Talk:Carriageway

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Standard width

standard width of carriageway???

who know? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.50.179.90 (talk • contribs) 05:35, 8 September 2008

Use of term "carriageway" in North America

US English doesn't seem to have a good equivalent for "carriageway"; the term isn't well-known outside of its use by roadgeeks. "Roadway" seems to be used mostly by transportation agencies & organizations. (We use the term "roadway", just not in the specific sense of "carriageway".) Google searches yielded the following terms: "lanes" (used by state transportation departments and the general public), "side" & "direction" (used by the public), and the singular "lane" (which seems wrong, but which is often used by media outlets.)

Thus, you will hear "the northbound lanes", "the westbound side of the Interstate", "traffic going in the opposite direction on the highway", and, as in my included reference, "both lanes of the six-lane expressway", or "the accident blocked the southbound lane of the freeway, so traffic was stopped."

I'm not certain about the usage in Canadian English, but from what I can find, Canadians don't commonly use "carriageway" either, and I found examples at least of "lanes".

This might seem like original research, but these usages are commonly known by most Americans. I couldn't find any straightforward dictionary-type references for them, but I think the folks at alt.usage.english provided a fairly definitive discussion of the topic. --Chaswmsday (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]