Ring road - Definition and Overview

A beltway (American English), ring road or orbital motorway (British English) is a circumferential highway found around many cities. Often it originally enclosed the built up area and was later encroached upon by developed areas - and some cities have proposed or built second and even third beltways. In the United States, many beltways are part of the Interstate highway system.

The main purpose of beltways is deflecting some traffic from the city.

List of Beltways Around The World

Africa

South Africa has the most advanced road system of any African country - a legacy of the Apartheid government. Most of the major cities' ring roads were built in the 1970s. Well constructed, they are on par with the best in the Western world.

The list of significant South African metropolitan ring roads are shown here:

• Johannesburg Ring Road
• Durban Outer Ring Road
• Peninsula Expressway, Cape Town
• Pretoria Bypass

Americas

• Capital Beltway - (I-495) - Washington, DC, USA
• Route 128 - Massachusetts State Highway 128 - Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Perimeter - I-285 - Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• Baltimore Beltway - (I-695) - Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• I-275 - Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
• Gene Snyder Freeway - Louisville, Kentucky, USA
• Watterson Expressway (I-264) - Louisville, Kentucky, USA
• I-465 - Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
• Tennessee State Route 840 - Nashville, Tennessee (unfinished), USA
• I-270 - Columbus, Ohio, USA
• Perimeter Highway - Winnipeg, Manitoba
• I-435 - Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas City, Kansas metropolitan area, USA
• I-494/I-694 - Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area
• The 610 Loop (I-610) - Houston, Texas,USA

Asia

• 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Ring Roads - Beijing, China
• 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ring Roads - Chengdu, China
• Shenyang Round City Expressway - Shenyang, China
• Tangshan Round City Expressway - Tangshan, China
• Inner, Middle and Outer Ring Roads - Tianjin, China

Australia

• New South Wales
  • M7 Motorway, Sydney
• Victoria
  • Western/Metropolitan Ring Road, Melbourne
  • Geelong Ring Road, Geelong
• Queensland
  • Brisbane Orbital, comprising:
    • Gateway Motorway (eastern orbital), Brisbane
    • Logan Motorway (southern orbital), Brisbane
    • Western Bypass Motorway (proposed western orbital), Brisbane
  • Inner City Bypass (inner north ring road)
• Western Australia
  • Roe Hwy(eastern orbital),Perth
  • Roe Fwy(southern orbital), Perth
  • Bunbury Ring Road (proposed outer bypass), Bunbury

Europe

• Attiki Odos - Athens, Greece
• Greece Interstate 4 - Thessalonike Beltway - Thessaloníke, Greece
• Greece Interstate 8A - Patras Beltway - Patras, Greece (Roitika to near University of Patras)
• Périphérique - Paris, France
• M25 motorway - London, England
• M50 motorway - Dublin, Ireland
• M60 motorway - Manchester, England
• M30 motorway - Madrid, Spain
• Antwerpse Ring (R1) - Antwerp,Belgium
• Brussels Ring (R0) - Brussels, Belgium