Cloverleaf interchange
type of road interchange
A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange in which all turns are handled by slip roads. To go left (in right-hand traffic; reverse directions in left-driving regions), vehicles first continue as one road passes over or under the other, then exit right onto a one-way three-quarter loop ramp (270°) and merge onto the intersecting road. The objective of a cloverleaf is to allow two highways to cross without the need for any traffic to be stopped by traffic lights. The limiting factor in the capacity of a cloverleaf interchange is traffic weaving.
Overview
Cloverleaf interchanges, viewed from overhead or on maps, resemble the leaves of a four-leaf clover or less often a 3-leaf clover.
In the United States, cloverleaf interchanges existed long before the Interstate system. They were originally created for busier interchanges that the original diamond interchange system could not handle. Their chief advantage was that they were free-flowing and did not require the use of such devices as traffic signals. This not only made them a viable option for interchanges between freeways (where such devices are typically not an option), but they could also be used for very busy arterials where signals could present congestion problems.
They are common in the United States and have been used for over 40 years as the Interstate Highway System expanded rapidly.
“Cloverleaf interchange” enters the record as type of road interchange. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cloverleaf, interchange and type can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11075207. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cloverleaf interchange” 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.