Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bickendan]

^Uh, isn't that what I-10 in Phoenix was originally supposed to do?

[CNGL-Leudimin]

An interchange on G1501 on the southeast side of Guangzhou. It's located between two large bridges of the Pearl River Delta:

I'm pretty sure this is not part of the G1508 (the real number of the Guangzhou beltway), but of the provincial expressway S6, Guangzhou-Longchuan expressway.

[SkyPesos]

^Uh, isn't that what I-10 in Phoenix was originally supposed to do?

I had to check Road Guy Rob's Phoenix video as a point of comparison, and it's pretty similar to what's on the thumbnail of that vid.

[SkyPesos]

An interchange on G1501 on the southeast side of Guangzhou. It's located between two large bridges of the Pearl River Delta:

I'm pretty sure this is not part of the G1508 (the real number of the Guangzhou beltway), but of the provincial expressway S6, Guangzhou-Longchuan expressway.

yep, it's S6
https://maps.baidu.com/@12641047.796911709,2602216.0536084166,17.8z/maptype%3DB_EARTH_MAP

On another note, it seems like China renumbered a lot of the auxiliary freeways so the numbers doesn't duplicate. Like Guangzhou's G1501 became G1508 as mentioned, Fuzhou's G1501 became G1505 and Shanghai's G1501 became G1503. I actually like this, since there's 99 unique numbers they could use before having to duplicate, compared to 9 in the US 3di system. Google maps haven't updated with the renumbering yet, so it's best to check Baidu maps for that.

[TheGrassGuy]

Yeah. Chinese highway numbering is a mess.

[SkyPesos]

I found this YT channel that drives, walks and does metro rides around many Chinese Cities called Walk East. Here's a 1 1/2 hour drive around of Fuzhou, including city streets, historical alleys and the 2nd Ring Road.

Not going to leave too many timestamps here, but 1:01:03 is a good example of the lagging left turn yield line movement on a ramp in the SPUI-Diamond Hybrid interchange I mentioned upthread, as the main type of freeway to arterial interchange in the country (yes, traditional diamonds are rare).

[TheGrassGuy]

I found this YT channel that drives, walks and does metro rides around many Chinese Cities called Walk East. Here's a 1 1/2 hour drive around of Fuzhou, including city streets, historical alleys and the 2nd Ring Road.

Not going to leave too many timestamps here, but 1:01:03 is a good example of the lagging left turn yield line movement on a ramp in the SPUI-Diamond Hybrid interchange I mentioned upthread, as the main type of freeway to arterial interchange in the country (yes, traditional diamonds are rare).

Oh yeah, I've heard of that channel.

[SkyPesos]

Just read on how exit numbers work on Chinese freeways. I thought that it's like the US: starts at the south or west, and increases as you go north/east, and that it resets at provincial borders, but I was wrong on both.

- Exit numbers/km markers start at the eastern or northern terminus (or in Beijing for G1-G7), and increase as you go west or south.
- Km markers and exit numbers don't reset at provincial borders.
- Exit numbers reset every 1000 km, but since km markers don't reset, exit numbers are always the 3 digits between the thousands place and the decimal.
- Exit numbers round down, regardless of the decimal place number.
- Yes, exit 0 exists.
- If there are multiple exits in a km, it gets a letter suffix, like in the US.
- With that in mind, for example, an exit at the 2468.9 km marker would be numbered as exit 468.

[kphoger]

Frankly, I think it's kind of strange that mile markers do reset at state lines here.

The only other country I drive in regularly—Mexico—tends to reset its kilometer markers at control cities.

[1]

Frankly, I think it's kind of strange that mile markers do reset at state lines here.

The only other country I drive in regularly—Mexico—tends to reset its kilometer markers at control cities.

What control cities would you use for a route like US 202, where it goes through suburbia but doesn't hit big cities?

[kphoger]

Frankly, I think it's kind of strange that mile markers do reset at state lines here.

The only other country I drive in regularly—Mexico—tends to reset its kilometer markers at control cities.

What control cities would you use for a route like US 202, where it goes through suburbia but doesn't hit big cities?

Sorry, I didn't mean to say I think control cities are the best way to assign mileposts.  I just used it as an example I think is better than state lines.  Frankly, I'd rather a highway start at zero at one end and just keep going up and up until the other end.  However, that doesn't work so well when it gets extended past the zero point.

