Thread by @Asnowtimes

Recently, I started to drive on the roads around my location in #Belgium. I knew this country never really cared about doing things well, especially when it comes to urbanism. Let me show you... the infamous N98, Jemeppe-Sur-Sambre !

The N98 is a national road that has been upgraded to a 4 lanes mini-highway. Although, it lacks all the safety features of a real highway and is limited to 90kph. Here is the section I'm talking about.

The first issue is that this 4 lanes mess cuts through neighborhoods. And whoever built this didn't bother much about how it does it. No sidewalks and no cycle lanes (although in #Wallonia, that is never to be expected) for you ! And how about living on an exit ramp ?

They also completly failed every single intersection. In some cases, they actually applied the highway standards but... not fully. Like this :

But the most dangerous places are the following ones. I guess that either because they didn't have enough money to build propre infrastructure or because of this proximity of close neighborhoods and existing roads, they decided to just... you know, connect the roads. Like that :

I can tell you that it is very stressful to try to engage on this highway when you are completely stopped, watching those trucks rushing at 90kph on the lane you're supposed to hop on. But, as usual, this what can be called "stroad" is dangerous especially for pedestrians.

In 2012, a 3 years old child dies on this very road. As you can see, there is a big mall alongside the N98. There is no fence between the parkings and the road. The child, in a moment of inattention from the parents, wandered around... what a sad story.

As a result, they put those big fences on top of the concrete seperation. But... there still isn't any fence at all between the parkings and the dangerous road. I guess they're waiting until another deadly and sad accident happens.

Wallonia is full of that kind of messy, but mostly very dangerous places. I hate driving there, I hate going at this mall, I hate everything about this whole area. That 4 lanes upgrade ruined everything around itself, leading to a very depressing and morose environement.