I’m pretty sure it’s two parallel bridges, each with two lanes each way of left-sided traffic. The innermost coil of the spiral clearly has lorries ascending the ramp, and you can track the lane back to what’s presumably the border control area. There’s other vehicles descending the next ramp outwards travelling away from Hong Kong. Again following merging lanes backwards, you can find how the roads to the west of the junction feed in. The bridge on the left is possibly for cars only, feeding the queue at the border control south of the bridge. The feeder routes for this bridge on the northern side are possibly one-way systems.
Crosswinds. You know how when you throw a frisbee, it tilts and it rolls for awhile?
I’m sittin’ here with my daughter, all of six. We’re looking at the route we walk every nite, the pond where we feed the ducks and our cars in the driveway when she gasps “Dad, there’s my swingset.” Yep, a fookin’ swingset.
Area 51 is, and always has been, for military drag-racing championships. The military has some sweet vehicles and the men like to open them up on a Saturday night. Unfortunately, drag racing requires a signal tree and they have the Mother of them All at area 51. I think you can see where this is going in the general public’s eyes.
Thanks for that… Interesting - I can’t help wondering why they make junctions like this so damn loopty - why not just do this? - mine has a slightly tighter radius on one of the curves, but that’s just my crappy drawing skills - this junction could be engineered without the loops and would use a quarter of the building materials
I just had a quick search around the Wiltshire countryside to see if I could spot any crop circles.
Nothing in the favoured spots around the village of Alton Barnes, but there’s still plenty of other cool stuff within a few square miles here:
These earthworks are the remains of old settlements, probably dating back to the Iron Age I imagine.
This is the Alton Barnes white horse nearby.
There are lots of these white horses cut in the chalk hills in this area.
Here is another, albeit upside down and in shadow.
Here is another, rather spindly, one.
How many landmarks can you actually read as text?
This shot is of the dam at Lucky Peak Reservoir which is northeast of Boise, Idaho. You can read the words KEEP OUR FORESTS GREEN painted across the front of the dam.
I suppose it says KEEP OUR FORESTS GREEN, but it says KEEP YOUR FORESTS GREEN too. 
South San Francisco’s lame Hollywood-esque sign is visible.
I just thought of a possible reason. The waterway that the bridge passes over does look fairly busy, and the bridge itself is probably quite high so that large ships can pass under it. Perhaps a direct approach to the bridge would be too steep.
Here’s one :eek: :eek:
Mt. St. Helens Crater
Half Dome, Yosemite N.P.
This thing is amazing. Just located a small fire site we witnessed way out in Alaska’s boonies, the discolored north side of the ridge in the center. What a tool.
Apparently this one was taken when the new artificial turf was being installed.
Here is the famous Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea. You almost can’t tell that it is there except for the freaking huge shadow it casts.
N sucks P!
FlashEarth: Dynamic zooming in and out with compass rotation. Fun to start in to a location, gradually zoom upwards level by level and then zoom back in to “fall from space!!!”
Goggles Simple flight simulator over Google maps.
I thought of that, but it’s not exactly as if they’re short of space around there, and even if they were, the cloverleaf loops enclose areas of land that now can’t easily be used for anything else - whereas longer, straighter ramps wouldn’t have to enclose anything
Well, I sit in X so as far as I am concerned they can do whatever depraved things they want to do at that end of the stadium.
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Maybe the bridge post-dates the border crossing building being served (perhaps replacing an older bridge or a ferry crossing, for instance). Repositioning that would cost more than the cloverleaf design (which I though was a phallic one, anyway…)
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The unloopty design wouldn’t create enough clearance between the two roadways for large vehicles, not without a severe gradient.
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Are curved roadways any more expensive than straight ones? If not, then either design would be equally practical, assuming the maximum gradient/minimum clearance principles are followed.
They do lead to some great (if slightly unfinished) hotels though.
Or what ** Lamar Mundane ** said :smack: :smack:
In Juarez, there is a replica of the Uffington horse. Also, a small lizard just to the south.
I don’t even see the need for the crossover at all, seeing how both roads tee into another road past the border station. Given that, there is no need to switch lanes right away, is there?
One other possible reason for the loops is to create a longer road to contain the traffic when the road backs up, although the bridge is plenty long enough for that.