Friday, August 27, 2004

On Ramps

I'd like to personally thank the guy who designed the onramp from southbound Maryland Rt 279 (Elkton Rd.) onto I95 south. I'm not being sarcastic here, its a wonderful piece of transit engineering. The onramp is both long and wide. Its straight enough that you can pick up speed properly, but curvy enough that it keeps things interesting.

Its a really fun onramp, especially if no one is in front of you and you can open up a little bit. You just hit the gas up off Elkton Rd and accelerate through the bends. The side to side makes it fun and then your on the highway going 70 in a 65 like everybody else. Merging is a breeze at that point. Its patches of roadway like this that make me want to taking driving lessons so I can do them better. Especially since I drive it every day going south to work.

By the way, the anti-thesis of this is the Market Street ramp onto I95 South in Pennsylvania. Its got a tiny hairpin cloverleaf and a short ramp. It dumps you onto 95 with much faster moving traffic. Its not fun at all and people tend to get forced off onto the shoulder to complete the merge if they don't floor it early enough. Shame on you road engineer.

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