French Autoroutes

[RoadMaster]

Bonjour!

La France a un système se développant d'autoroute. Voici un début:

Différents groupes de nombres tous sont focalisés dans un secteur spécifique. Par exemple, A14, entre Poissy et La Defense, est autour d'autres itinéraires d'A1x.

[Chris]

France's Autoroute system developed quite late compared to that of Germany, especially for long-distance Autoroutes, most of them were not constructed earlier than the 1970's. Urban freeways existed earlier than that of course.

To me, I find France's Autoroutes way more relaxing to drive than the German Autobahn. Driving fast is nice, as long as you have a car with enough HP and accelerates easy above 80 mph. For long distance driving, however, I prefer France, despite their roads being tolled quite high.

France experiences some of the worst summer congestion in all of Europe. Usually, the entire A7 from Lyon to the coast is backed up during the so-called "black saturdays" (120 miles), and the A9 continues towards Spain with severe congestion. Excessive congestion is unavoidable during those summer saturdays, so it's best to avoid those days unless you want to drive in slow traffic for hours and hours.

This year, there was over 400 miles of stationary traffic at some point during the summer peak days.

[Chris]

French signage:

1. Announcement of a rest area with services ahead.


2. Kilometer marker, road number + altitude. The shoulder is in use as a crawling lane here due to the uphill grade.


3. First exit announcement. There are no green destinations here, so it's a local exit.


4. The exit


5. Left = through destinations, right = exit


6. Services. An "aire" is a rest area.


7. Touristic sign. I have cycled to that "chaos".  Notice French side markings are dashed for separating the right lane with the shoulder.


8. Something we all like.


9. "Prochaine sortie" means: next exit. It shows additional destinations of interest, accessible via the next exit.


10. "Section a péage" means: toll road. This doesn't necessarily mean there is a toll plaza right ahead, it could be further away, since French exits are often spaced apart for a significant distance up to 20 miles.


11. Overhead signage. Notice the signs are broken up into several panels, this is usual in France. Green destinations note major towns and are often alternates for toll roads. The left sign says "Péage", which means all those destinations are reached via a toll road.


12. Rest area of the Millau viaduct. I recommend anyone who drives A75 to stop there and take a breathtaking picture of the Viaduc de Millau (the roadway is 886 feet above the valley floor)


13. Distance sign. "Fd" in Clermont-Fd is an abbreviation of "Ferrand". The full name is Clermont-Ferrand, but the name is a bit long to display in full. A and E-numbers are displayed.


14. This sign shows the distance to exit Millau-St. Germain and the destinations which can be reached via that exit.


15. hell yeah!


16. I didn't take pics of the Millau viaduct from my car because I wanted to make a video (which was a disaster)


17. tolls in 1000 meters.


18. The toll plaza. ETC is offered for frequent users, in reality, no tourist has them.


19. Exit Millau-St. Germain.


20. Cahors is a major destination reached via a major road, but not an Autoroute.


21. The long french names, capital letters and signs into multiple panels, make the signage messy sometimes, especially around larger cities.


22. Love this pic:


That's it for now

If you want to see more of France, check out my sets @ Flickr

[Truvelo]

Chris mentioned the dashed shoulder line. This is also used to keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front. You're supposed to leave 2 lines in front but in reality if you're in the fast lane and there's someone holding you up you simply get as close as you can without touching bumpers and put your left flasher on.

[Chris]

As far as I know, the French are the only in Europe to leave their left turning signal on while passing. Quite annoying. People from other countries only use their signals when changing lanes, not the whole time on the left lane.

[agentsteel53]

what does the brown sign mean exactly?  Does it mean you have to take the next exit to get to the feature, or that the feature is visible from the main road?

[agentsteel53]

also, how come people leave on Saturday if they know full well they won't get there 'til Sunday?

sounds worse than I-80 heading to Lake Tahoe from the Bay Area every Friday and Saturday, or Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

[aswnl]

what does the brown sign mean exactly?  Does it mean you have to take the next exit to get to the feature, or that the feature is visible from the main road?

Brown signs are touristic. They offer tourist information about what you can see or do along your journey. In this case the Millau bridge is part of the A75 itself.

also, how come people leave on Saturday if they know full well they won't get there 'til Sunday?

