Challenge: find the interchange!

[Alps]

Today I got a new issue of CE News, and on the cover was this gem of old stubs and new flyovers:

http://www.cenews.com/digital-march_17__2011-253.html

It took me about 5 minutes of studying the photo and 15 minutes of playing around with Google to track down where this interchange is, as the magazine itself is completely unhelpful. The aerial shows better that this was once a completely symmetrical interchange, where the ramp to the left would fly over/under the cross highway and then do its 90 degree turn, fly back under/over its originating highway, and merge.

So, since I was able to find the location without any help, I expect the same of you. Please don't give it away - I'll post a hint or two over the next couple of days before revealing the answer.

[agentsteel53]

strange: when I try to load that link, I get a flicker of something loading, but it is quickly covered by all white.  windows 7, firefox 3.6.15, with AdBlock Plus installed.  ABP blocked only two picture elements, which I viewed manually and they were much too small to cover the page by themselves.

[J N Winkler]

It will load in Internet Exploder.

[removed hint - J.N. do you actually know the location?]

[Alps]

@Jake - I use FF 4 with ABP, and have no problem.

[J N Winkler]

Steve--no.  I just stuck my nose in this thread en route to going over a stack of Florida DOT construction plans with a cigar-chopper script.  I reached my conclusion on the basis of various elements of traffic hardware.

[Alps]

Steve--no.  I just stuck my nose in this thread en route to going over a stack of Florida DOT construction plans with a cigar-chopper script.  I reached my conclusion on the basis of various elements of traffic hardware.

It was a very, very good conclusion and I hope no one else saw it. You'll probably get it before too long.

[agentsteel53]

IE 8 brought up the page just fine.

must be a ffox 3.6.15 specific bug.  anyone else here running ffox 3.6.x and can test?

is this the picture to which you refer?



http://www.cenews.com/issues/253.jpg (in case hotlink fails)

[mightyace]

I had no problem viewing it with FF 3.6.16 and I'm using ABP.

[agentsteel53]

well, I submit that my computer configuration has issues.  so it goes.

and no, I have no idea where the interchange is. 

[Alps]

IE 8 brought up the page just fine.

must be a ffox 3.6.15 specific bug.  anyone else here running ffox 3.6.x and can test?

is this the picture to which you refer?



http://www.cenews.com/issues/253.jpg (in case hotlink fails)

Well, that's a really small version. Going to that website allows you to view it full size. You won't be able to place the interchange in the right state/province/country/continent/etc. without that.

[mightyace]

well, I submit that my computer configuration has issues.  so it goes.

Never thought you necessarily did.  And, my version of FF is one point version higher (3.6.16 vs 3.6.15).

Generally, I don't fret to much about those things as most of the time there are too many other things to do than to track down weird "one time only" bugs.

[rickmastfan67]

I know where that is.  It's the flyover to hell that the DeathDOT just built last month.  I told them to build it with -8 MPH curves, but they didn't listen to me.  The joke will be on them when I surprise them later today while they are on break. 

- Grim

[mgk920]

I knew this one the instant that I saw it.  It's the A-15 at A-29 (looking westbound), Rotterdam, Nederlands.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.866157,4.517355&spn=0.030157,0.087891&t=k&z=14

Mike

[Alps]

Well, so much for "please don't give it away"

[rickmastfan67]

mgk920, shame on you!  Time for me to use my sickle on you and take you home to my private zoo!

- Grim

[Central Avenue]

Since it's blown anyway...Out of curiosity, what was the hint J.N. posted?

[rickmastfan67]

Since it's blown anyway...Out of curiosity, what was the hint J.N. posted?

Only Alps or J.N. would know.  I didn't get to see the original post before he edited it.

[Alps]

Since it's blown anyway...Out of curiosity, what was the hint J.N. posted?

He figured out it was the Netherlands. The only clues to location were white stripes on both sides of the road and a green chevron at the exit gore. You could also tell the signs are blue, but not what's written on them. I started in Germany and ruled out every major city - not enough innovation in interchange design. As soon as I moved over to the Netherlands I saw interchanges that looked very similar, and wasn't long till I stumbled on the right one. (The key was having the through route right next to the RR.) So, Mike, you get to post the next challenge!!

