If you ever wondered what a transportation planner’s fever dreams looked like, well here you go. This is what it looks like being on galaxy brain.
What you’re looking at is computer simulations of traffic flow through different styles of intersections, ranging from the least to the most coordinated, each of them rated for how much traffic the intersection can easily allow to flow through it. Think of traffic like a fluid here, streams of traffic moving like streams of water.
What makes this video so great is that it ignores all concerns outside of flow rate. What if we dropped a gigantic concrete swastika into the middle of a city? Why not! The flow rate is awesome.
What if we made people drive against traffic while three stories off the ground in a spaghetti junction big enough to require us to bulldoze four low-income neighborhoods? Great! Look at that flow rate!
I hope that there are some highway planners watching this video right now, drooling and doodling at their desks, just itching for the next powerpoint they can put together showing why Topeka totally needs a diverging diamond interchange.