The US's most pathetic highways

[bfairin 1]

I had to reply to this thread. Being an over the road truck driver with over half a million miles on the road I have seen the worst that this country has to offer in highways. Let me start by listing a couple of nice highways:

Almost any four lane in Wisconsin. Wisconsin has some of the highest gas taxes in the country and the condition of their roads reflect that. I particularly like US 151 between Dubuque and Madison, US 10 west of Appleton, I-39 north of Portage, and I-43 north of Milwaukee. 

I hate Ohio because of the 55 mph truck speed limit but they do have a few nice roads in their state. US 35 between Dayton and Chillicothe and US 30 from Upper Sandusky to Mansfield are two of the nicest rides in that state.

Some other favorites:

I-80 in Nebraska, I-76 in Colorado, I-65 in Tennessee, I-90 in Minnesota, I-40 in Texas and Western Oklahoma, I-70 in Utah, US 160 from Walsenburg, CO to the Jct. with US 89 in Arizona (just some of the most beautiful scenery and reletivly light traveled, well maintained road. The ride over Wolf Creek Pass in CO is especially fun!).

My list of the worst:

For Congestion from allowing every shopping mall a traffic light (my DOT pet peeve):

US 280 south of  Birmingham, AL; US 74 east of Charlotte, NC; US 31 north of Indianapolis, IN; US 72 between Athens, AL and the MS stateline; US 30 east of Lancaster, PA and from East of Valpraisio, IN to Joliet, IL.

For Congestion due to the lack of travel lanes:

I-95 from the end of the NJ Turnpike over the GW Bridge through the Cross Bronx Expressway and NE Thruway onto the Connecticut Turnpike until New Haven, CT;  I-80/94 south of Chicago; I-94 through Chicago, I-76 better known as the Schuykill Expressway in Philadelphia,  I-17 north of Phoenix;  I-35 through Austin, TX; the whole length of  I-81; and last but not least , I-40 better known as "The Gorge" in TN and NC.

For poorly designed and dangerous roads:

I-95 from the end of the NJ Turnpike over the GW Bridge through the Cross Bronx Expressway and NE Thruway onto the Connecticut Turnpike until New Haven, CT; The Pennsylvania Turnpike, I-44 through Rolla, MO; I-65 through Montgomery, AL; I-75 through Chattanooga, TN and north of Atlanta; I-26 south of Asheville, NC; I-95 through PA, I-78 (the whole road from the jct with I-81 to the Holland Tunnel); I-86 in NY; I-15 in CA; I-35 north of Kansas City and I could keep going on but those encompass some of the worst.

My absolutely most hated stretch of highway in these United States:

US 280 South of Birmingham. I dread having to drive this road when sent to our customers in Cildersburg, AL and Opelika, AL.

Anyways thanks for allowing me to get all that off my chest!

[jglei701 8]

I think bfairin has just about ended this discussion... an OTR truck driver, who's been just about everywhere!

Nice post!

[thundercrack83 0]

I think there is a consensus that most, if not all roads in Pennsylvania are garbage, for some reason or another. I-99, or "The Road Paterno Built," The Schuylkill Expressway, I-78 through Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, the Northeast Extension (the whole PA Turnpike, for that matter), I-80 from Bloomsburg to the New Jersey border (personally, my most hated stretch of road in the state). And that's just the interstates. The state highways in PA are a disaster. PA-61 from Schuylkill County to Reading seems like it was planned by an infant. US 11-15? Trash. For some reason from Selinsgrove to about Marysville, PA, all there is along US 11-15 is Sheetz gas stations and porno stores...

[Duke87 1,070]

Well, I-99 isn't a bad highway, it just always gets ragged on because it's numbering breaks the rules.

I-95 through the northeastern US is (except the Cross Bronx Epressway) not poorly built or designed, just overcrowded. And in many of the crowded places, no easy solution exists, since there is no room to expand the highway without outright double-decking it. Alternate routes are doable in a ot of places, but with things such as they are in this part of the country building a completely new highay is such an ordeal of red tape that it almost never happens anymore. Almost every highway plan gets shot down by local opposition. After all, no one wants a highway in their backyard, or worse, where their house now stands. And since so much power has been given to the people on these things, you can't build a new highway through any significanty developed area anymore. The result? Urban areas are always a mess of traffic jams due to lack of transportation infrastructure.

We seriously need another Robert Moses type character to come about. No progress will ever happen otherwise.

