The Character of Different Road Types
The way we experience a road is important for our familiarity with and understanding of open landscapes. By far most of our contact with nature, farmland, and forests takes place through a car window. This must be considered when roads are planned and designed. The motorist sees the landscape like a movie that runs in long sequences. In the open countryside, the road and journey are experienced in interplay with the surroundings, and the landscape is part of the experience as far as the eye can see. Variation and rhythm are consequently also part of our travel experience. We are stimulated by variation but dulled by monotony. At high freeway speeds, the landscape’s large scale is what attracts Denmark’s impressive freeway bridges provide a fine driving experience, an attraction for the locality, and an important milestone along the way.
the motorist’s attention. On smaller roads at lower speeds, the landscape’s smaller elements become part of the user’s experience.
The open rows of poplars along Dutch highways enhance both the beautifully designed road and the farmland that surrounds it.
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Beautiful Roads - A Handbook of Road Architecture
