most of the country's settlements are on or near this road.

Some maps of ring roads in Europe

Asia-Pacific

Chukyo metropolitan area(Nagoya) Ming Er Huan taitoruHua Xiang .jpg
Chūkyō metropolitan areaNagoya

Major cities that are served by a ring road or ring road system:

Africa

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 95</span> U.S. East Coast Interstate Highway

Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The highway largely parallels the Atlantic coast and US 1, except for the portion between Savannah, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., and the portion between Portland and Houlton in Maine, both of which follow a more direct inland route.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spur route</span> Short road forming a branch from a freeway, Interstate Highway, or motorway

A spur route is a short road forming a branch from a longer, more important road such as a freeway, Interstate Highway, or motorway. A bypass or beltway is not considered a spur route as it typically reconnects with another or the same major road.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 435</span> Highway in the United States

Interstate 435 (I-435) is an Interstate Highway beltway that encircles much of the Kansas City metropolitan area within the states of Kansas and Missouri in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 495 (Massachusetts)</span> Highway in Massachusetts

Interstate 495 (I-495) is an auxiliary route of I-95 in the US state of Massachusetts, maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). Spanning 121.56 miles (195.63 km), it is the second-longest auxiliary route in the Interstate Highway System, being roughly 11 miles (18 km) shorter than I-476 in Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital Beltway</span> Highway in the Washington metropolitan area

The Capital Beltway is a 64-mile (103 km) auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Washington metropolitan area that surrounds Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, and its inner suburbs in adjacent Maryland and Virginia. It is the basis of the phrase "inside the Beltway", used when referring to issues dealing with US federal government and politics. The highway is signed as Interstate 495 (I-495) for its entire length, and its southern and eastern half runs concurrently with I-95.

A routenumber, designation or abbreviation is an identifying numeric designation assigned by a highway authority to a particular stretch of roadway to distinguish it from other routes and, in many cases, also to indicate its classification, general geographical location and/or orientation. The numbers chosen may be used solely for internal administrative purposes; however, in most cases they are also displayed on roadside signage and indicated on maps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 695 (Massachusetts)</span> Proposed highway in Massachusetts

Interstate 695 was a planned six-lane auxiliary Interstate Highway in Boston, Massachusetts, that would have run through parts of Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville.

Circumferential Highway may refer to one of the following beltways/orbital roads/ring roads:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moscow Ring Road</span> Circumferential artery around Russias capital

The Moscow Automobile Ring Road, or MKAD (МКАД), is a ring road running predominantly on the city border of Moscow with a length of 108.9 km (67.7 mi) and 35 exits. It was completed in 1962. The speed limit is 100 km/h.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transportation in Virginia</span> Overview of land sea and air transport systems in Virginia

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Circle Line or Circular line may refer to:

The Inner Loop was two planned freeways around downtown Washington, D.C. The innermost loop would have formed an oval centered on the White House, with a central freeway connecting the southern segment to the northern segment and then continuing on to Interstate 95. Interstate 95 would have met Interstate 66, Interstate 295, Interstate 695, and US 50 while traversing the Inner Loop. A second loop was an arc across the northern section of the city, beginning at East Capitol Street at the Anacostia River and using the Missouri Avenue NW and Nebraska Avenue NW commercial corridors to terminate in Georgetown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bundesautobahn 10</span> Federal motorway in Germany

Bundesautobahn 10 is an orbital motorway around the German capital city of Berlin. Colloquially called Berliner Ring , it is predominantly located in the state of Brandenburg, with a short stretch of 5 km in Berlin itself. It should not be confused with the Berliner Stadtring around Berlin's inner city.

Outer loop can refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Circular Route</span> Circular expressway in the Greater Tokyo area

The Central Circular Route, signed as Route C2, is one of the routes of the Shuto Expressway system serving the central part of the Greater Tokyo Area. The route is a circumferential highway running through the outer wards of Tokyo. The route is the middle of four ring expressways planned for the city; the other three being the C1 Inner Circular Route, the C3 Tokyo Gaikan Expressway, and the C4 Ken-Ō Expressway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inner–outer directions</span> Method of labeling direction of travel for geographic loops

Inner–outer directions are labels that identify the direction of travel on opposing lanes of traffic on certain ring roads or beltways. They can be used to sign individual routes that encircle a city or metropolitan area, where east–west and north–south orientations cannot be applied uniformly. The labels are also used in select double track rail systems that form a loop, indicating the direction of travel of each line.

The GRAP is the orbital motorway surrounding Padua, northern Italy. It is also called Tangenziale di Padova.

References

  1. Snell, Steven (7 November 2013). "The Irony of Ring Roads". Planetizen. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 7 February 2021.
  2. "Are these the worst ring roads in England?". BBC News. 5 April 2014. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 7 February 2021.
  3. "State Highway, Loop, and Spur Facts". www.dot.state.tx.us. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  4. "Big Island State Roads and Highways". hidot.hawaii.gov. Archived from the original on 26 December 2021. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  5. "Inner Ring Road". Connect2Edmonton. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
  6. "Northeast Anthony Henday Drive". www.northeastanthonyhenday.com. Archived from the original on 31 July 2018. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  7. "Northeast Anthony Henday Drive". Alberta Transportation. 2016. Archived from the original on 12 October 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2016. The northeast leg of Anthony Henday Drive opened on October 1, 2016, after five years of construction...
  8. Google (1 December 2016). "Length of Stoney Trail" (Map). Google Maps . Google. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  9. Malathronas, John (24 April 2015). "Vienna's Ringstrasse celebrates 150 years". edition.cnn.com. CNN. Archived from the original on 31 December 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  10. "Historic Centre of Vienna". whc.unesco.org. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Archived from the original on 2 November 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  11. Hu, Richard (2023). Reinventing the Chinese City. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN   978-0-231-21101-7.