Saturday is high-season changing day at hotels, resorts and rental appartments. Om saturday road conditions are worst, but don't think it's quiet on the night from friday to saturday, the next night or on sunday. Even at 3 AM the autoroutes are loaded with cars, mostly on a 1000+ miles journey.

[Chris]

Now this is driving:

A5 Sens - Troyes

This road connects Paris to... well not much actually. It's a quiet Autoroute, which means it's a pleasure to drive. I think this Autoroute barely gets over 10,000 - 15,000 AADT, maybe somewhat more closer to Paris, but it doesn't really extend into the Paris urban area. The largest town en route is Troyes.

1. Announcement of a rest area, 18 km ahead.


2. This is what this area looks like, very rural with rolling hills. Some call it boring, I like it.


3. You can say what you want about the French, but their toll roads are always in excellent condition.


4. An SOS phone. They are still common in Europe, although there are more cell phones than people. The interval of them varies by country, some have them every 1 km, some every 2km, or some even every 5 km. They are common from France to Bulgaria and from Sweden to Portugal.


5. Just cruising through the area. I love it.


6. 1000 m sign for an exit. Exits are pretty rare in this area, they can be over 20 km apart. The average interval of exits in the Netherlands, for instance is between 3 and 4 km.


7. I am not too much of a fan of capitalized fonts. The French one isn't the best around in Europe either. I prefer the Czech capital font.


8. Next exit 26 km. Green destinations note major cities along major routes. That way you can just ignore the local clutter on the white signs. I kind of like this system. I was once driving on the former N20 parallel to the A20 Autoroute in southern France. I just had to follow Cahors, and then Montauban instead of focusing on dozens of local destinations.


9. Mulhouse is even signed here, although it's not on this Autoroute, and not on a connecting one either, you need to follow A5, A31, A39 and A36 to get there.


10. The French usually drive pretty fast on regular highways, but on the Autoroute, they drive pretty tame. If you keep 130-140 km/h, you're usually the fastest on the road.


11. I mean, THIS is driving. Nice views and almost no traffic. That why I prefer these roads over the always busy German Autobahn with fast pacing traffic which makes a cross-country trip in Germany pretty intense. Driving fast is nice for like an hour, but if you drive half a day or more on the Autobahn, it's not that much fun anymore, imo.


12. There it is, the Troyes-Centre exit. I took this one to try out an alternate road next to the A26 towards Reims. It turned out to be a pretty good road, zero traffic and dead straight.

[Truvelo]

That sign with massive distances to Mulhouse I assume is if you go via Dijon. If you went as the crow flies it would be much shorter but the roads are also inferior.

I must say your comments about Germany are partially true. I do like a quick blast every now and then but when you're not in the mood for 200kmh all you get is constant flashing and tailgating whilst you're in the passing lane. As for France, I find 130kmh quite boring on the empty stretches and I know the Gerndarme like to stop cars with British plates which is why I stick below 140. I hope they allow a little leeway.

[shoptb1]

I'm gonna have to say that I found driving on the French Autoroutes a little more stressful than the German/Austrian Autobahns, but that might be mainly because I'm not as comfortable with the French language.   Here are some photos from the trek from Strasbourg to Paris on the A4.

I think these signs are a jumbled mess...but that might just be me.  It seemed very difficult to disseminate the information with the different colors and fonts all over the place. The arterials in Paris were the biggest navigational nightmare I've ever encountered...but that's another story.  I just found myself missing the obsessive-compulsive organization of the Germans.



We quickly learned that this means "Fork over the cash"



Turns out that when it comes to taking cash, the French are nice enough to put those words in the German language.



Someone else mentioned this, but I thought this was the coolest feature of the Autoroutes...this is MUCH smarter than that stupid "2 second rule" that they teach us in the US.  



Within 1 stripe, too close (danger).



2 stripes and beyond, safe (security)



The tourist signs prior to cities/regions are cool, but not always clear.  We were left to believe that the workers of Freyming-Merlebach are disgruntled and like to wear lights on their heads.  ?  



Apparently continuing forward here is NOT a good idea.  

[Truvelo]

There's also signs with "Pour votre securite" and a camera on them. Personally I think they just guarantee the safety of the French government's coffers than that of motorists

[Chris]

I think these signs are a jumbled mess...but that might just be me.  It seemed very difficult to disseminate the information with the different colors and fonts all over the place. The arterials in Paris were the biggest navigational nightmare I've ever encountered...but that's another story.  I just found myself missing the obsessive-compulsive organization of the Germans.

