Semi related but I got stuck in a weird situation when driving to Charles De Gaulle airport near Paris, the only way to get to a certain terminal was to drive through a certain road (both according to my GPS and also an airport map I had consulted), but that certain road had a sign that said BUSES ONLY, but the problem was that the way you got into that area was one-way so once you got to that point you’re only options were to drive in circles following the signs that constantly lead you back to either the BUSES ONLY sign or a sign that told me WRONG WAY if you drove into it. So I drove the loop several times looking for a way out until I said screw it, drove onto the BUSES ONLY road and within 30 seconds was back on track on a normal road to my terminal.
Ah, the joys of satnav. I swear we wouldn’t even be talking about small, tight roads if satnav didn’t insist we go that way - there’s usually a perfectly wide and accessible alternative nearby.
As someone who drives down single track narrow lanes pretty much on a daily basis, the inconvenience is pretty minor. Especially as there is as Sanvito says, usually a wider road as an option, the people actually living on the roads, who are their biggest users, would also be the biggest campaigners against having them widened. If they’re widened, more people will use that route and, while the lanes may possibly get safer for tourists unused to the roads, you’d be totally disrupt residents’ lifestyles. People walk the dogs down the quiet lanes, walk to the pub, they take the kids bike riding down them and ride horses. They’re almost an extension of the footpath network, not just a means to get from A to B in a car as fast as possible, and there’s often no real viable alternative.
For another thing, the typical farm size is drastically smaller here, and selling a section of land would have much bigger impact on many of the farms than it would in less densely populated countries- I’ll be going to one of the little villages nearby this afternoon, and I happen to know that most of the fields I’ll be driving along on the narrowest bit are owned by people who have maybe 2-5 acres of land. Like with the other uses of the roads, many of these little fields have livestock which will be moved regularly to other fields, which can be on both sides of the road, and spread up and down the lanes- the farmlets often grew over time, so it’s quite normal to have a neighbour’s field between two of yours- so livestock are moved between them up and down the lanes. A wider road that people could drive fast along would make that impossible, and there is no alternative route to move sheep from field to field. It would just make many farms unusable. For big roads, they sometimes have bridges or underpasses to allow farmers to move livestock, but that’s just impractical on little roads. It also means buying up even just a 1 mile stretch of road could mean dealing with dozens of landowners, all unwilling to sell, and if you can’t get the whole road widened, there’s little point to just widening a section.
Even when none of that’s a factor, the simple fact is we just don’t consider it enough of a benefit to justify the cost. If you live near roads like that, you’re completely used to driving on them. Take this spot. Look round the roads a bit, with the stone walls and the narrow corners, see how far it is to the nearest wider road. You surely wouldn’t drive a wide car even round there, it’d be too tight, right? But behind you in the linked spot- and that’s not just a stray coach I happened to find, it’s actually the base of the company, and their main parking area. There often used to be 3 or 4 of the things parked up, and they can get around there fine. I used to drive past there all the time going to a little nature reserve up the road, and I’ll admit I didn’t think it was the easiest place for a coach depot, but I certainly never saw any get jammed, or even scratch their paint.
Yes, but I hope you realise that when we ignore all those reasons, there is no reason why the roads shouldn’t be widened, so why haven’t you done it?
Also, just to put some flesh on the bones.
Noting first that the highlighted roads shown here are only those that the Google streetview car drove down (maybe about 50% of the total of small lanes…
Here is the county of Cornwall
Here is Devon and Cornwall
Here is most of England and Wales, plus some of Ireland
Now, for anyone still on the “but there’s no reason not to” argument; there is in fact a reason not to. Someone has to pay for it. Taxpayers in fact. Please justify why my taxes should be spent on upgrading all these tiny lanes.
If it’s not your preference, then it’s not your preference. There’s not going to be a definitive reason to expand the roads if the population doesn’t want them. But in the US, people have the expectation that 2-way roads are wide enough for 2 cars to pass safely, so that is the default. The benefit it brings is that transportation is quicker and easier, which leads to greater economic prosperity. The less time people spend in travel, the more time they can spend at work, shopping, leisure activities, etc. They can also travel to farther away places in the same time. An hour of travel in the US can easily take you 50 or 60 miles away, so people are able to visit more towns and contribute to their economies. But obviously this enhanced transportation can greatly change local communities, so the tradeoff may or may not be worth it.
An hour of travel in the UK can take you 70 miles away. We do actually have main roads and motorways, as well as small lanes.
Everyone seems to be conveniently ignoring this point. We have plenty of big roads - if you’re travelling along a single lane track, you’re not commuting to your day job 50 miles away. You’re visiting the farm next door, or going for a remote country walk (where you’d rather not hear the sound of roaring traffic) or trying to find some obscure abandoned abbey, having pulled off a major dual carriageway two miles down the road in order to do so.
