4 lane undivided highways where climbing lanes converge

[bugo]

I'm talking about highways that have an extra lane for climbing long grades going in each direction, and they meet in the middle and there is a short section of 4 lane highway?  I know of two examples:

OK 82 near Lequire, OK

US 59/71 over Iron Mountain in AR


It's hard to see but trust me there's a 4 lane segment at the top of the mountain.  

Where else does this exist?

[mightyace]

Here's two from PA,

PA 442 West of Millville, PA

US 15 west of Montgomery, PA

[3467]

Illinois 1 south of Danville is 4 lane undivided in a flat rural area,no median no center turn lane

[Revive 755]

Iowa 2 has at least one section of this in western Iowa:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=40.727651,-94.992601&spn=0,359.780273&t=p&z=13&layer=c&cbll=40.72767,-94.992812&panoid=aT0_aZawbXVdpf4-XnQ8ag&cbp=12,266.28,,0,6.76

[Bickendan]

Oregon has a few. Off the top of my head, I'd say US 26 (Sunset Highway at its peak in the coastals), OR 6, OR 18, OR 82...

[hbelkins]

I'm talking about highways that have an extra lane for climbing long grades going in each direction, and they meet in the middle and there is a short section of 4 lane highway?  I know of two examples:

Where else does this exist?

Quite common in Kentucky. There are at least two, possibly three (working from memory) on KY 11 in my home county.

[corco]

All of Horseshoe Bend Grade on Idaho 55 North descending into Horseshoe Bend

Then again about 20 miles north just beyond Banks

They're all over Idaho, though, would be the moral of the story

There's a segment on US-287 that recently opened south of Tie Siding, Wyo. (divided most of the way, but about 1/2 mile undivided) that doesn't have street view or aerial imagery yet. Then somewhere on US-287 in Colorado, around Livermore I think, there's another undivided stretch (and no, I'm not thinking of the divided stretch by LaPorte).

[froggie]

Happens quite a bit more often than you'd otherwise expect.  Several examples in Vermont.

[3467]

Are there any really long ,say 10 plus mile sections of 4 lane undivided in rural areas?

[Scott5114]

Are there any really long ,say 10 plus mile sections of 4 lane undivided in rural areas?

Of course.

[deathtopumpkins]

US-460 between Petersburg and Suffolk, VA.

[bugo]

Are there any really long ,say 10 plus mile sections of 4 lane undivided in rural areas?

Lots of places.  Many if not most surface multilane routes in Arkansas are either 4 lanes undivided or 5 with a center turning lane.  Much of US 271 in Texas is like this as well.  US 64 between Muskogee and Warner, OK is 5 lanes undivided.

[roadfro]

Are there any really long ,say 10 plus mile sections of 4 lane undivided in rural areas?

One that comes to mind in Nevada is SR 227 (Lamoille Highway), which connects the rural town of Lamoille to Spring Creek and Elko. The route is 4-lane undivided for its ~20 length (most of which is rural highway).

[3467]

Thank-you. They just seem very uncommon in the Midwest
Also Illinois tends totry for the perfect instead of the good and we seem to get stuck with the very poor

[roadfro]

Well, they're uncommon in Nevada as well, as most rural state highways are two-lane roads.

SR 227 is the only one I'm aware of that is four lanes undivided in a rural area. SR 163 (Laughlin Hwy) is the only rural state highway that is almost completely divided (although the two directions are close enough in some spots to almost be undivided), and SR 160 (Blue Diamond Road/Pahrump Valley Hwy) is the only other rural Nevada route I know of with a divided segment.

[froggie]

Another lengthy one is US 550 between the north side of Bernalillo, NM and Bloomfield, NM.  There's an occasional left turn lane here and there, and continuous left turn lanes through San Ysidro and Cuba, but for the most part the entire stretch is 4-lane undivided (and a high speed limit too...don't remember if it's 65 or 70).

[Bickendan]

Thank-you. They just seem very uncommon in the Midwest
Also Illinois tends totry for the perfect instead of the good and we seem to get stuck with the very poor

I'm going to go on a limb here and say an overall lack of hilly terrain in the Midwest is a contributing factor...

