I live next to some highway-tunnels, wich needs maintenance from time to time. One or two lanes in the tunnel going the other way is then used for the traffic originally intended to go in the tunnel beeing maintained.

So what I ask myself when I see pictures of people evacuating on highways is: why not use atleast some of the lanes going in the opposite direction too? It shouldn't be necessary to have so many lanes going in the oposite direction, since there isn't many people driving towards an area that is beeing evacuated.

http://pub.tv2.no/multimedia/na/archive/00209/houston_evakuerer_f_209466c.jpg

Its a common sense to open the opposite site for faster clearance of the congested side.

I believe there was a thread similar to this before. I remember seeing a picture of a highway in Austrialia that swithces direction of traffic flow in the morning and evening.

I believe there was a thread similar to this before. I remember seeing a picture of a highway in Austrialia that swithces direction of traffic flow in the morning and evening.

LOL. The Southern Expressway in Adelaide is a different kettle of fish. It's a one-way freeway, so it has to switch direction between morning and afternoon peak.

Besides, if you look in the pic, there's still a fair bit of traffic heading in the other direction. How would you deal with separating traffic on the carriageway so the the two different directions can co exist? How would they deal with on/offramps?

It's easy to make the two directions co-exist. Just put up signs and cones. I've experienced this many times. On/offramps could be a problem, when the road splits. But otherwise, traffic will still be in the same direction on the side of the road where the on/offramps are. That is how I think, but I might have missed something.

I apologize if there was a thread like this before.

Someone in the with high ranks must be reading skyscrapercity.com, because I just heard on the news that they will actually do what I suggested :D

So what I ask myself when I see pictures of people evacuating on highways is: why not use atleast some of the lanes going in the opposite direction too? It shouldn't be necessary to have so many lanes going in the oposite direction, since there isn't many people driving towards an area that is beeing evacuated.

They do...

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/5099/050923traffichmed4a5qp.jpg

Yes, but I posted the first post in this thread before they did;)