Country lanes are anyone’s preferred method of long distance travel!
Sure, but that would only be on the main highway. In the US, pretty much every road is wide enough to have high speed limits, not just the interstate highways Low speed limits are only in town. Once you are out of town, the speed limit is going to be like 60 MPH. My experience of driving was in the Provence region of France, which seems to be made up completely by these narrow roads. Getting from one small town to another was not quick or easy since I couldn’t jump on the highway. It was driving down a narrow road with low speed limit and having to hug the right shoulder for oncoming traffic. If a similar town layout existed in the US, the connecting roads would all be wide enough to have higher speed limits and cars would not have to worry about oncoming traffic.
Really? I wouldn’t like to try driving at speed along this road in Nebraska, for completely random example. It doesn’t even seem to have a made surface (and appears to be quite typical of the small roads in that state.
Or this one in Wisconsin.
Or these roads in Texas
Seriously, the thing about ‘pretty much every road’ in the USA being wide and good is just fiction. You have dirt tracks. Why haven’t you upgraded them? I think you will find the reason is the same as why we haven’t upgraded our little country lanes - in fact, I think there is a high degree of equivalence between the two.
These dirt roads are very much the exception to roads in the US. They are not compatible to the many narrow European roads which are the primary means of travel between towns. Hardly anyone will drive on these kinds of roads. They are in remote areas where hardly anyone lives or travels. Chances are, someone driving on these kinds of roads won’t come across any other traffic, pedestrians, or anyone else. But regardless, they are typically wide enough for two cars to pass at speed if they are maintained by the county.
Single lane roads are really not the primary means of travel between towns, unless you mean ‘towns’ of about three houses and a cow. (And yes, I’ve driven in Provence, you really do exaggerate).
They may seem wide to you, but they are narrow compared to US roads. Many of the roads did not have a center line divider. Many of the roads did not have any shoulder. When oncoming traffic passed, our mirrors were just inches apart. These roads were common between the towns. I’m sure if those kinds of roads are normal to you, then the Provence roads seem just fine. Certainly the locals were okay with the roads, as they would pass at full speed.
Ha, you’ve moved the goalposts somewhat there! So we’ve moved on from single track lanes to roads which are, in fact, two lanes, they’re just not as wide as US roads and don’t always have centre lines. Well, can’t help you there. That’s why we usually have smaller cars.
I’m not sure that I ever said they were single track lanes. I said they were 1.5 lanes wide, but that’s based on my experience with US roads. So 1.5 times the width of a regular US lane, but I’m not a road expert so don’t hold me to that.
I’m sure you’re right, but roads - and cars - ARE generally bigger in the US. You have the space, your roads and towns have mostly developed in the age of the car, so places have been planned around car accessibility. You also have more available and bigger parking spaces. In my - fairly narrow - Victorian street, we have to parallel park on the street, and if a car comes one way, a car coming the other way has to pull aside. What we going to do - knock down the houses?
Europe is different - our towns and roads were mostly here way before cars, so cars fit into the landscape, not the other way round.
This part makes me wonder if you have ever driven in a US city, or if all ( or at least most ) of your driving has been in rural/suburban areas. The quoted part has been by experience in every US city that I have driven in. This is a fairly typical intersection of two two-way streets. No shoulder, no center line and at best, your mirrors would be inches apart if oncoming traffic passed. If either vehicle was larger than a standard car ( van, truck etc) , one might have to pull over at a fire hydrant or in a in intersection to let the other pass.
LOL! Of course I’ve driven on many different kinds of roads. My cars typically go over 250k miles. Have you driven in Europe? When I say the mirrors were inches apart, I literally thought they were going to smack together when we passed. Although something like that might happen on a US road, it would be an exception for a wide truck or something and be on some kind of suburban street. It wouldn’t be 100% of the time when approaching oncoming traffic that you’d have to have your tire against the shoulder and be worried if you’d clear the other vehicle.
but…
Can’t speak for French roads, but the multitide of dirt tracks I saw when I was scouting around Kansas (and accidentally Nebraska) for that thread about the geoglyphs, are so very numerous and ubiquitous, you cannot call them an exception; there are possibly more of them than there is of anything else.
They are very closely analogous to the country lanes in the UK - they have very little traffic; they serve very small villages or hamlets, and through routes to destination towns and cities are served by much better roads. There is no reason to upgrade them.
That’s what I meant too- and more that once* I’ve seen the mirror of either one of the passing cars or one of the parked cars get smacked right off. ( because someone got too close to the parked cars trying to pass) And it never involved a wide truck- perhaps a minivan or SUV but when an actual truck is on that type of street, no one even tries to pass.
- In fact, it’s happened to me three times. Plus the times I’ve only seen or heard about - not uncommon here at all.