Roads

[jrmueller]

OK. Basic question about the correct width of urban, suburban and country roads for dioramas.  I suppose I could get out my tape measure however the way people drive around here I'd probably wind up in the hospital.  Thanks. Jim

[jbvb]

In contemporary NH, towns typically pave 10 foot lanes.  State roads try for 12'. If there's a paved shoulder (outside the white lines), they're between 2' and 10'.  60 years ago, towns were more likely to have a single paved strip 12-14' wide down the center of the RoW and dirt shoulders at the level of the pavement so vehicles could get past each other.

[bparrish]

Jim...

Great question............  It's about how much space you have and what space it might take up. If it meandering through it's one thing and if its a line across the diorama it is another.  Resist a dividing line sort of thing if you can.

It also depends on what time you are modeling.  The lane widths as noted above are good.  Soooooo

Recall the Disney notion of forced perspective...........  Don't put a Pontiac barge mobile out in the middle of the road.  The road will always look narrow.  Again depending on era being modeled, use a small box Ford of the 50's or even earlier if you can get away with it.  Use a narrow model to clutter your roads.  If you don't have curbs, parked cars can hang over into the dirt shoulder and make roads look wider than they really are. 

Coloring the road is a different conversation.

If you place Jordan vintage type vehicles they look small and work well.  Also if the road does wind around  and is variously blocked by buildings and trees, the road can be moved in width to not take up so much space but still create the illusion of going somewhere.

Hope this helps

see ya
Bob

[deemery]

Road width is a good choice for "selective compression", as long as you don't have 2 vehicles going in opposite directions so close you can see the road is too narrow :-)


dave

[jrmueller]

Thanks for the information and advice from all of you.  Should be very helpful as I start to put things together.  It was kind of interesting that there was a whole article in MR on roads but never a mention of widths.  Jim

[DaveInTheHat]

I took a guess at road width buy putting 2 tractor trailer trucks next to each other and moving them until there was space between them and on each side. For HO scale I came up with each lane being about 1.5" wide. For a parking lane I make them 1.125" wide. I keep it pretty close to those measurements when I'm going to put sidewalks in. I use plaster to make my roads, so roads without sidewalks I let the edges run a little over those measurements to look like blacktop was poured over gravel.

[rebel]

Did a lot of resurch on this subject. Roads have changed a lot over the years. In the 1930's roads in rural areas could be 18' or less, real rural 15' and people would have to pull over to let cars pass. Federal standard was 20' for awhile but changed to 22', don't remember when but before the 1950's. Modern I do not have a clue.