Video Up the junction
A car enters a motorway intersection, drives onto the exit slip road, sweeps arounds a huge loop ramp – and then? Watch this video to find out what happens.
Driving through a Motorway Junction
Various construction methods are used in motorway junctions. One classic is the “cloverleaf”: two motorways that cross each other, four loops and four slip roads at the side. In this video, a car travels through such a cloverleaf junction – the Regensburg Interchange, which is located to the south-west of the Bavarian city of Regensburg. This is where the A93 and A3 motorways intersect. In a cloverleaf interchange like this, it’s possible to drive into one of the loops and then – instead of turning into the intersecting motorway lane – continue straight into the next loop. You can see how this works in the video – a journey that takes you through all four loops of the motorway junction. It could go on forever, to infinity.
Junction diagram of cloverleaf type motorway interchange
| WvBraun, CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic
This trip invites us to reflect on the simultaneity of movement and standstill, the architectural perfection of the motorway interchange – clearly visible in an aerial shot but barely noticeable as you pass through, the compliant yet unorthodox way of using of the junction, the four-leaf clover as a symbol of good luck …If you reduce the motorway intersection to an eternal journey around the clover leaves or loops, the result is a shape known as a Bowen cross or Tristram’s knot: ⌘ – This convoluted endless rope is famous as an ornament in early Northern European – Finnish and Viking – culture. Today it features on traffic signs to denote cultural monuments, especially in Scandinavian countries. And many people will be familiar with the Bowen cross as a keyboard symbol for the command key.
And thus this endless drive through the Tristram’s knot of the motorway interchange is combined and interwoven with the writing of this article to form an ever-spinning infinite association derived from the parallel nature of an eternal cyclical journey and the goal-oriented undeviating trajectory of cars on the main carriageway lanes, Möbius strips, linear and cyclical time concepts …
