[B] Belgium | road infrastructure • autoroutes & autosnelwegen

Astralis said:

Congrats fot the new thread :banana: :banana:! Is it true that Belgian motorways are all lit up?

Click to expand...

Not all. Some newer aren't lit, and in fact, in the Ardennes, only intersections are lit at night, and sometimes it's all dark. But they used to lit the whole damn freeway.

As far as i know, the E40 De Panne - Oostende and E403 Brugge - Tournai aren't lit, and don't have lampposts either.

Belgium



Belgium has a very extensive motorway system, one of the densest in the world. Most motorways are 2x3 lanes, and the amount of trucktraffic is incredible. However, traffic jams do occur often around Brussels and Antwerp.
In the French-speaking Wallonie region are less traffic jams, but mostly the right 2 lanes are taken by trucks, so traffic can be busy, especially around Liège, Namur, Charleroi and Mons.

The map above shows the A and R-3 numbers. A means Autoroute/Autosnelweg (sometimes called Autostrade), and R-numbers represent the Ringroads, which isn't nessecarily a motorway standards road.

However, in daily use, the European E-numbers are used. A numbers only appear on signs when there isn't an E-number, and A-numbers can be found on every milemarker in Belgium, despite being an E-route.

The Brussels ringroad is the R0, this is the busiest road in Belgium. Fast after that, we see the Antwerp R1, which is very busy as well, because of the lack of better ringroads around the city.

The E313 has only 2x2 lanes, and is crowded with trucks, so traffic jams in excess of 20km occur often here.


This is a map of the more daily used E-numbers.

Some Autoroutes in Wallonie do have names, like the E42 is the Autoroute de Wallonie and the E411 is the Autoroute des Ardennes. The A54 is named La Caroloregienne.

The Belgian non-motorway network is quite extensive too, sometimes with 2x2 lanes and a 120km/h limit. Some are very motorway-like, like the N25 between Louvain-la-Neuve and Nivelles, or the N97 near Dinant.

Unlike the Netherlands, Belgian cities tends to have a lot of suburbs, which create a lot of traffic. The busy Antwerp port generates a lot of truck traffic along the E19, E34 and E313.

Belgium is one of the busiest transitcountries in Europe. The quality of the roads was extremely poor a few years ago, with almost every Autoroute filled with potholes and trackformation, however, most of that has changed, but there are some worse motorways still leftover. Maintenance wasn't much of an issue the last 30 years, so there is a lot of construction to do. Motorways like the E25 and the E411 to the south are completely renovated, and of good quality now.

I'll start with a photoserie of the E313, the main motorway between Liège and Antwerp. It has a lot of truck traffic, so photographing was difficult sometimes.

Pictures taken yesterday (friday, June 22nd).

108 pics, Picasa webalbum

A604 Seraing / Liège

The A604 is a short connector from the E42 motorway to the dirty industrial suburb of Seraing. For some reason, the 2nd song leftout, it was appropriate called "The Traveler". The video is taken in both directions.

Youtube, 9:37 mins

I don't think the Oosterweelconnection will solve traffic jams completely, it always end at the 2x4 R1 near Merksem. However, it might relieve the jammed R1 south of interchange Antwerpen-Oost (Antwerp-East).

Even better would be an extended tollfree R2 from the E17 to the E19, either north or south of Antwerp.

And the E313 has to be widend fast from Lummen to Antwerp, all lanes are taken by trucks, making the 120km/h limit quite useless.
And signage have to be better near Antwerp-East, you see trucks there over all 5 lanes searching their way to their directions.

Things have improved. The E25 Liège - Luxembourg and E411 Brussels - Luxembourg have been completely renovated.

The E40 Aachen - Brussels is old concrete, which is very noisy, but not very bumpy.

They build some motorways in the eighties, which they had to cutback on budget, so some motorways aren't build with foundation. Within 10 years, holes appeared all over these motorways. Now they are renovated.

E25 Beaufays - Liège - Loncin (E40)
First the huge descent to the Meuse river Valley, the windy track through the big city with all it's tunnels and bridges and finally onto the E40/E42 interchange (Échangeur de Loncin). Definatly one of the most spectacular urban Motorways in Belgium to drive on. It's quite new, the section is from the 2000's.

Part 1

Part 2
(because of the length divided in 2 sections)

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Yeah i don't like that too. You see names like Doornik, Bergen, Gand en Bruges all the time. And how the hell am i suppose to know that Aix-la-Chapelle is Aachen and Montjoie is Monschau?

Look, Brussel/Bruxelles is double-languaged, but Antwerpen and Liège are just Dutch and French. So sign em all the way, you have to know that name anyway to get there.

R0 Ring Brussel - Bruxelles - Brussels - Brüssel
The R0 is a 76km ringroad around the Capital of Europe and Belgium. The road is mostly 2x3 lanes or more, but has a non-motorway section southeast of Brussels.

119 photos, Picasa Webalbum

^^ They make it uselessly complicated, in fact, it's quite easy:

Use the name what the entrance city limits sign says.

So that makes Brussel/Bruxelles the only city with double names.

But you always have those guys who don't like Dutch/French/German and keep painting on signs. Sad.

Looks like they have different. Here you see Genève instead of Genf, but i've also seen San Gottardo instead Gotthard, but that's because the tunnel is on 2 language areas, like Brussels.

Time for another video :cheers:

this time;

The Verviers Circuit

A steep downhill from the Hautes Fagnes (High Moors) through and actually over the city of Verviers, which is very curvy and windy with circuit walls. Anyone ever driven this Autoroute would remember this section.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-mhGLgboLw

E314 Leuven - Geleen (NL)
This is a serie of the important E314 in Central Eastern Belgium. It is one of the two main routes to the German Ruhrvalley. (the other being the E40). However, this route is not as packed with trucks as the E313.

104 pics, Picasa Webalbum