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http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/294 http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/305 http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/83
http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/107 http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/286 http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/287
http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/293 http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/374 http://crazyplaces.org/intersections/view/294

Wecome to the World's Craziest Places!


The official website for the craziest, zaniest, strangest places on the map!

  • Use Regions pull-down to zoom in to funny stuff all over the world.
  • Use Types menus to see:
    • Freeway “Spaghetti Bowls”
    • Crazy roadways and intersections
    • Strange stuff, like a ship surrounded by skyscrapers.
    • Cool places, like Lombard Street in San Francisco.
    • Flukes of photography, like elephants in Africa.
  • Do you know of wacky or weird locations that are visible from aerial photos? 
  • Use our “wiki-map” tools to tag the location!
Say what? Looks like five mini-circles within a larger traffic circle in Swindon, England. Good luck with that! Visit Alternative Intersections for other crazy places on a dynamic map!
The famous and infamous Arc de Triumphe traffic circle. You can enter anytime you like, but you may never leave! Visit Alternative Intersections to find other famous places!
 

How did this site get started?

Our early sponsors are urban planners and civil engineers who are solving congestion and creating sustainable places in part through newly invented Alternative Intersections, (see left sidebar). For fun, they started tagging “Freeway Spaghetti Bowls” and other strange transportation-related sites.

What is a “Freeway Spaghetti Bowl”?


Whenever two freeways cross, civil engineers design “flyover” bridges to help traffic get from one freeway to the other, without stopping at a stoplight. Engineers call these “System to System” or “Freeway to Freeway” interchanges.

It all starts looking like spaghetti very quickly…
  • If there are arterial streets that cross or access the freeways in the same location;
  • If the freeways cross at a skewed angle;
  • If engineers must use heroics just to manage things;
  • If engineers have a lot of money to spend

Spaghetti is Fattening and Expensive!

Spaghetti is a carbohydrate – our primary source of energy. But too much of a good thing leads to diabetes, and all the ills that go with obesity. Just like our bodies, our cities need a balanced diet. Freeways are a critical element of modern mobility. But each time we widen them, all the more people adopt far-flung lifestyles that depend on freeway mobility. What do we do when we simply can’t afford a “Big Dig”?

There are many creative and innovative mobility strategies to help our cities stick to just one helping from the all-you-can-eat pasta bar. The most effective is Congestion Pricing, which forces demand to match supply, for maximum return on investment.

Other strategies include:
  • Transportation / Land-Use Optimization so that on average, more people live closer to their work and other activities.
  • Improve alternative modes
  • Improve arterial streets

Improve arterial streets to reduce auto dependancy?

What was that last point? Improve auto mobility as a strategy to reduce auto dependency? Short-trippers often overwhelm freeways because ill-conceived street networks are too congested. Engineers then get the wrong message. They respond with billion-dollar spaghetti, when much of the problem might be alleviated by modest investments in arterial streets. Please visit www.InnovativeIntersections.com to learn more about Town Center Intersections, Quadrant Intersections, ThrU-Turns, Median U-Turns, Bowties, Continuous Flow Intersections, Parallel Flow Intersections, Roundabouts, and Diverging Diamond Interchanges.
 
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