You're right there. The French tend to sign too much suburbs, and due to adminstrative and historical reasons, there are a lot of them. Paris has only 2 million inhabitants, but has an urban area of 14 million, with only 3 or 4 of the suburbs having over 100,000 inhabitants, hence they have a huge amount of separate suburbs, and they sign too much of them.

Although this is only a problem in the biggest French urban areas, like Paris, Strasbourg, Toulouse and Lyon, to my recollection. Smaller cities are less problematic. Another issue is the French tend to physically split signs up, which adds to the mess of capital fonts, destinations and tabbed road numbers.

[vdeane]

I agree about French signage being hard to read, but I find all European signage incomprehensible.  No exit numbers, tiny route numbers (if they're present at all); it's a mess!  IMO US and Canadian signage is much, much better.

[Chris]

^^ Any European would say exactly the opposite

By the way, virtually all road numbers are signed in Europe. Can you give an example where no road numbers are signed? Plus, most countries use exit numbers prominently. If you look at the photos above, you can see exit numbers.

[vdeane]

That probably has to do with the fact that I can't even decipher the signs enough to see where an exit number could possibly be.  I can swear I've seen pictures of French signs that didn't have any route numbers on them, but it's possible those weren't exit signs (as I can't even remotely tell what any French signs mean; ditto for any country other than the US and Canada for that matter).  Where the numbers are, though, they are much less prominent than their American equivalents.

[treichard]

Were the autoroutes numbered from the start, or were the A- designations added much later?  I noticed that in most of the guide signs shown in earlier posts, the A- and E- designations were added on at the top rather than being an integral part of the big signs. The E routes are probably from ~1992.

From what I've seen on GMSV, it's also interesting that implied autoroute multiplexes usually (always?) sign only one A- route, leaving apparent gaps in what could be a continuous second route. 

[english si]

The placing of the number (somewhat small-ly) on top of signs is just general French Practice. Has been confusing when both directions at a T-junction have big Paris signs and different villages you've not heard of - you have to play hunt the number if you are used to a UK, German, etc scheme where numbers are on the sign.

The new system of Euroroutes date from implementation in 1983, though it could have been unsigned for ten years.

Autoroutes themselves were renumbered in the 80s. Originally they had A, B, F, G and H prefixes, with the latter for spurs or lower standard routes. (note missing C, D and E for local, department and European routes).

European countries are destination focussed, not number focussed. Even in the halfway-house that is Britain, multiplexes aren't (with one or two small exceptions) co-signed. The non-dominant route might be in brackets, which is a bit different to France.

[Chris]

Road numbers are almost always tabbed, I don't really know why they do that.

For instance, I took this picture in 2006 of the then-recently opened A28 north of Tours.

[Truvelo]

I have to echo some of the comments made in this thread about clutter on French signs.

In this picture there are 8 signs pointing right at this roundabout. For goodness sake is it really necessary to have so many? Is it possible to take in so much information at once?



This picture shows what facilities are available at the next town. Once again it is too much information to take in at once. On the left is a speed camera or radar automatique as the froggies call them.

[Chris]

At least those green directional signs help you out if you're not en-route to a local destination. But I agree, way too much on the signs. But it's not as bad as some Italian local signs, I've seen signs with over 15 destinations/objects.

[shoptb1]

This picture shows what facilities are available at the next town. Once again it is too much information to take in at once. On the left is a speed camera or radar automatique as the froggies call them.

Wouldn't it be easier to mention what they don't have on this sign assembly instead?   

[agentsteel53]

speed camera schmeed camera - I'd have to slow down to half the speed limit just to be able to read everything! 

also: a stop sign in the distance?  Here I thought in Europe they used yield almost universally.

[Truvelo]

Stop tends to be used where visibilty is restricted unlike North America where it's used almost everywhere. Actually I'm surprised they don't use arret given they are so protective of their language. Even Quebec uses arret.

[Chris]

the Vienna convention of 1968 does allow STOP signs to use their local language.

STOP signs are indeed used in places where there is no visibility towards the road you cross unless you are stopped.