It’s a ten minute walk from the residential area where I live to the ‘business estate’ where I work. The estate consists largely of warehouses, and therefore lots of vans/lorries going to and fro at all hours.
Halfway along the walk, there is a width barrier, presumably installed to prevent said vans/trucks driving through the residential area, disturbing residents etc. So far, So good, yes?
The width barrier, however, is situated on a bus route. Buses, being pretty wide, could not get through it, so the road-planners, in their infinite wisdom, have come up with the following solution:
Make a wider ‘bus lane’ on either side of the barrier, so buses can drive around it. Clever, huh? a barrier and a way round it all in one, neat package!
Would it not have been simpler and cheaper just to leave the road at normal width, and put up a sign saying ‘no trucks/vans’ that way, law-abiding people would obey, and law-breakers could ignore it, just as happens now… also, I wouldn’t have to do a hairpin turn to get my car into the ‘cars’ part of the barrier…
So, any more stupid town/road planning out there?
A lovely one in the middle of nowhere Kansas. There is a 2 lane highway (one lane in each direction) that goes on for a good number of miles. It passes under numerous roads, which means it passes under bridges. The bridges are the type with two openings between the support posts.
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In all cases except one, the road passes under the opening on the right hand side. In one case, it passes under the left hand side. Meaning, when they expand the road to 4 lane, which they will most likely do, they either have to have the road cross over itself, or tear up part of the road to make things match up.
I’ve just thought of another one! Near Stonehenge, there is a (fairly) major road - it’s virtually the only road into the West Country - which is often busy, especially in holiday season. It is a 2-lane road mostly (by which I mean one lane in each direction) but every so often, it widens to a 3-lane - about 3 or 4 times, IIRC… this is great, except that it also means that lanes reduce 3/4 times as well - causing a bottleneck every time -it can take hours (what with people slowing down to look at the bunch of old rocks, too) to travel about 10-20 miles…