My fellow Codexian, Floris Kleijne, recently blogged about armpits of the world. Those are the wasted empty spaces around freeway interchanges. Floris is European, and I have seen some European freeways. They resemble the Skyway in south Chicago. Here is his discussion.
Now, I’ve seen some pretty crummy freeway interchanges, but we do things a little bit different here in the valley of the sun. Our freeway interchanges are not armpits of the world.
Behold these pictures from Google Earth. Click on the pictures to enlarge them. You won’t get the true details from the small photos. Key word is details.
Loop 101 and Cactus Road
Loop 101 and Indian School Road
Loop 101 and Thomas Road
Loop 101 and McKellips Road
This is how we do a freeway interchange (including a river bridge).
Loop 101 and Loop 202 near the Salt River.
Loop 202 and the Hohokam Expressway.
That’s how freeways should be done. The ground-level details are really done nicely, too. I’ll try to carry my camera around for a few days and snap some ground-level photos.