Arterial road
high-capacity urban road
An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below highways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector roads to highways or expressways, and between urban hubs at a relatively high level of service. Therefore, many arteries are limited-access roads or feature restrictions on private access. Because of their relatively high accessibility, many major roads face large amounts of land use and urban development, making them significant urban places.
In traffic engineering hierarchy, an arterial road delivers traffic between collector roads and highways. For new arterial roads, intersections are often reduced to increase traffic flow. In California, arterial roads are usually spaced every half mile, and have intersecting collector(s) and streets.
Definition
The Traffic Engineering Handbook describes "Arterials" as being either principal or minor. Both classes serve to carry longer-distance flows between important centers of activity. The handbook also states that arterials are laid out as the backbone of a traffic network and should be designed to afford the highest level of service, as is practical.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arterial road” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.