A Guide to Highway Interchanges

A great civil engineering bookmark is the two part study of highway interchanges at ‘The Infrastructurist’ (Part 1 and Part 2).

We can’t recommend enough The Infrastructurist as a blog in the fields of structural engineering, and civil engineering. They seem to be particularly big proponents of high-speed rail projects. They provide a nice daily wrap-up of links and articles related to the field.

A few of the most interesting highway interchanges (photos and descriptions from The Infrastructurist):

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.

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.

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: