What's the translation of “surface roads" in French?
“Surface roads" in English can be defined as follows:
a road or street level with its surroundings. Example: surface roads and elevated highways.
Google translate translates "surface roads" as "route de surface", but Googling "route de surface" returns fewer than 100 results which makes me wonder whether there exists a more common phrase. No luck on https://www.linguee.com/english-french/search?source=auto&query=surface+roads either.
A surface road is a regular road whose surface is at the same level (elevation) that the roads it crosses and thus is not avoiding direct crossroads by using bridges, viaducts and possibly tunnels like fast traffic roads do.
I would then suggest réseau secondaire, route secondaire or réseau traditionnel as opposite to autoroute / voie rapide (freeway/expressway/motorway).
A very common name for these surface roads is also petites routes:
"On prend les petites routes pour découvrir les choses. On vient d'aller à l'office du tourisme pour regarder ce qu'il y a dans le secteur" explique-t-il. "En passant par les petites routes, on peut voir les paysages !" complète Stéphanie. "On va aller à l'île Bouchard avec la petite route pour bien découvrir la région" poursuit-elle.
France-Bleu, 2020
Surface road (petite route):
Non surface roads:
Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels
Photo by clemthi2 from FreeImages
Reference: What does surface road mean? EnglishForums.com
Note that translating "surface road" by route plane doesn't make sense. On the opposite, a non surface road is more likely to stay plane when for using bridges and flyovers while a surface road will go down and up following the slopes of the land.
Here is an obvious example showing a surface street or road is not necessarily flat:
Aerial view of Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles, California. United States:
Highsmith, Carol M, photographer. California, Los Angeles, 2012. Photograph.
And a document characterizing Mulholland drive as a surface street:
Environmental Impact Analysis
[...]
An extensive surface street network, including Mulholland Drive and Topanga Canyon Boulevard, provides access to and from the project site and surrounding uses.
Source: saveoaksavanna
The concept in itself does not exist in French at all. As has been said by others, the closest translation would be "une route de plain-pied" but no French people would understand what you mean.
So, instead of using a single word, unfortunately you have to use a sentence that explains the whole concept, for instance by saying "les routes qui sont de meme niveau que leur environnement"
Dans un taxi, par exemple :
-Where to?
-Downtown. 312 North Spring Street.
-Downtown.
-Hold on. Take Sepulveda to Slauson to La Brea. Take La Brea north to 6th, into downtown.
-I'll take 105 east to the 110. It's faster.
-What?
-The 105 to the 110 will get you there quicker.
-The 110 turns into a parking lot around USC.
-But once you get to La Brea north of Santa Monica, it's jammed.
-The 110 north of the 10, you get people driving to Pasadena and they drive slow.
-Yeah, they do, but what I do is I get off on Grand and then l... Surface roads is what you want, that's what we'll do.Extrait altéré du dialogue dans Collateral (2004, Michael Mann)
« Prends par1 la ville, par les quartiers et pas par l'autoroute... prends (par) les rues de quartier2 et évite la voie rapide. » Ou tout simplement « (Prends n'importe quel chemin mais) évite l'autoroute ».
Par ailleurs, dans le domaine de l'urbanisme et des transports, on a repéré les termes route de/en surface et voie de/en surface (Termium), possiblement en double opposition avec (voie/route) souterraine/rapide ; ou avec d'autres nuances (routes de surface de transit, voie de surface à usage local de desserte des habitations). On aime l'approche systématique avec « réseau » discutée dans une autre réponse.
1 That's like "take (the path) by" the city instead of the highway. See meaning 43 here; that would be like "select".
2 Incidentally the French subtitles for the movie use "Si vous préférez les rues à l'autoroute, on prendra les petites rues.".
Dans le langage quotidien, on parle simplement de routes. Implicitement, cela exclut les autoroutes, les périphériques, les voies rapides et les rocades. Le code de la route désigne ces dernières par routes à accès réglementé et les indique avec ce panneau:
A) surface road
in American English
a road or street level with its surroundings
surface roads and elevated highway
Translation: les routes planes [environnantes] et l'autoroute surélevée
B) Sur routes planes :
Sur routes planes (c'est-à-dire qui restent au même niveau, sans montée ni descente
Auto-école
C) route plane
C'est à dire, pas une route ou voie surélevée ou en hauteur]
NB: Il s'agit d'une description de voie qui est "sur la superficie du terrain" et pas surélevée.
Everything that is flat and UNDER the overpass is referred to as the surface road. The name became official LATER, after the overpass was removed.
After the overpass was removed, the name stuck: Surface Road, but it goes back to the time of the overpass:
The pictures are from Boston Magazine Boston Magazine: Before and After
Also, in New York:
By 1989, the old elevated highway structure was totally dismantled except for a small portion from 59th Street to 72nd Street, which, in effect, became the southern extension of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Eventually, a grade-level six lane "urban boulevard" was built, which is generally referred to as the West Side Highway, although the elements of it use the names of the surface streets which existed before the elevated highway was built: West Street, Eleventh Avenue and Twelfth Avenue. It connects to the remaining elevated structure via a ramp at 57th Street. [Bolding mine]