[J N Winkler]

Another lengthy one is US 550 between the north side of Bernalillo, NM and Bloomfield, NM.  There's an occasional left turn lane here and there, and continuous left turn lanes through San Ysidro and Cuba, but for the most part the entire stretch is 4-lane undivided (and a high speed limit too...don't remember if it's 65 or 70).

It is 70 MPH with special warning signs for summit curves which are safe only at 65 MPH.

This length of US 550 (née NM 44) is not the only length of highway in NM for which the undivided four-lane rural arterial cross-section has been used.  In fact, it is a bit of a NM specialty.  Other examples include NM 502 and NM 4 between Española and Los Alamos and part of US 70 through the Hondo Valley.

Cynics say that the real reason NM 44 was widened on this basis was to provide "four lanes to the Four Corners" ASAP--the construction period was 18 months--because the then governor, Gary Johnson, had his power base in northwestern NM.  In fact Pete Rahn, who as NMSHTD secretary pushed forward the NM 44 widening, was Rahn's campaign manager and was originally in business (insurance?) in Farmington or Bloomfield.  Rahn is now MoDOT secretary, so it is no surprise that the design-build widening of I-64 and the "alternating four-lane" concept have been advanced on his watch.

In Texas, the undivided four-lane cross-section was used in the 1980's as a cheap form of widening for overburdened two-lane roads.  Roads thus upgraded were often called "poor boy" four-lane highways.  SH 6 around Bryan used to be a poor-boy four-lane until it was upgraded to (I think) six-lane divided (full freeway?) a few years ago.  Research subsequently showed that the "poor boy" cross-section cut down on overtaking-related accidents but that this improvement was partly offset by a greater frequency of crossover crashes.  Given the choice, most state DOTs will prefer to avoid this clawback by building a divided highway in the first place.

[Truvelo]

We have these in the UK as well. This example is on the A30 in Cornwall. Notice the queuing traffic where the passing lane ends. I'll say the imaging was taken during the summer holidays when people head off to the coast.

This one is on the A47. This is the third alignment of the road at this location. The old alignment still has striping visible and the the oldest alignment of all would have been a parking area when the original road was straightened. In fact the striping on the old alignment suggests there was a crawler lane there also as there is hatching after the passing lane ends to act as a run-off area for those performing late overtaking maneuvers.

[Bickendan]

Another lengthy one is US 550 between the north side of Bernalillo, NM and Bloomfield, NM.  There's an occasional left turn lane here and there, and continuous left turn lanes through San Ysidro and Cuba, but for the most part the entire stretch is 4-lane undivided (and a high speed limit too...don't remember if it's 65 or 70).

That reminds me of US 26 on both sides of Sandy, OR. It's four-lanes undivided from about the eastern intersection of SE Orient Dr to downtown Sandy (splits to couplets), then again from there all the way to Government Camp on Mt Hood. The section between Sandy and Welches/Zig Zag/Rhododendron is notorious for cross-over crashes.

[Michael]

It's rather common in CNY.

NY 34 between Auburn and Weedsport has two sections like this, about 1500 feet in length each.  One is just north of the Tanner Road/Ball Road intersection. The other is just half a mile south of the first.

NY 5/US 20 used to have a section like this west of Auburn, then it was restriped to have one lane eastbound and two west bound.  You can still see parts of the old lines on Google Street View.

NY 5 east of Auburn has a 1000 foot long section of four lane road.  You can't see it unless you use Street View.

On a side note, NY 370 in Liverpool (Onondaga Lake Parkway) is four lanes and undivided, with a center striped zone that could fit a Jersey barrier. (Off-topic: The bridge in the distance in the Street View is only 10' 9", and trucks try to use the Parkway and end up hitting the bridge, even with huge warning signs and a giant neon stripe! )

[3467]

Yes the Midwest is at most rolling hlls
Interesting about MODOT.
The alternating 4 lane does make sense on most downstate Illinois arterials. Very few carry over 5000vpd really too low for the 4 lane expressway or freeway and there doesnt need to be a clwback of a full 4 lane is warrented because the shared 4 width can easily become the other side of a expressay as passing lanes become the shoulders.
In Illinois a good rapve widen is going to cost about a million a mile and a three lane adds another 2 million.
A rural 4 lane with minimal structures is running 6 million/mile
US 20 as a Freeway around Galena was looking like 20 million a mile and has been pushed to the distant future perhaps at Mars mission time
I guess I am saying somthing is better than nothing