Everybody knows what a cloverleaf looks like — but could you identify a volleyball, a double trumpet, or a “spooey” if you drove on one in the course of your highway travels? These are among the distinctive designs that transportation engineers have conjured up to keep traffic flowing and motorists headed in the right direction when major roads intersect.
For your driverly edification, we’ve compiled photo examples of more than 2o different kinds of strange and delightful highway interchanges found both here in the US and abroad. In fact, right now stimulus dollars are being spent t0 build or upgrade many interchanges into one of these forms.
See Part 2 (with 11 more interchanges).
The Turbine - A “free-flow” style of exchange like the cloverleaf — that is, no traffic signals or intersections. This example is in Florida, at the junction of I-75 and I-4:
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The Cloverleaf - a classic, but it has fallen into some disfavor among traffic engineers because it causes weaving because cars are entering and exiting in the same lane. It also doesn’t handle large traffic volumes as well as some other configurations (for example, stacks).
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The Stack - A vertically layered arrangement of highways and connecting elevated ramps. The number of levels varies and go as high as six (though three and four are more common). Stacks are expensive to build but very efficient for high traffic volumes. This example is in Shanghai, but there are many stacked interchanges in the US:
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The Lofthouse: A roundabout over two grade-separated highways. Less expensive than than a stacked interchange, but also has much lower capacity.
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The ParClo - Or Partial Cloverleaf, a very popular design for places where interstates meet larger state and local roads. Depending how the loops and ramps are configured, a parclo is classified as either an A or a B and a number 1 through 4. This is an A-4:
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The Butt - A highly gluteal variety of the parclo. This example is in Germany:
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The Clovermill - A partial cloverleaf with turbine-style flyover (or, elevated) ramps:
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The Cloverstack - Combines elements of cloverleaf and stack designs. This rather feminine example is in Eastern Europe:
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The Spaghetti Bowl - When we get into the realm of shapes and patterns that seem to be describable only by chaos theory or string theory. Spaghetti is a global phenomenon these days.
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Classic Diamond - A simple and venerable design. It doesn’t eat up much land, but it can easily get backed up. This one is in Kentucky, near Louisville. (There is also a “Diverging Diamond” variant that involves driving on the “wrong” side of the road — for an example see this video showing one that’s being built in Utah.)
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The Spooey - The Single Point Urban Interchange (or, SPUI) is very compact and one of the best choices for tight spaces in cities. Unlike the diamond, it sends all traffic through one signal. The disadvantages of this arrangement are that it can be confusing to some drivers though, and it tends to be inhospitable to bikes and pedestrians. (See a visualization of a SPUI here.)
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The Braid - This Maryland interchange is a stack design, but what’s unique about it is that the north and southbound segments of I-95 and east- and westbound segments of I-695 are actually braided over each other briefly in the middle of the interchange. (See a diagram here.)
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SEE Part 2 of Crazy Highway Exchanges
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ALSO CHECK OUT ON INFRASTRUCTURIST:
HA! AMUSINGLY DEFACED STREET SIGNS
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CELL PHONE TOWERS PRETENDING TO BE TREES
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We’ve credited photos when the information has been available. Many are in the public domain. Satellite images from Google maps, Terraserver and Microsoft. If we missed any credits, please let us know.
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Top photo: GSGeorge
May 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
this is super cool! i passed it along to all my friends…
May 18th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
[...] « What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges, Part 1 [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
You should check out these two website that I have long referred to for interchange and intersection design. The only design that I have never seen in what I like to refer to as a Double Point Urban Interchange (DPUI). Think a SPUI mixed with a windmill.
Kurumi’s Field Guide to Interchanges
http://www.kurumi.com/roads/interchanges/
Unconventional Arterial Intersection Design
http://attap.umd.edu/UAID.php
May 18th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Herbie,
Thanks. Yes, the Kurumi site is a great resource and I used it extensively in researching this piece.
I’ll see if I can track down a good photo of a DPUI. The trick with many of these was finding decent pix.
M Faye - Glad you enjoyed.
-Jebediah
May 18th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Despite all its connotations with the Dreaded Suburbs, sprawl, etc, I still find cloverleaf intersections arrestingly beautiful (aerial photos, anyway).
May 18th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I couldn’t agree more, Skiddie.
I find some of the unusual ones just as beautiful though — the Whirlpool, for instance. Also the Cloverstack, T-bone and a few others.
This collection of photos took quite a while to pull together. After working on it for several hours one evening, I kept seeing them when I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. They do kind of get in your head.