[josefmayor 8]

Gunn HWY in North Tampa, absolute worst, backed up for 3 miles every morning, they refuse to widen it at all, it's just a 2 lane country highway.

I-75 inbetween S.R 582A and S.R 582 (University of South Florida) is pretty bad

I-275 and I-4, known as Malfunction Junction round here, is terrible.

[thundercrack83 0]

Valid point. I think even more than the numbering is the fact that it starts and ends in the middle of nowhere and isn't traversed enough to be considered as an "interstate."

[Duke87 1,070]

Well, it starts at an (indirect) junction with I-70/76. And while it currently ends in the middle of nowhere, within a few years it'll end at I-80. Eventually It'll end on I-86 in Painted Post, New York.

Looking at a map may make it look like it would make sense to then renumber I-390 as part of I-99, but no such thing is planned.

[sonar1313 1]

Here's a freeway I'm kinda surprised nobody's mentioned. I-279 through Pittsburgh. I've driven it as a scenic detour (I think Pittsburgh is a beautiful city) and lemme tell ya, if you're not familiar with the area or not on your toes, you will exit in places you didn't mean to. As you approach the Allegheny River going south, you need to be in the right-hand lanes, or you'll exit on 579. You then need to zig all the way over to the left as you drive between the stadiums, or you'll exit. Then as you cross the bridge and the park, you need to zag back to the right, or exit yet again. The best part is, the freeway stacks up - as you cross the bridge, you're underneath another level of freeway, with large concrete beams laid out across the road above for support.....and the signs pointing you in the right direction are in between the beams, so you can't see them til you're almost underneath them, leaving you just enough time to figure out the correct lane.

I-5 in Seattle is awful as well. Its design is not bad, but the problem is the geography of the area means the city is strongly north-south aligned, so I-5 is more or less the only way to get from any one place in the metro area to any other.

Another freeway that badly needs a renumbering is I-12. By all rights it should be called I-610 or some such.

Oh.  Somebody mentioned a drawbridge, which reminded me to post about I-264 in Norfolk.  264 is built across a drawbridge as well.  It's almost directly followed (or directly preceded, depending on your direction) by a tunnel, and don't get me started on Norfolk drivers and tunnels.  The drawbridge is there for several reasons.  One, it predates the interstate - they built a second, matching span for the freeway.  Two, Norfolk is a shipping city, and the river/bay bottom is soft and sandy and doesn't allow for tall spans - hence the proliferation of bridge-tunnels.  And three, a tunnel would have been expensive and wouldn't have allowed exits to either downtown or the shipyard across the river, or any interchange with I-464 to the south.  The upshot of the drawbridge is, of course, the occasional bridge lift.  Traffic reports on the radio in Norfolk generally leave out the words "backed up" or "stopped" in order to save time, and because it would be redundant day after day.  Tunnels make big jams, so they will just breeze through the reports by saying things like "HRBT to Mallory eastbound, all the way to Granby westbound, Downtown Tunnel to City Hall and Effingham" when what they mean is "Expect to wait 45 minutes if you venture anywhere past Granby Street on 64, sucker", and this is generally accepted as a way of life.

[Adam_West 0]

Having been a resident of the Keystone State for the past 23 years and having driven all over the eastern US for one reason or the other in that time, I can attest that good ol' PA has the WORST highway system east of the Mississippi. You don't need "Welcome to Pennsylvania" signs to tell you when you've crossed the border... just take note of the uneven pavement ripping your undercarridge to shreds.

Of particular note/irritation:

The Schuylkill Expressway: There's a reason this thing is nicknamed "Shure-Kill". Built in the late 1940s and never really expanded since then. The interchange with the PA Turnpike at King-of-Prussia is a giant mess as people exiting the tollbooth onto the Expressway decide to merge into the righthand lane (from six lanes over). The Conshohocken Curve will thrill you as you take a hairpin turn through a ravine above the river featuring mudslides, falling rocks, and an icy bridge from November to Februrary. Finally, once you hit Philly proper, the roadway starts shedding lanes left and right, until you find yourself in a narrow, below-grade level chute, hurtling towards off-ramps that have a nasty prediliction for ending in narrow, two-lane (often one-way) intersections.

US-22: Nicknamed the "Hex Highway" obstinately due to the number of barns painted with PA Dutch folk art that this highway passes as it cuts through the state--I prefer to think of it as signatory of anyone having the bad luck to travel 22 for any length of time. Is it four lanes? Two lanes? Limited access? Open? What's the speed limit? 65? 55? 35 (in one completely deserted section of Lebanon County where the nearest human construction is a sewage treatment plant and a chicken processing factory) Wait five miles. Things will change. The only constant along its length is the miserable road quality--which incidentally bleeds over into neighboring Ohio and NJ.

I-376/US-30/US-22: Six lanes of fun through downtown Pittsburgh, terminated by bottlenecks at the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and Fort Pitt Bridge/Tunnel. River on one side, big cliff on the other--and forget about trying to enter or exit--a lot of those onramps look about as steep as the Duquesne Incline.

I-99: The Road to Nowhere. Was supposed to connect I-76 to I-80, but never quite made it (it might actually get finished this decade). It's actually a surprise for PA...a very nice, well maintained road... which just happens to have NO ONE ON IT. I drive the length of 99 as far as Altoona on a regular basis going back and forth to school from my hometown and routinely open up the accelerator into triple digits because it's totally deserted. The kicker is that there's still a ton of construction on this white elephant--overpass upgrades and stuff... but no one ever seems to be at any of the construction zones...

[thundercrack83 0]

Adam_West: As a fellow Pennsylvanian, I agree wholeheartedly! I would add PA-61 to the list. From Schuylkill County to Reading, PA-61 is very dangerous. I-78 around Allentown is brutal, too, but I guess that would work in conjunction with your description of US-22. I will disagree on your take on I-376 from Monroeville into Pittsburgh. It may be a bad road, but it's fun to drive on.

[sonar1313 1]

I'm not a Pennsylvanian, but I've had the misfortune of driving Pennsylvania highways fairly frequently. I agree with you both. I actually like the state quite a bit, but the highways are the most godawful creations anywhere. Obviously Breezewood is a particular point of hatred for me. Encountering a traffic light despite never actually exiting the freeway is preposterous. And I can't remember where exactly (I know it's somewhere near Washington where I-79 and I-70 meet for a while - I think it happens where you're driving north on 79 and you first meet 70) the road drops to one lane and goes around a very, very, very tight ramp which drops the speed limit all the way to 25. 55 MPH speed limit on 70 between the Maryland border and Breezewood is also obnoxious. I hate Pennsylvania freeways - they are indeed the worst east of the Mississippi and probably worse than anything west of the Mississippi as well.

[edwoodisgood 0]

I-81 in central virginia is definetly one of the worst i've ever been on. Although US-29 through the town I live in, ( Charlottesville, VA) is a very close second.

[sonar1313 1]

Originally posted by: edwoodisgood I-81 in central virginia is definetly one of the worst i've ever been on. Although US-29 through the town I live in, ( Charlottesville, VA) is a very close second.quote>

 

29 is bad, but I always thought people overrated how bad it really is.  I never thought it was actually that hard to get up and down.  The only thing I hated was the sudden no-warning change of the left lane into a left-turn-only lane at University/Ivy.  Actually just about everything about that intersection blows, but that's a whole other complaint.

But 81 is in desperate need of an upgrade to three lanes the whole way down.  And fewer cops.

(I went to UVA so I definitely felt the 29 pain.  Maybe I don't hate it like most people because I purposely avoided it at the bad times of day.)

[aaron09658 0]

In Tennessee ( Where I live ) The roadways and interstates are very well kept up and are more "driver friendly" Then I have yet seen on other states ( nearly 20 states ). Illinois and Tennessee seem to have the best roads. The worst roads Ive been on were in arkansas where parts of I-40 ( I swear was actually a dirt road!) Not joking, and every mile was a sign of a road goal project.

[BigSlark 0]

bfairin:

The future of US280 in Birmingham area is that is to upgraded to a 8-lane freeway with frontage roads in the next decade, from I-459 to the Coosa River at Childersburg, with limited access going all the way to Jacksonville, FL through Georgia if Sen. Richard Shelby has his way.

As for the other bad roads, I must agree that Alabama has some of the worst. Have you ever traveled I-20/59 through the city of Birmingham itself? Going east to west, the fast lane becomes the slow lane, the curves are ridiculously sharp with very little superelevation, and lots of left on and off ramps.

On the other hand, the new freeway portions of US78/Future I-22 are amazing! The road follows the contour of the land, has high bridges, minimal cuts, forest right up to the right of way. It reminds me more of an autobahn than an Interstate. Sort of like I-20 in East Mississippi, but with much better pavement and real acceleration and deceleration lanes.

[Tarkus 6,933]

Well, there's a few I can think of in the Western US . . .

Interstate 82 in Washington state, especially the 35-mile section between Yakima and the junction with I-90 at Ellensburg. 

It's an incredible engineering feat that crosses several canyons, and goes over three mountain passes, each at about 2500 feet.  But it's still extremely pathetic.  Why?  1) It's only two lanes in each direction.  2) There's a lot of large trucks that have a hard time with the steep grade.  3) Some of those truck drivers are impatient and pull out in the fast lane doing 25mph while everyone else is doing at least 70mph.

Not a fun stretch of road.  They are supposed to widen it to three lanes, but it is going to be a few years yet.  Besides, WSDOT blew all their money on the whole Snoqualmie Pass debacle and on all those stupid roundabouts (I'm one of the few roadgeeks who is not keen on American roundabouts).

Plus, I-82 defies the numbering system, as it is north of I-84.  (Though, to be fair, I-84 was called I-80N when they built it, and they've talked about renumbering it as I-7.)

Interstate 5 between the Oregon border and Yreka, CA

There are parts of this stretch of I-5 that are actually undivided.  That's right.  No median.  Personally, I'm not keen on I-5 period and I avoid it whenever possible.  (Bring back US 99!)

Interstate 90 between Cour d'Alene, ID and the Montana border

Same deal as I-5 between Oregon and Yreka, CA.

US Highway 26 between Hillsboro, OR and Portland, OR

They overdeveloped the surrounding area and didn't bother to widen it until last year.  And when they did widen it, it sat with a really bad pavement job for about a year.  The section they widened is okay for the most part now, but they've redone the interchange with OR-217 a zillion times since they built it.

California State Route 89 (CA-89) between the I-5 junction at Mount Shasta and the CA-299 junction near Burney Falls

Narrow two-lane road with no shoulders and 65mph speed limit.  It's been a few years since I've been on this road, but last time, CalTrans was trying to patch it and royally screwed it up--it was like they installed speed bumps.  It was sort of okay before that.

I'll probably add more later . . . there's a lot of highways I can complain about in this part of the world.

-Tarkus

[Duke87 1,070]

Okay, new rule: complaints about highways breaking the numbering system rules are not allowed. Say why the highway is poorly designed, functions poorly, is poorly maintained, etc. Numbering is an afterthought here.

This also extends to complaints about weird directional assignments. Yes, I know in Virginia there's a stretch of highway that's I-81 north and I-77 south in the same direction. That doesn't make it a bad highway. It's just an odd occurance due to the local geography (and there are plenty of other weird directional situations out there).

[Equilibria 16]

Hey, PA guys, funny story.

I was driving on US-22 west of Pittsburgh on my way into WV, and we start seeing signs for something called a "driver questionnaire". I couldn't figure out what it was. Gradually, jersey barriers started to appear along the middle of the road. Traffic cones blocked off a lane. Temporary speed limit signs brought me gradually down from about 70mph, all for the mysterious "questionnaire".

You know, of course, what this thing was, you just can't believe they'd actually do it. Neither could I, but there it was: traffic cones outlining the lanes as they passed between portable picnic tables. This was summer, and they actually had some poor interns standing out there in over 100 degree heat stopping every driver on a major highway dead in their tracks to hand out PDOT survey forms, which (I am still not making this up) you were expected to mail back to them.

As a free gift, they handed out PA highway maps. Very handy when you can see the "Welcome to West Virginia" a couple hundred yards down the road...

The road, however, was well-maintained.

[octaves 4]

Oh Im sure this one's been posted here, but New Hampshire charges a toll for that tiny little stretch I-95 along the coastline...I mean, come on.  It's like, 20 kilometers long.  Ugh.  I just think that is a pathetic highway.

[speedsecrets1 0]

US 95 in Las Vegas. I love las vegas, it's a great place to live, they planned to make it 8 lanes, and then they finished it four years ago knowing it wasn't going to be near enough capacity, and then a month later tore it up again to widen it to 20 lanes. And they say that wont be enough. But in the meantime its two lanes and is grated so deeply that it moves cars into the wall if you hit a bad spot. Oh yeah, and it takes 1 hour to get from Jones Blvd. to Rancho Rd. which is about 2.5 miles.

[football_fever 6]

Interesting all the MN and WI people in here. As someone that drives I-35W from Minneapolis to the suburbs daily, I nominate that one. I swear rush hour begins at noon and doesn't end until 7pm. And remember there is that stupid 35W/63 bottleneck, which has been listed as one of the worst in the nation.

