Dagen H, via @joemaller.
A perfect example of why it’s important to make early and critical design decisions on with a good helping of foresight. Damn, that must have been a crazy day!
Posted on Wednesday, 21 May 2008
On Dagen H, Sunday 3 September 1967 (the day on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right), all non-essential traffic was banned from the roads from 01:00 to 06:00. Any vehicles on the roads during that time had to follow special rules. All vehicles had to come to a complete stop at 04:50, then carefully change to the right-hand side of the road and stop again before being allowed to proceed at 05:00.
In Stockholm and Malmö, however, the ban was longer to allow work crews to reconfigure intersections: there it ran from 10:00 on Saturday until 15:00 on Sunday. Certain other towns also saw an extended ban: from 15:00 on Saturday until 15:00 on Sunday.
One-way streets presented unique problems. Bus stops had to be constructed on the other side of the street. Intersections had to be reshaped to allow traffic to merge.