-Jebediah
May 18th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Yeah, they’re beautiful…. when viewed from 1,500 feet in the air. On the ground, these places are inhumane nightmares, particularly the ones that have been plopped down in the middle of cities.
May 18th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
[...] Part 1 + Part [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
where is the pasta pathway?
May 19th, 2009 at 2:42 am
[...] such a monster does exist, in both Part 1 and Part 2. Thrill to the weird and wacky dreams of traffic engineers. Tremble and the mighty way [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 3:35 am
There is a really interesting interchange in Los Angeles where the 10 and the 405 freeway intersect. It was apparently quite revolutionary when it was built in the early 1960’s, and I read somewhere that it was designed by two female traffic engineers at a time when that was a very notable thing. Here’s a Google Maps link. Do you know what this might be called?
I totally agree with Dane. If you’re a cyclist or a pedestrian in an urban area, these are awful things to be near.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:46 am
[...] What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges, Part 1 [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 6:11 am
It’s not a freweway junction but its worth a look:
May 19th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Well part of the complication on the I-95/I-695 exchange is that they are adding (or is it replacing) a four-stack to the braid. You can see that the four-stack ramps on the right end in dirt construction. So if you look closely you can see that there are two ramps (one on the right, one on the left) for left turns.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:09 am
In Washington DC. the interchange at the bottom of the Beltway — where I-95, I-495, I-395, and I-295 all meet — is known as the “mixing bowl” or the “spaghetti bowl”.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:31 am
As a driver, nothing beats the simple diamond interchange. If you have to turn around, simply get off the freeway, cross, and get back on. Simple!
May 19th, 2009 at 11:03 am
[...] via What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges, Part 1 » INFRASTRUCTURIST. [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
The “Butt” is a clever name, but AASHTO would call it a “Partial Cloverleaf”…in [the Midwest], we refer to it as a “Folded Diamond” when the interchange connects a freeway/highway to a collector/arterial street.
An additional note about SPUI interchanges—while they have a small footprint, the travel demand really has to be balanced for all the movements for it to have an advantage over a Tight Urban Diamond Interchange (TUDI) in terms of efficiency. Usually, a TUDI could be built anywhere a SPUI fits, and may even cost less.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
[...] What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges, Part 1 » INFRASTRUCTURIST [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
don’t know if dallas has a spagetti bowl or stack, but there’s one there that’s about 6 levels high, pretty new, and memorable enough for this new yorker to write in about.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I love the non-trivially-braided intersection of I-95 and I-695 - I go through it a couple of times a week - but they are changing it, alas, because although it seems efficient, the parts where people have left exits and worse yet, left entrances, onto high speed roads, seem to be too dangerous for today’s drivers.
This interchange even got written up in Britain’s “New Scientist” magazine a couple years ago!
May 19th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I-695 in Maryland is also home to quite a few of the SPUIs - and although it works, it’s quite disconcerting; turning left while passing on the left of opposing traffic really feels wrong to the drive-on-the-right American driver. Even though I use one of these at exit 20 several times a week, for the last several years, it still feels odd every single time.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
[...] of these different traffic engineering marvels . . . in the Field Guide to Freeway Interchanges: + Part 1 + Part 2 Source: The [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Is there any advantage for a “Turbine” compared to a Stack? It seems like the Stack requires fewer bridges and uses less land.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
[...] What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
[...] What’s A ‘Spooey’? It’s much less dirty than it sounds. Share and Enjoy: [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 12:01 am
[...] "What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges, Part 1" [Infrastructurist... (tags: Automotive) [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 1:35 am
[...] From The Infrastructuralist: [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 7:21 am
[...] A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges: Pictures. [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 8:00 am
[...] Part 1 and Part 2 :freeway interchanges, Travel, vacation [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 9:23 am
[...] Not sure why I am so interested by this, but here is PART ONE and PART TWO to the Field Guide to Highway [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 10:18 am
They are sort of pretty from the air, but one thing the photos from above make fairly clear if you look at it is just how big these things are. Row after row of buildings would fit in the space. When you drive through you don’t really think about it, but they are huge and outside of the central downtown urban interchanges where everything is elevated or sunken so that’s it’s actually possible to make the long walk from one side to the other, they are impenetrable or nearly impenetrable obstacles to movement without using a car.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:39 am
[...] What is a Spooey? [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
[...] earth, and such, also maps and gps devices, so this field guide seems tailor-made. Start with part 1 (via kottke) [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
[...] Och då menar jag inte skabbiga hundar
Kolla in » [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
[...] inside terminology about freeway design from my new favorite source The [...]
