Construction of new motorways or railways in rural areas always intersects existing road networks. Where crossings at the same level are out of the question, a bridge or a tunnel must be constructed to maintain the present local connections. However, this is an expensive solution. Therefore, in practice sometimes only major roads and rural highways are re-connected above or below the new main infrastructure. For minor roads such a re-connection is much less self-evident. A lot of minor roads simply keep interrupted after construction of the new main infrastructure. The need to make detours is a serious disadvantage for local residents and recreationists, especially for cyclists among them. Three methods are developed to describe the impacts of intersecting an existing network of minor roads. The so-called `detailed' method aims to calculate the impacts of continuation or discontinuation of (combinations of) intersected minor roads in rural areas. The `detailed' method is based on data for traffic flow, costs, accessibility, traffic safety and recreational values. This method is applicable in a stage of the planning process, where the new infrastructure is indicated as a line on a map with a scale of about 1:5.000 to 1:10.000. (A)
Abstract