[SkyPesos]

Sorry, I didn't mean to say I think control cities are the best way to assign mileposts.  I just used it as an example I think is better than state lines.  Frankly, I'd rather a highway start at zero at one end and just keep going up and up until the other end.  However, that doesn't work so well when it gets extended past the zero point.

In China's system, the endpoints are set already in name too (in addition to the mileposts), and there's no changing it. For example, G15 is called the Shenyang-Haikou (Shenhai) Expressway because those are the cities the highway ends at. The portmanteau name is written on reassurance markers too, which means an extended highway would result in the replacement of many reassurance markers. When a new parallel highway was contructed between Shenyang and Harbin to the southeast of G1, it was numbered as G1212 and G1211 even though a G15 extension probably would've been better if the endpoints are not set in stone.

And then there are set endpoints that I doubt the highway would reach in the next decade or two. Examples are Taipei for G3 and Lhasa for G6.

[TheGrassGuy]

Why does almost every thread here have arguments about control cities?

[SkyPesos]

Why does almost every thread here have arguments about control cities?

control cities are starting to control this forum now

But since this is a Chinese highways thread, maybe we should start talking about control cities on Chinese highways  .
I think in general, they sign way too many control cities. This is Fuzhou's Airport Expressway (S1531) at its northern end of the concurrency with G15:

One of my issues with China's expressways is that cardinal directions aren't signed. If I don't know where those control cities are, I wouldn't be able to tell that the ramp on the left is for G15 north, and on the right for G15 south. For the control cities, Wenzhou on NB and Shantou on SB aren't necessary at this point imo. For NB, Ningde is fine as the sole control city, as it's the next city up. Same with Putian for SB, along with Airport for S1531, which the highway isn't signed along with G15 for the SB ramp for some reason, as that's where the concurrency starts.

[Rothman]

Why does almost every thread here have arguments about control cities?

It's time for an intervention.

[TheGrassGuy]

One of my issues with China's expressways is that cardinal directions aren't signed. If I don't know where those control cities are, I wouldn't be able to tell that the ramp on the left is for G15 north, and on the right for G15 south. For the control cities, Wenzhou on NB and Shantou on SB aren't necessary at this point imo. For NB, Ningde is fine as the sole control city, as it's the next city up. Same with Putian for SB, along with Airport for S1531, which the highway isn't signed along with G15 for the SB ramp for some reason, as that's where the concurrency starts.

It's like that in a few other countries, such as Germany.

[ran4sh]

"One of my issues with China's expressways is that cardinal directions aren't signed." - You would probably have the same issue with roads in Europe, because they don't use cardinal directions either.

And the number of control cities in the US is based on being able to read them within the time that the sign is visible. We can't just automatically apply the same "1 control city" (or 2) limit to Chinese signs, it should be based on similar principles of how many can be read while the sign is visible. (Or the way the British do it, which is based on whether you can find the city you are looking for, within the time that the sign is visible.)

In China's system, the endpoints are set already in name too (in addition to the mileposts), and there's no changing it.

One benefit of such a system is that there is no argument as to whether route number N should or should not serve city X. If a route is designated as going from A to B, then presumably its route should always be based on what's the best route from A to B, and not whether it serves or doesn't serve some intermediate point C, D, E, etc. For example, US roadgeeks often debate whether route X should go through a city center or use a bypass. I think the answer should really be based on what we want traffic on that route to use, so designating the purpose of a route helps with that.

[Chris]

Cardinal directions on signage is mostly an American thing, hardly any other country except perhaps Canada consistently uses cardinal directions on their signage.

However I've seen some photos of Chinese reassurance markers having cardinal directions.

[TheGrassGuy]

One benefit of such a system is that there is no argument as to whether route number N should or should not serve city X. If a route is designated as going from A to B, then presumably its route should always be based on what's the best route from A to B, and not whether it serves or doesn't serve some intermediate point C, D, E, etc. For example, US roadgeeks often debate whether route X should go through a city center or use a bypass. I think the answer should really be based on what we want traffic on that route to use, so designating the purpose of a route helps with that.

Chinese G-roads rarely even pass through city centers. They're usually served by locally maintained limited-access highways, often known as "elevated roads" if they're elevated, and sometimes S-roads.

