Getting Creative with Corridor Models

New users often ask more experienced users to teach them how to design an intersection (or a cul-de-sac, or a site, or anything) using Civil 3D. By the end of this chapter, you’ll understand why this request is not only unrealistic, but probably impossible. There are as many ways to design an intersection as there are intersections in the world.

The best you can do is to learn how the corridor tools can be applied to a few typical scenarios. But don’t take this chapter as gospel: Use the skills you learn here to create a foundation for your own models in your own design situations. Users often dismiss an intersection from being applicable to their situation because it doesn’t include a turn lane or perhaps their intersection comes together at an odd angle. This is unfortunate, because the same fundamental tools can be adapted to accommodate additional design constraints.

Another example you may consider is adapting the corridor model for use in a parking lot or in a commercial site. As you saw in Chapter 9 with stream and pipe-trench corridors, the corridor model is not a road-only tool. It can be used for ponds, berms, curbs, and gutters, and much more.

Civil 3D in general, and the corridor model specifically, won’t be truly useful to you unless you can see them as limitless, flexible models that you control to your design constraints. Build something; try something. If it doesn’t work, look back through the chapter for more ideas and keep refining, improving, and learning.