[J N Winkler]

This is the hint Steve removed:

P.S.  The interchange is somewhere in the Netherlands but is not either the Ridderkerk or Prins Clausplein interchanges.

As you can see, there was not much in it.

My last post upthread was originally much longer.  I truncated it down because I thought it would be unsporting to provide additional spoilers.  The deleted text read:

The picture shows lightweight gantries of the kind manufactured by Lattix, which I tend to think of as a giveaway for one of the Scandinavian countries, but the tabbed signs didn't really fit with that.  In the background there is a sawhorse gantry of the kind developed by Oleg Kerensky for the British motorway network; such gantries are used in at least one European country other than Britain.  France and Spain were other possibilities but the diverge nose signing is not right for either.

The reason the diverge nose signing was not right is that France and Spain both use deformable plastic dividers with retroreflectorized white triangles on either side, each pointing downstream (one triangle on the mainline side, one triangle on the ramp side).  The tabs allowed me to rule out Denmark and Sweden, neither of which use tabbed signs on motorways.  I looked quickly at Oslo but was not able to find an interchange nearly as elaborate as the one shown in the picture.  Then I remembered that photos have been posted on SkyscraperCity showing truss gantries with a triangular cross-section similar to those shown in the quiz picture, labeled as being on Dutch motorways.  The Dutch also use sawhorse gantries and other photos have been posted to SkyscraperCity to that effect.  (I don't know if the Dutch borrowed the idea from the British.)

I knew Prins Clausplein was out right away because it is a Maltese cross stack (one of only six in Europe).  I had a quick look at Ridderkerk but had to rule it out because the main route takes a 90° turn and the adjacent development isn't the right shape.  At that point I decided it was time to move on to the stack of Florida DOT plans.

[mgk920]

I knew it because there was a lot of chatter about it not long ago in an international road forvm that I follow.  Even though Nederlands has dense and well-developed motorway network, it is also frequently traffic-clogged and they still do have a lot of glaring gaps, ghost-grades and ghost interchanges in their system.

Don't worry, I'll find a good one to put up (this could become a good ongoing 'guess the interchange' thread! ).

Mike

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

I knew it because there was a lot of chatter about it not long ago in an international road forvm that I follow.  Even though Nederlands has dense and well-developed motorway network, it is also frequently traffic-clogged and they still do have a lot of glaring gaps, ghost-grades and ghost interchanges in their system.

Don't worry, I'll find a good one to put up (this could become a good ongoing 'guess the interchange' thread! ).

Mike

I'll start with a reference to an earlier thread on here.
Here's a location for all to guess at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=3IfnQDazETMC&lpg=PP1&ots=4YmoLKLoa9&dq=Interstate%3A%20Express%20Highway%20Politics%201939-1989&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Earlier thread about the book in question: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=4203.msg92419#msg92419

[Alps]

I knew it because there was a lot of chatter about it not long ago in an international road forvm that I follow.  Even though Nederlands has dense and well-developed motorway network, it is also frequently traffic-clogged and they still do have a lot of glaring gaps, ghost-grades and ghost interchanges in their system.

Don't worry, I'll find a good one to put up (this could become a good ongoing 'guess the interchange' thread! ).

Mike

I'll start with a reference to an earlier thread on here.
Here's a location for all to guess at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=3IfnQDazETMC&lpg=PP1&ots=4YmoLKLoa9&dq=Interstate%3A%20Express%20Highway%20Politics%201939-1989&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Earlier thread about the book in question: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=4203.msg92419#msg92419

Definitely not 95/90. My first guess was Kansas City, and very interestingly, not only does I-35/670 resemble this interchange in plan view (wrong elevations of roadways though), but in 1970, the western edge of that interchange was a stub. If you line up the 670 stub with the book cover stub, they're both missing directional ramps to/from the north! Very odd coincidence. I shall continue to look.

[NE2]

I was thinking I-35W/US 377 in Fort Worth, but not quite. Kansas City wouldn't work because of the angled street grid.

Oh, I got it. Hint: this is actually the second layout; the first was essentially a cloverleaf.