Periférico de Juventud
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To me it's the place that gave us tacos, burritos and guacamole, but to Jonathan Winkler it's so much more. Having headed south of the border on a number of occasions, he is well placed to provide an introduction to the roads of Mexico.
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Periférico de Juventud ("Ring-road of Youth") is the preferred routing of Mex. 45 (Carretera Panamericana) traffic along the western portion of built-up Chihuahua between the western outlet of Mex. 16 and Av. Técnologico, an urban boulevard with median which passes by a number of high-tech maquiladora plants (Ford, Lexmark, etc.) and eventually becomes the toll Mex. 45 expressway to Juárez.
This Periférico is designed to function as an express highway and has all of the meaningful attributes of an American freeway, including comprehensive grade separation of intersecting roads, no driveway access, and a median closed to ordinary travel. However, its speed limit is only 70 km/h, and probably reflects alignment constraints arising from its hilly and urban location.
It also has frontage roads on one side or the other along much of its length. In some locations, they are separated from the mainlanes by curbs and grassy areas. In others, they are built on the same formation as the mainlanes and the separation is effected by road markings.
This sign gantry hangs over the northbound lanes of Periférico de la Juventud. Note the nearly vertical face of the rock cut off to the left, which has been treated with shotcrete to limit erosion and rockfall. At this location the separation between mainlanes and frontage road (at the right) is effected by a grassy reservation.
Periférico de la Juventud is shown from its narrow grassy median. The trail down the center, has been formed and trodden down by beggars, many of whom are elderly Tarahumaran women wearing huaraches (thong-like shoes soled with old tire rubber). Here, the frontage roads are striped onto the same pavement as the mainlanes; at right, white-painted topes and thin, worn-out white chevron striping segregates the two lanes of frontage road from the three mainlanes. Overhead guide signing on freeways is still a bit of a novelty in Mexico, as hinted by the use of black-on-yellow bottom panels (reserved for "EXIT ONLY" and advisory speed messages in North America) which convey distance-to-exit information. "CARRIL DERECHO" = right lane.
This picture, taken from a pedestrian overbridge just past the Calle Faisán exit whose advance signing is shown in the previous photo, gives a less foreshortened and thus somewhat clearer indication of the roadway cross-section used for the Periférico.
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