[SkyPesos]

Cardinal directions on signage is mostly an American thing, hardly any other country except perhaps Canada consistently uses cardinal directions on their signage.

However I've seen some photos of Chinese reassurance markers having cardinal directions.

[img snipped]

Excuse my ignorance then. Thought the lacking cardinal directions is more of an exception instead of the norm. I know a general idea of where Chinese cities are in relation to the location of the sign, so I could do with it. Just wondering about people that are unfamiliar to an area (especially with a foreign language) and trying to drive on the freeways.
Though yes, the reassurance markers have cardinal directions on it.

In China's system, the endpoints are set already in name too (in addition to the mileposts), and there's no changing it.

One benefit of such a system is that there is no argument as to whether route number N should or should not serve city X. If a route is designated as going from A to B, then presumably its route should always be based on what's the best route from A to B, and not whether it serves or doesn't serve some intermediate point C, D, E, etc. For example, US roadgeeks often debate whether route X should go through a city center or use a bypass. I think the answer should really be based on what we want traffic on that route to use, so designating the purpose of a route helps with that.

This is the case for most roads, though there are exceptions. G15 is an example. As mentioned above, the two endpoints are Shenyang and Haikou, except both water crossings near each endpoint is incomplete, so I'll look at between Guangzhou and Lianyungang. Fastest routing between those two points is a combination of the inland G45-G60-G70-G50-G42-G25 routing, and using G15 all the way isn't an option as it's the coastal route of China's system. So even with both incomplete crossings done, G15 is not the fastest/shortest route between Shenyang and Haikou due to its coastal routing and serving the coastal population centers like Shenzhen, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Wenzhou, Shanghai on the way.

This one is less noticeable, but the G25-G15 combination between Beijing and Shanghai is faster than G2, the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway, by about half an hour.

As for serving the city center, the two digit G expressways generally bypass the city center to some extent, with spurs (national, provincial, unnumbered just named), arterials or ring roads serving it from the expressway.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

In China's system, the endpoints are set already in name too (in addition to the mileposts), and there's no changing it. For example, G15 is called the Shenyang-Haikou (Shenhai) Expressway because those are the cities the highway ends at. The portmanteau name is written on reassurance markers too, which means an extended highway would result in the replacement of many reassurance markers.

When the 2013 plan was issued, I wondered why they had given new numbers to obvious extensions of previously planned expressways (G1216 instead of G12, G2515 instead of G2511, G4012 instead of G4011) . However, they renamed G85 from Chongqing-Kunming to Yinchuan-Kunming expressway instead of giving a new number to the newly added Yinchuan-Chongqing section. I wonder if they have finished changing signs South of Yu (Chongqing, perhaps the most Chinese-sounding city xD).

When a new parallel highway was contructed between Shenyang and Harbin to the southeast of G1, it was numbered as G1212 and G1211 even though a G15 extension probably would've been better if the endpoints are not set in stone.

That had been planned that way from the 2005 plan. G1211 is the Jilinshi (or Jilin City, adding the "shi" so as to tell it apart from the same-named province)-Heihe expressway (running beyond Harbin all the way to the Russian border) and G1212 is the Shenyang-Jilinshi expressway. Also note than in both cases kmposts run the "wrong" way, starting from the South.

And then there are set endpoints that I doubt the highway would reach in the next decade or two. Examples are Taipei for G3 and Lhasa for G6.

AFAIK Nagqu-Lhasa is at least U/C, but I don't think they would fill the gap between Golmud and Nagqu anytime soon. And I don't think G3 will ever reach Taibei, due to both technical and political issues.

[kphoger]

Cardinal directions on signage is mostly an American thing, hardly any other country except perhaps Canada consistently uses cardinal directions on their signage.

Cardinal directions are part of the Mexican SCT manual, but they're hardly ever used in real life.

[SkyPesos]

From a browse on Baidu Maps, seems like some of the newer BGS installations have pinyin for control cities now.

[TheGrassGuy]

From a browse on Baidu Maps, seems like some of the newer BGS installations have pinyin for control cities now.

It obviously depends on the location, as well: signs in rich provinces like Jiangsu and Guangdong are more likely to have English translations than signs in poor provinces like Anhui and Fujian.

[andrepoiy]

Fujian is a poor province?