No Left Turns!

[EffTheGrid 3,669]

Hey all,

Today I want to take a deep dive into a topic very close to my own heart: 

The Jughandle Intersection!

This setup uses highway slip ramps or clovers with an at-grade intersection to avoid conflict points with left turning traffic.

The advantage of this setup is that high-speed traffic can use the left lane at full speed without drivers slowing or merging into left-turn lanes. 

This eliminates the possibility of left-turners congesting a turn lane and stopping traffic in the lanes of the roadway.

They are common (and infamous) in my home state of New Jersey - birthplace of both the jughandle AND the cloverleaf interchange!

I've been hunting for international examples, and I'm surprised they are not in wider use or I have trouble finding them.

Here are some examples from around the world, making creative use of space:

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Some have specialized industrial purposes, like these turns designed for log trucks. One is located in urban-industrial Edmonton, the other off a forested lane in rural Finland.

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And for left side drivers, here are complicated right-hand turns!

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What's your experience with these intersections? Have them where you live? Please send me a link! -  I will add it to my list!

Considering building one for your SimCity? Show us here!

NO LEFT TURNS!

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

How about the convoluted diverging diamond to make left turns onto the interstate highway safer?

https://www.bing.com/maps/?cp=39.587682~-86.063601&lvl=18.3&style=h

(I avoid this whenever I can. )

[EffTheGrid 3,669]

Yes!

You'll love to hate this. I call it...

Spoiler

AAH!

I went to this shopping center soon after they completed the interchange - NEVER AGAIN.

Sitting in traffic at those little roundabouts was the most infuriating 30+ minutes of my life. The parking lot backs up the roundabouts and the whole thing becomes gridlocked onto the highway.

The complex becomes incredibly crowded with holiday shoppers for months at a time. The tiny feeder/frontage roads don't have enough capacity for the existing businesses. With plans to build more... the area is doomed to traffic hell.

What's hilarious is that with all this huge infrastructure for the county and state roads you'd expect the US routes and interstates to be more spacious or adequately built but no, I-87 is the NY Thruway through there with an ample 2 lanes in each direction, meanwhile US-6 ambles through as a 2-lane GRADE SEPARATED roadway, uselessly, pretending it is a back country road, even though it is a federally designated roadway serving a populated corridor in a major metropolitan area.

Then again New York state continues to ignore the construction and habitation of an 80,000 population city a mile up the road at Kiryas Joel.

Anything is possible with the Empire State of mind.

A rebuke to the negative sentiments expressed: 

I should mention that a drive along route 6 in this area is a beautiful escape from the rigmarole of New York driving. It's an amazing escape to take 6, 9W the Palisades Parkway, and the other, more 'bucolic' or 'country' roads up north. Crazy that they still serve in largely the same capacity that they ever did too, with very few upgrades!

[EffTheGrid 3,669]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

How about the convoluted diverging diamond to make left turns onto the interstate highway safer?

https://www.bing.com/maps/?cp=39.587682~-86.063601&lvl=18.3&style=h

(I avoid this whenever I can. )

Omg wait... they send PEDESTRIANS through the MIDDLE? 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 minute ago, EffTheGrid said:

Omg wait... they send PEDESTRIANS through the MIDDLE? 

Pure evil. No?

[Tarkus 6,932]

We kind of have a partial one not far from me, right along the border between Hillsboro and Beaverton, Oregon . . . it's technically probably more of a "quadrant roadway", but it's very jughandlesque in its execution.  Traffic off Baseline Road eastbound can't make a left turn onto 185th Avenue northbound, and is instead routed down the jughandle, which has its own rather poetic road name--Stepping Stone Drive.  There's even an apartment complex that is only accessible via Stepping Stone.

The intersection has been a notorious trouble spot for years (back when I was born, it was still a four-way stop, up until they widened 185th to five lanes and installed a signal in the late 1980s), and became even more of a headache when the railroad tracks at the top of the image were repurposed/electrified to service the MAX Light Rail in the late 1990s, which is what ultimately brought Stepping Stone Drive into the world. 

Between the increase of traffic over the past quarter-century (which is about to increase even more--the greenhouses at the bottom of the image are being torn down in preparation for a ton of medium-density residential) and the light rail line getting more frequent service, it may finally force the powers that be to implement a long-dreamed-of (and long overdue) plan to elevate the light rail line over 185th.  There's some talk they may decommission the jughandle and allow the long-forbidden direct left again if/when that happens.

Also, for those curious about things from a NAM perspective . . . turn restrictions are something that's also been on the drawing board for the FLEX Turn Lanes system for a good long while now, which would allow for truly proper jughandles in SC4.  Much like elevating the light rail, though, there's no real ETA on when that will happen.

-Tarkus

[nos.17 5,120]

Navigating the (in)famous "Michigan-lefts" are always a fun time. I still remember this one from from the last hotel I stayed at a few years ago. Although it is nice that every turn could be treated as a right on red - or at least most drivers treated them that way.

[philforhockey51 4,211]

More NJ Jughandle Fun  .. follow the signs .. good luck

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

9 hours ago, philforhockey51 said:

More NJ Jughandle Fun  .. follow the signs .. good luck

A giant dropped a handful of spaghetti which gave them a life size blueprint?

[philforhockey51 4,211]

giving directions must be crazy

make a right but not a full right and go straight then make a left but stay to the center lane then go straight and the road will split stay left then the road will split again stay right and then merge on the highway and make a right

 

[Nite Owl 79]

One of my all time N.J. Favorites.

 

 

[kschmidt 6,164]

On 12-11-2024 at 5:27 PM, EffTheGrid said:

Hey all,

Today I want to take a deep dive into a topic very close to my own heart: 

The Jughandle Intersection!

This setup uses highway slip ramps or clovers with an at-grade intersection to avoid conflict points with left turning traffic.

The advantage of this setup is that high-speed traffic can use the left lane at full speed without drivers slowing or merging into left-turn lanes. 

This eliminates the possibility of left-turners congesting a turn lane and stopping traffic in the lanes of the roadway.

They are common (and infamous) in my home state of New Jersey - birthplace of both the jughandle AND the cloverleaf interchange!

I've been hunting for international examples, and I'm surprised they are not in wider use or I have trouble finding them.

Here are some examples from around the world, making creative use of space:

  Pennsylvania, USA (Reveal hidden contents)

  Cologne, Germany city-center (Reveal hidden contents)

  Cologne, Germany - another configuration same street (Reveal hidden contents)

  Kaneohe, Hawaii, USA (Reveal hidden contents)

Some have specialized industrial purposes, like these turns designed for log trucks. One is located in urban-industrial Edmonton, the other off a forested lane in rural Finland.

  Alberta, Canada (Reveal hidden contents)

  Finland (Reveal hidden contents)

And for left side drivers, here are complicated right-hand turns!

  Bagshot, UK (Reveal hidden contents)

  Newtonabbey, Northern Ireland (Reveal hidden contents)

  Trinidad & Tobago (Reveal hidden contents)

  Tampines, Singapore (Reveal hidden contents)

What's your experience with these intersections? Have them where you live? Please send me a link! -  I will add it to my list!

Considering building one for your SimCity? Show us here!

NO LEFT TURNS!

Don"t forget Michigan left turns ? Derived from NJ or Canada ?