May 21st, 2009 at 12:10 pm
[...] other technical designations for highway interchanges. Leave a Reply Click here to cancel [...]
May 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 am
[...] taxonomy of turns… From our friends at The Infrastructurist, “A Field Guide to Freeway Interchanges” (Part Two, [...]
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:45 am
belgium has some pretty weird junctions as well …
how would you classify this?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/batigolix/3552105494/
and this?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/batigolix/3551295473/
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:44 am
すごい。さすがアメリカ。
May 24th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Beige, how amazingly convenient, then, that they are used by cars! It would be tragic to try to get cars onto something that was impenetrable except to rickshaws.
Form follows function, IIRC.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:30 am
[...] the beginning of last week, A Field Guide to Interchanges (part one // part two) on [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
[...] May 27th, 2009 From “The Lofthouse” to “The Clovermill” and everything in between. A Field Guide to Freeway Interchanges. [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
[...] A field guide to freeway interchanges. Have I mentioned the Clam Lake interchange lately? Oop, that was twitter. [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
I’m honored that one of my photos appeared in this interesting article on a subject I love, but you could’ve let me know!
May 28th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
[...] got deeply into highway interchanges here recently, becoming immersed in identifying satellite photos of double trumpets and whirlpool exchanges and so on. After seeing our features on the subject, tipster sent sent us [...]
May 28th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Apologies, Geoffrey! Wonderful pic though.
June 1st, 2009 at 9:50 am
[...] a field guide to freeway interchanges, check out Infrastructurist (part [...]
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
[...] this spaghetti bowl turning a profit? Photo: InfrastructuristA recent post at Cato’s @ Liberty blog provides a nice example. In it, he quotes George Will’s [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
[...] New York City [Rabble.ca] Consumers in India, Brazil, and China Are the “Greenest” [The Dirt] What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges, Part 1 [The [...]
June 8th, 2009 at 5:08 am
[...] Some great aerial photos of freeway interchanges. Some great planning and design going on here, making for some spectacular photos. Tags: exchange, freeway, photo aerial, road [...]
June 14th, 2009 at 2:43 am
[...] - La Beauté des autoroutes Sauriez-vous identifier un “spooey” sur votre trajet autoroutier ? C’est la dernière trouvaille des spécialistes des transports pour fluidifier le trafic et permettre de garder la bonne direction dans les grands échangeurs. Problème : le dispositif peut perturber certains conducteurs et s’avère très contraignant pour les cyclistes et les piétons. Admirez ces “merveilles” ici: http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/05/18/dont-pluck-the-cloverleaf-a-field-guide-to-highway-interc... [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
[...] A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges - Fascinating description of motorway/freeway interchanges. I didn’t know they all had names. The Maryland Braid is my favourite. [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
[...] Us On Twitter Talking Trains With Michael Dukakis, Part 1 What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges, Part 1 Chart: America’s Streetcar Renaissance Ha! Amusingly Defaced Street Signs [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Mrsizer: “Beige, how amazingly convenient, then, that they are used by cars! It would be tragic to try to get cars onto something that was impenetrable except to rickshaws.
Form follows function, IIRC.”
I think you missed his point entirely, Mrsizer. What he was saying is not that they aren’t apt for their function, but rather they don’t play well with others. Not everyone trying to get around a city is in a car but some of these interchanges effectively crowd out all other transportation routes and modes. He’s remarking on the balance, or lack thereof, of some transportation infrastructure. If you need to go to a place a half a mile down the street (to a place you can see from where you are) but to do so you effectively need to either buy a car or walk 10 miles around, then that might be an indication of a problem of balance.
June 28th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
[...] Field Guide to Freeway Interchanges Part 1, Part 2 Posted by mariaoran Filed in Highway Bits ·Tags: I-10/610, infrastructurist, [...]
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:15 pm
[...] [...]
July 4th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Springfield, MO is getting a Diverging Diamond Interchange at Kansas Expressway (MO Route-13) and I-44. A big mess, but a fascinating mess. This youtube video seems to be the best demonstration I’ve found. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQsM7lzhx1s (The one you linked to was awesome but they played with the camera motion too much, imho… )
Really awesome set of posts, and site. Thumbs up.
