Talk:Tom Moreland Interchange

Four-level?

I'm not sure this is a four-level interchange. It appears to be a five-level interchange. The levels are as follows (other combinations of roads may also work):

1. Interstate 85 mainlanes (through lanes)
2. Interstate 285 mainlanes (through lanes)
3. Northbound Interstate 85 ramp to Interstate 285 northbound
4. Southbound Interstate 285 ramp to Interstate 85 northbound
5. Southbound Interstate 85 feeder which continues south as the Interstate 85 southbound service road (towards the upper left of the image (northwest side of the interchange)

All five levels do not have do be directly on top of another. For example, see the interchange between the 105 and the 110 in Los Angeles (mentioned as a five-level at Stack interchange#External links) or the 5 five-level interchanges along Beltway 8 in Houston (at Interstate 45 North satellite, U.S. 290 satellite[1], Interstate 10 West satellite[2], U.S. 59 (southwest of Houston) satellite[3], and Interstate 45 South satellite[4]).

Wow, you're right. Take a look at the definition of five-level stacks; it actually mentions this particular interchange. So then the article needs to discuss that this is not a traditional four-level stack, IMO; I reckon that even many Atlantans do not know this trivia point.

BTW, you need to sign your entries. ;) toll_booth 04:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the 5th level only connects to I-85 South, not to the southbound frontage road (Dekalb Technology Parkway). I also disagree with calling the 5th level a "frontage road" or "feeder". I would call it a ramp and changed the article accordingly. You can't get to any surface streets from it and it's definitely not a surface road itself. (A frontage road is a type of surface road.) From the north (northeast, actually): it starts as a frontage road from Pleasantdale Road, but splits from the access road, then it merges with a ramp from Northcrest Road, then splits from ramps to I-285 East and West, goes over the top, merges with a ramp from I-285 West, and finally merges with I-85 South. After the final merge, the rightmost lane becomes an exit-only lane for the Chamblee-Tucker/I-85 interchange.

I don't know why they built it on the 5th level. There is a parallel exit ramp from I-85 North to Northcrest and Pleasantdale Roads, but it crosses under I-285 on the bottom level before going up over a ramp. There are also ramps paralleling I-285 on the second level. Perhaps they had difficulty working around the small hills and buildings on the northwest side of I-85. There also might have more room east of the interchange because they didn't provide any access from the Chamblee-Tucker/I-285 interchange to I-85 (North or South). In all other cases, it is possible to get from the adjacent interchanges to any direction on I-85 or I-285 and visa-versa.

BTW, I-285 is considered to being going east and west there, not north/south. Also, even though I live less than 2 miles from Spaghetti Junction and use that ramp all the time, I never thought of it as a fifth level. It just seems damned high. EMan (talk) 18:21, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

References

I saw the Reference tag and was able to come up with what looked like the source of the "Types of interchange" paragraph. It looks like we may have some copyright issues here; the text in the referenced article almost looks copied word-for-word. That, and the numbers may have changed (i.e., it wouldn't surprise me if Spaghetti Junction handles a lot more than 300k cars/day now). toll_booth 04:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Updated article

I made the following changes to the article:

1. "Spaghetti Junction Atlanta" now redirects here.
2. Cited a source for the opening paragraphs.
3. Removed the Citation-Needed tag.
4. Added detail to the five-level stack note but left a cautionary note that this may not be accurate, just in case. The only reference I could find was wiki's Stack Interchange article, and the claim is not cited there. toll_booth 20:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I misread the five level stack note and erased the request for reference. I apologize. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.219.164 (talk) 02:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem. =] toll_booth (talk) 17:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Downgraded this article's article's importance from High to Mid. Spaghetti Junction is arguably the best-known interchange in the Atlanta area (at least by name). However, IMO a thorough article on it would simply be a collection of trivia, not critical information. Feel free to disagree with this though. =] toll_booth (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)