Rediseño geométrico de la intersección con Rotonda en la Av. La República y Av. Martha Bucaram en el cantón Huaquillas

Abstract

Road networks are, if not the most important, one of the most important infrastructures of civilizations. Within cities, there are growing challenges with respect to urban mobility; population growth forces municipal governments to create integrated plans to maintain harmony in traffic circulation and to make human and goods transportation efficient, both within the city and in its communication with the rest of the population. This project analyzes the traffic circle intersection between Av. La República and Av. Martha Bucaram, in the city of Huaquillas. The main road, Av. La República, marks the entrance to the city from the southeast and continues towards the commercial center to the northwest, with four lanes of traffic and a central flowerbed. Martha Bucaram Avenue, on the other hand, is a two-lane collector road that carries traffic in a northeast-southwest direction. Traffic circulation within the traffic circle, specifically when accessing the main avenue, presents defects, the paths followed by vehicles are not aligned with the existing lanes. This problem is addressed with a geometric analysis, a topographic survey was carried out with the use of drones and by means of photogrammetry the planimetry and altimetry of the intersection was obtained. In addition, in order to know the traffic reality, vehicle gauging was carried out and recorded for a week. The geometry of the intersection reveals that the deflector islands of La República Avenue do not correctly guide the traffic towards the traffic circle. Measuring the entrance radii of the traffic islands reveals that they do not comply with road design regulations. The traffic islands have practically no radius of curvature, which leads to erroneous trajectories. Based on the regulations set forth by the Federal Highway Administration, FHWA and coinciding with the design manuals of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, a redesign of the intersection geometry is proposed. CAD design software was used for the modeling and compared with the orthophoto. As expected, the deflector islands are the cause of the conflict. On the one hand, they do not respect a constant width in the traffic ring of the traffic circle and do not direct the traffic tangentially to the ring as they should. The new layout respects two initial premises, not modifying the diameter of the central island and providing a solution to the routes without invading adjacent properties. The lanes of the branches maintain the 3.65 meters specified by the Ecuadorian Road Standard and the circulation in the traffic circle respects the minimum 4.3 meters per lane dictated by FHWA. The entrance and exit radii on the secondary road comply with the minimum of 30 and 40 meters, respectively. On the main road, radii of 80 meters were established, except for the northwest exit, where a radius of 100 meters was determined. The intervention harmonizes the path of vehicles, both entering and exiting the traffic circle, and is projected with a total term of 61 calendar days and a budget of US$52955.16.