July 5th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Here is a 5 way interchange that will be constructed in Fort Worth, TX.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxjVFhEm7iM
July 12th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
http://xkcd.com/253/
this is the best comment I could make, but done visually. I love good and well thought infrastructure that builds a strong foundation for the future. Modern Highways and especially interchanges are very rarely in this category.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:04 am
[...] guide to highway interchanges: Parts 1 and [...]
July 26th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
[...] I love the scale of Interstates, the signs that direct you not from town to town, but from great city to great city: SOUTH—MIAMI; WEST—LOS ANGELES. These signs give me the same thrill as an international airport. They speak to the adventurer in me. I love the sight of a major interchange, with underpasses and overpasses cutting through the sky, shuttling us around in our little pods. This is industrial art on a most massive scale. (And I swear, I wrote this post hours before someone turned me on to this fabulous Field Guide to Freeway Interchanges.) [...]
July 31st, 2009 at 7:53 pm
please send me some useful information on interchange of highway with advantages and disadvantages
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:37 pm
It’s interesting that you use the name “Lofthouse” in the US. The name comes from the UK junction between the M1 and M62 motorways near the village of Lofthouse (south of Leeds), which was one of the first of its type built in this country. But “Lofthouse” isn’t used as a generic term for that type of junction here.
The original Lofthouse interchange, like many others of the same design (M25/A2, M25/A20, M62/M57) has more recently had by-pass lanes added allowing some turning traffic to by-pass the roundabout altogether.
There’s a good reference site for UK road interchanges at: http://www.cbrd.co.uk/reference/interchanges/
August 20th, 2009 at 3:14 am
If you want to see some whimsical looking interchanges, check some of the Gulf News archives to see some of the ones they built in Dubai. Here is several links:
http://www.parsons.com/Media%20Library/1208_Dubai.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dubai_Roads_on_1_May_2007.jpg
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/05/10/10124218.html (scroll thru the photos)
…or just zoom in on Google Earth……
August 27th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
[...] Highway interchanges from infrastructurist [...]
September 25th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
This is beautiful! I have dreams involving strange, convoluted freeway designs, so I find this beautiful.
Also, now I know what a spooey is! There are two in Bloomington, MN (well, between Bloomington and Richfield, spanning Interstate 494) and a third under construction. The first was 24th Street, redone to carry the anticipated new traffic loads when the nearby Mall of America opened. (It’s performed beautifully, BTW.) Several years later, the Penn Avenue bridge was demolished and replaced with a SPUI as part of the lead-in to Best Buy moving its headquarters to that location. (Basically, they were closing the roads *anyway*, so it was a good opportunity.) Now they’re working on doing the same on Lyndale Avenue, which probably needed it the most.
I used to call these “asterisk bridges” because they kind of resemble one from overhead. At first, I found them strange, but they really weren’t confusing. They’re actually pretty slick.
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:52 am
[...] What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges: Freeway Interchange Typology 101. [...]
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:19 am
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Reddit by mooseclamps: I live near where it’s going to be built, knowing how bad the drivers are here… I do not look forward to it….
October 26th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
My cruiser’s heart thanks you. These images are quite beautiful…
October 26th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Spooey y otras soluciones usadas en autopistas para realizar cambios de dirección [EN]…
Lo de construir grandes carreteras es todo un arte. En este artículo recopilan varios de los diseños usados por los ingenieros para que los conductores puedan realizar cambios de dirección. Con alguno de ellos seguro que te topaste en alguna ocasió…
October 26th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
[...] Infrastructurist compiled photo examples of more than 20 different kinds of strange and delightful highway interchanges found both in the US and abroad. The Presurfer Comments [...]
October 30th, 2009 at 8:26 am
[...] field guide to freeway [...]
November 6th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
i heart interchanges…
November 7th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
[...] I love the scale of Interstates, the signs that direct you not from town to town, but from great city to great city: SOUTH—MIAMI; WEST—LOS ANGELES. These signs give me the same thrill as an international airport. They speak to the adventurer in me. I love the sight of a major interchange, with underpasses and overpasses cutting through the sky, shuttling us around in our little pods. This is industrial art on a most massive scale. (And I swear, I wrote this post hours before someone turned me on to this fabulous Field Guide to Freeway Interchanges.) [...]
November 25th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Is there some proper name for the land (often treed) that sits around the junctions. For example in a classic cloverleaf, there is land inside the ‘leaves’ of the clover and there is land bounded by the diamond of the ramps. Do these have a special name or any name for that matter?