An image posted by reader Katy in a comment on my recent Tunnels, Bridges, Lifts and Inclines article completely captivated me. It shows a canal going over a road in the Netherlands. The interesting aspect, to me, is that a viewer can determine the actual depth of the canal. Highway engineers were kind enough to paint the canal enclosure in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern.
I’m not sure why a massive concrete half-pipe filled with boats stirs my imagination. It does. It also got me thinking about other structures extending above roads. There are literally thousands of examples. Please feel free to suggest your own local favorites.
Restaurant
Toll roads hold a captive audience. Nonetheless, highway authorities have to meet certain basic driver needs to keep the meter running. It’s more cost effective to provide a single service area within the highway median, for traffic moving in both directions. That’s easier in a rural area where land is cheap and plentiful. Unfortunately it becomes a bit more difficult in an urban environment. The Illinois Tollway solved this problem by putting travel plazas above the motorway. In this example it involves the Tri-State Tollway’s O’Hare Oasis near Chicago.
It’s not exactly fine dining but I can see a Starbucks and an Auntie Anne’s through the window. I also see some tables and chairs (and is that someone sitting there?). Maybe this is more properly a food court but I’ve noticed others in my journeys that are closer to traditional restaurants.
I selected this image because I’ve actually stopped here. I also like that they call it an Oasis. My mind wanders to images of camels, sand dunes and palm trees. Contrast that with the actual artifacts of that site. We should celebrate rare examples of bureaucratic creativity like this.
Shopping Mall
Head over to Cheltenham (near Melbourne) in Victoria, Australia, and one can experience a shopping mall built across the Nepean Highway. This is the Westfield Southland Shopping Centre. The Intertubes imply that the eastern portion came first and the western portion arrived later as an annex.
Oh look, here are shops located directly above the roadway. Have any of our Australian readers from the Melbourne area experienced this shopping centre in person?
Museum
The Great Platte River Road Archway Museum in Kearney, Nebraska may be the only museum built over a roadway (map). That means I’m too lazy to look for other examples. Even so, it sounds plausible and I’ve offset it with a qualifier. I was in Nebraska when this monument to frontier culture opened in 2000 although I didn’t have an opportunity to visit.
It’s not exactly located conveniently unless one happens to be driving through a vast empty expanse along Interstate 80. Actually, that’s the point. The state designed this attraction to tempt long-distance travelers. It gives them an excuse to stop in Kearney and leave a little money behind for the local economy. Frankly, there aren’t many economic opportunities way out in the wide open spaces of the Great Plains.
Park
I could have chosen hundreds of examples of parks over roadways. It seems to be in vogue with urban planners at the moment along with everything “green.” I selected parklands created by the monumental Big Dig undergrounding of the Interstate 93 Central Artery in Boston, Massachusetts (map).
Everything associated with the Big Dig happened on an epic scale including the creation of green space right at city center, where an ugly elevated motorway once stood. The 15 acres of new parkland became the Rose Kennedy Greenway and represents the final phase of the project:
“When Boston’s Big Dig project plunged previously elevated roadways underground, the city found itself rich in prime urban land. Community and political leaders seized the opportunity to enhance Boston’s city life by providing additional parks and gardens to connect some of its oldest, most diverse and vibrant neighborhoods.”
Office Building
The Gate Tower Building in Osaka, Japan received significant Internet fanfare a couple of years ago to the point where it became a bit of a cliché. Nonetheless I still love the notion of a freeway ramp barreling directly through the gut of an office building (map). Lots of other sources cover this situation already so let’s move along. Nonetheless, I’d love to work in a building like that.
Runway
A surprising number of airports have roads that run beneath them. Logically, it makes sense: passengers want convenient locations but airports require lots of land. I selected the Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom in this instance. As noted in Airliners.net, it has “a road (the A538 Wilmslow Road) that passes under both runway 23R/05L (and its parallel taxiway) and 23L/05R,” which makes it a particularly remarkable example.
Leave a Reply