Argentina's roadway system was designed and built largely in the 1930's and 40's when the motor vehicle population was less than 1/10th of what it is today. Most of the many roads that have been paved in the past 20 years have used the same alignments. In areas where population growth has spurted, these narrow lane roads are inadequate for modern vehicular traffic. As a result, accident rates are much higher than those of industrialized countries. This paper focuses on route 2, the 400 km roadway connecting Buenos Aires (the capital of Argentina, pop. 11 million) with Mar del Plata (a major seaside resort, permanent pop. 1/2 million) which passes through several industrial centers and important farming communities. This route, well known for its high number of intersections, bumper to bumper traffic during the summer months, sharp S curves and narrow bridges, has one of the highest fatality rates in the country. This paper evaluates many of the measures that have been taken to improve safety conditions, including police enforcement, motor vehicle regulation, roadway safety education and roadway widening along parts of the existing alignment. It concludes that, in this case, where the existing alignment is inadequate for the traffic conditions, a better approach to improve safety, traffic and environmental conditions is to create a new alignment by-passing the towns with the safety concepts of a modern roadway. (A)
Samenvatting