roads that make me laugh

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 19 April 2007 04:37:31

Sometimes I think that the people who deal with making traffic flow just throw their hands in the air and give up. There are three particular places on Sydney roads that always make me smile.

We have fairly garbage major roads leading from the suburbs into the city, and most of them in my area have "floating lanes" - ie. the lane goes in one direction in the morning and the other direction in the afternoon. But then other parts of these roads have concrete median strips so some creative merging and diverging is required. Sometimes it's just too hard, so they put up a sign that says "No Lanes Marked" and let everyone fight it out among themselves. There are two of these near my house and one can have hours of fun watching near misses as people realise that they're not in a lane anymore.

The third place that makes me giggle is on the Iron Cove Bridge, traveling into the city in the afternoon. Up until the bridge there are three lanes, however the bridge only gives you two lanes when you're going against the flow. Rather than saying "left lane merge" or something like that, they just erase all lane markings and say "Form two lanes". But whose lanes stay? Sure it's convention for the left lane to end, but when that happens it's usually specified. Does the middle lane divide itself between the two outer lanes? Do the left two lanes combine? Or the right two lanes?

There are quite often collisions on that bridge. I can't say I'm surprised.