Peak Period Use By All Traffic
On specially signed sections of highway in the Boston Metro Area, cars are allowed to use the shoulder as they would a normal lane during morning and evening rush hours. The same scheme is employed elsewhere, such as on Interstate 66 in Virginia between the Capital Beltway and US-50.
In the UK, usage of the hard shoulder is known as hard shoulder running. A pilot project on an 11-mile stretch of the M42 motorway, near Birmingham began in September 2006. Special signage, new laybys and a variable speed limit have been put in place to improve safety. This has proved very successful, with journey times decreasing by 26% northbound and 9% southbound. Drivers can also better predict their journey times as the variability decreased by 27%. The average accident rate dropped from 5.2 to 1.5 per month. It has also proved popular with motorists, 60% of whom want to see it expanded to other English motorways. The system has been expanded to the M6, with plans to implement it to parts of M1, M25, M60 and M62 by 2015.
Read more about this topic: Shoulder (road)
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