How many lanes is the widest freeway?

Question

I'm curious: What is the most number of lanes ever attempted for a highway or freeway? Is there a practical limit? What governs the limit -- are there engineering reasons or just that no one needs a 24 lane highway (or can spare the land)? Is there at some point a diminishing rate of returns in terms of traffic throughput/bandwidth? (Sorry for the geek terms)

Qualifier: This is the number of lanes a highway has over the long haul not counting merge lanes and exits and so forth, including both directions of traffic.

I'm going to guess that no one has attempted more than 16, and that virtually no highways have more than 12.

Answer 1

Arizona has some 12 lane streches (6 each way) and I think Cali has 24 lane (12 each way). Eventually no one would merge all the way left as they'd have to plan so far in advance to come back over to make their exit. Plus where there is a traffic need like the downtown areas of major cities there's no land.

Answer 2

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RE:
How many lanes is the widest freeway?
I'm curious: What is the most number of lanes ever attempted for a highway or freeway? Is there a practical limit? What governs the limit -- are there engineering reasons or just that no one needs a 24 lane highway (or can spare the land)? Is there at some point a diminishing rate of...

Answer 3

The widest, consistently large freeway in North America is in Canada, in Toronto. Highway 401 utilizes an express-collector setup and for roughly 40 miles of its route through northern Toronto and is between 14 and 18 lanes the entire distance, with additional lanes for ramps in numerous sections. It carries an average of 500,000 vehicles a day. I think the second highway that has a consistent stretch of the 20 lane range is the Katy Freeway (Interstate 10) in northwest Houston, Texas. They just opened a significant portion that is up to 20 lanes a few years ago.

Answer 4

Widest Highway In The World

Answer 5

Widest Highway

Answer 6

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Motorcycles really take up almost as much room on the freeway as cars. A lane on an interstate highway is 12 feet wide. Nobody's going to ride a motorcycle at 70 mph in a lane 4 feet wide! Can you imagine someone passing going 80 4 feet away from you? No thanks. 8^P It would save gas though. At least bikes can use the HOV lane.

Answer 7

I-10 in Katy, TX (in the Houston metropolitan area) is officially counted with 26 lanes total, and is also considered the widest freeway in the world. I live in Houston, and drive the Katy freeway often. It seems they count the feeder roads as well, which add six lanes at least (if not eight).

Answer 8

I-15 in San Diego just south of Miramar, including HOV lanes is 9 lanes wide, each direction, at spots ... Which makes it 18 lanes wide. I drive truck and no of nowhere, as suggested in other post , that has 24 lanes.

Answer 9

A significant stretch of the NJ Turnpike is 12 lanes - 3 "truck" lanes & 3 "car" lanes in each direction. When i was in LA a couple years back, I recall being on a stretch that was wider (i.e. 7 or 8 lanes in each direction) - don't know for how long that was.

Both these roads I speak of were "divided" - for example, the NJTP is 3 'truck' lanes seperated by a barrier then 3 car lanes, seperation and repeat for the other direction. Sometimes simple NJ Barriers, other times streteches of grass. The merge point, when it drops from 12 to 6 lanes (6A? Jamesburg?) is always a mess though...

Answer 10

7,000 lanes total !! Lol

Answer 11

well think about it if we had a 24 lane highway it would take up alot of space plus your shoulders so your total width is gonna be 300 to 350 feet wide plus your right-of-way so your total will be arond 400- 450 feet wide and nobody wants a 400 foot wide strip of asphalt plus it cost about $70,000 dollars a lane x 24 lans 1 miles long and $1,680,000 to do just 1 mile of a 24 lane highway so it isnt cost effective that is why in stead of building a 24 lane highway you see bypasses arond the city and nothing governs the limit of a highway either width or lengh just money and the $1.6 million is just the cost to resurface the road that doesnt include the cost to add the lanes (i.e sub base different lifts labor equipment ) so really your 24 lane highway is gonna cost you around 25 - 30 million to make so its not worth it in the long run . and the widest highway i have ever seen are in L.A. and i think it was either 10 or 12 lanes total