Highways in Chile

[Chris]

Chile has a surprisingly modern freeway network, the most modern in South America.

[Bickendan]

Is there a map of the network handy?

[Chris]

This is the network in Santiago de Chile:


There are some long-distance Autopistas, mostly the Ruta 5 which runs north-south through the country, but it not a freeway throughout all of the country. As you know Chile is a country that spans over 2,500 miles north-south.

[realjd]

Much of that terrain looks astonishingly similar to Southern California.

[agentsteel53]

what does "solo televia o sistema complementario" mean?

[Chris]

"only Televía or compatible systems"? Televía is an electronic toll collection.

[agentsteel53]

"only Televía or compatible systems"? Televía is an electronic toll collection.

gotcha.  I figured the literal translation but the key bit of information I was missing was that Televia is the electronic toll transponder.

[yacoded]

On a somewhat random note, they have some really great traffic lights, it reminds me of New South Wales, Australia for some reason. 

[mapman]

Australia also has roundabout interchanges like the one mid-way through the pictures (although, obviously, the Australian roundabouts would circulate in the opposite direction). 

[Stephane Dumas]

thanks for posting these pictures Chris

[xcellntbuy]

Excellent photos!

[FLRoads]

I am wondering how the highways fared after the 8.8 earthquake. I just heard from CNN that one of the main highways into Santiago (Highway 5) is closed (assuming do to damage).

Plus, an image from the Associated Press shows the collapse of a portion of one of their freeways (looks like an overpass):

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Vehicles-that-were-driving-along-highway-that-collapsed-during-earthquake/photo//100227/481/9d09b8c21fc14b79b96840446f5faef0//s:/ap/lt_chile_earthquake

[Bickendan]

From my understanding, the freeway outright collapsed.

[Chris]

I saw a freeway in Santiago collapsed with several cars on their roofs. That is over 300 kilometers away from the hardest-hit area, so we may see some more widespread destruction if more becomes available.

Keep in mind Chile has a lot of experience with megathrust earthquakes and has adequate building codes just like other developed earthquake-prone areas. Damage doesn't seem to be so widespread like we saw in Haiti last month, but is still significant.

[agentsteel53]

the Hell's up with all the earthquakes recently?

at least Chile is a modern country and will get back on its feet quickly and efficiently.  Maybe fly down a few engineers from Los Angeles or Oakland with collapsed-freeway expertise?

[Stephane Dumas]

I saw a freeway in Santiago collapsed with several cars on their roofs. That is over 300 kilometers away from the hardest-hit area, so we may see some more widespread destruction if more becomes available.

Keep in mind Chile has a lot of experience with megathrust earthquakes and has adequate building codes just like other developed earthquake-prone areas. Damage doesn't seem to be so widespread like we saw in Haiti last month, but is still significant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chile_earthquake
the city of Concepciòn, the 2nd largest city in Chile, got most of the damage, it seems to have a freeway or expressway at the west http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=-36.833333,-73.05&ie=UTF8&ll=-36.822168,-73.070669&spn=0.023086,0.038409&z=15

[froggie]

Catching this thread late (and after the overnight earthquake), but I have a few photos of my own from near and southeast of Valparaiso.

The tunneled freeway in Santiago that appeared in some of the photos Chris showed was under construction in 2003 when I was there.

[agentsteel53]

in picture 5 (http://www.ajfroggie.com/roadpics/chile/chile05.jpg) - is that an outline shield on the blue background, or a green shield?  I cannot tell.

I definitely need to go to Chile sometime!

[Bickendan]

Looks like an outline shield. Chile looks like a very interesting country; my sister speaks highly of it from her brief stay (though I think she liked Nicaragua better).

[agentsteel53]

Looks like an outline shield. Chile looks like a very interesting country; my sister speaks highly of it from her brief stay (though I think she liked Nicaragua better).

Chile is one of the countries I've been fascinated with since forever, and therefore a place I intend to visit.  Having been fascinated with Norway, I got my Norway visit done in March of 2008.  For an out-of-North-America experience, I do believe Chile might be next!

[froggie]

It's an outline shield.  All of the guide signage shields I noticed were outlines.

[D-Dey65]

This one gives me a really bad feeling.


I just hope nobody was driving on this during the quake.

 

[shoptb1]

Fantastic pictures!  What an amazing road system.  I know there's a large German population in Chile....I wonder if that has affected the development of their freeway system.  For example, this picture shows the wonderful 'Autobahn-style' exit countdown markers.

[Chris]

There is a lot of German heritage in the Americas, not only the United States (largest descendant group), but also in countries like Brazil, Paraguay or Chile. In Brazil they have city names like Blumenau or Novo Hamburgo.

I've read Ruta 5 is impassable on several locations. It's the main artery of Chile.

[J N Winkler]

Fantastic pictures!  What an amazing road system.  I know there's a large German population in Chile....I wonder if that has affected the development of their freeway system.  For example, this picture shows the wonderful 'Autobahn-style' exit countdown markers.

Those countdown markers are used all over Europe and are not uniquely German, though I think they were first developed in Germany in the 1930's.  (The original versions quoted the distance in 200 m increments rather than 100 m increments as now.)

Chilean direction signing looks to me more influenced by Spain and Brazil.  It uses the Spanish exit symbol, for one thing.  Legend blocks are horizontally centered and there is minimum use of diagrammatics on overhead signs, as in Spain.  Ground-mounted signs use the fork diagrammatic but this is very common in Europe (except in Switzerland and, oddly enough, Spain) and also in other South American countries like Brazil and, I think, Peru.  The retorno symbol is a very Latin American thing.  Since the fork sign is used for all ground-mounted advance signing, not just the signs after the first, the basic approach seems to have more in common with France and Britain than Germany, although I suspect the real model was Brazil.

Chile has had a quite good and pattern-accurate signing manual online for a long time--well before we had one of our own with the 2003 MUTCD, in fact:

http://www.subtrans.cl/subtrans/documentos/senalizacion.html

The second chapter contains the bulk of the signing advice dealing with upright signs, including dimensioned drawings for each standard sign.

I am going to have a look to see if Chile places construction documentation online, as is done in most US states, some Canadian provinces, and some European countries like France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and Italy.  The advertisements are online but the documentation is often a different matter because of bulk.