Also that same stretch of interstate the opposite direction? if there is a Twins or Vikings game, forget about going anywhere. The Metrodome is positioned so cars can easily access it from 35W or I-94.

I ask myself every day what the planners were thinking with that stupid bottleneck, but there other parts of the metro are just as bad it seems. If you watch the traffic report in the morning, you can watch it turn from green to red over the course of an hour. Then I can imagine how fun my commute will be. Oh the joy. Thank god I don't live on the east coast.

[bakercity 270]

You will be suprised on here football_fever; I myself was suprised to, but i just settled on down with my fellow poeple ( Wisconsinites ). Go Pack Go. Beat them losers of MN Vikings because they suck!

[football_fever 6]

Should be an entertaining game...both Favre and Johnson are so old they need walkers

[winkosmosis 3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Bronx_Expressway

Cross Bronx was a huge mistake.

I've never personally seen any pathetic highwys though.

[MidwestSimGeek 0]

A quick rundown of evil highways I've experienced in my time...

1) US 69 through Ames, Iowa. While, in all fairness, one wouldn't expect this to be the smoothest-moving road, it gets especially craptastic once it hits town. (Part of this is because the only limited-access highways that serve the city of 50,000 are US 30, running along the far south end of town, and I-35, on the extreme eastern edge... through the city proper, you have to depend on little undivided 35 mph four-laners at best, and even these are rare. Some, like Hyland Avenue on the west end of the ISU campus, run for a mile and then abruptly quit.)

Most of the problem arises from the fact that 69 enters the city from the south as Duff Avenue, a huge strung-out low-density commercial district with no parallel alternate streets for most of its length. Then, it finally reaches another major thoroughfare (Lincoln Way), and immediately jogs west onto it -- even though it's just as closely lined with commercial buildings and has a stoplight almost every block! After following this for half a mile, 69 finally darts back north along Grand Avenue. This is all bad enough, but the ends of Duff and Grand opposite the jogs have their own problems that render them useless as alternate routes: Duff to the north has a 25 mph speed limit and two adjacent at-grade railroad crossings that carry sixty-six trains a day in alternate directions, and Grand to the south dead-ends into a grocery store parking lot! This resulted in quite the existential dilemma for me as a pizza driver when heading to far south Duff: Brave the wait for a left turn from southbound Grand to eastbound Lincoln Way and all those lights... or take Duff straight through from its humble beginnings as a city street, and risk incredible bad luck at the bidirectional railroad crossing? (I actually thought of getting railroad timetables, but figured that, in the modern political climate, I'd probably be surveilled as a potential terrorist for even asking.)

2) US 69 isn't the only lame road in Ames. The city is finally fixing Dayton Avenue north of US 30, a route that used to figure in semi drivers' nightmares. Dayton is the main access for the industrial plants on the city's east side, as well as for a major truckstop and the city's official Cheap Hotel District (six Super-8ish chain motels clumped into the far southeastern edge of the city limits, with two miles of farm fields between them and the rest of civilization.) BUT... it runs so closely parallel to I-35 that the 30/35 cloverleaf made it impossible to put in a direct exit with 30, so the city had to put in a "nub" for the exit... result being that trucks exiting 30 onto this nub have to stop at the end of the nub, make an almost immediate right onto SE 16th (the 30 frontage road), stop AGAIN after a quarter-mile, and finally proceed left on Dayton. (Yes, that's right -- even though Dayton proper runs for precisely ONE BLOCK south of 16th before dead-ending at US 30, the city gave it the right-of-way so guests at the ONE hotel that fronts on the dead-end wouldn't have to stop.) Last year, they finally started construction on a chicane (dog-leg) from the end of the nub over to a point half a mile up Dayton proper.

3) University Avenue through Windsor Heights (an affluent first-ring suburb just west of Des Moines.) It's four lanes, and not only divided, but divided quite nicely (if memory serves, the medians are a good eight or ten feet wide). Along its Windsor Heights length, the properties fronting it are almost exclusively commercial. A few city streets intersect it, and there's a couple of stoplights (just enough to ensure safe cross-route and pedestrian access without being ~Edited for language~ annoying or dangerous.) Visibility is great the whole way (good old Midwestern open views). YET... this road is posted at 25 miles per hour!!!! (And before you ask, it's not just because the city fathers think it's a good way to trick folks into going their real target speed of 30... they actually hand out tickets to people going 26 and 27. Meanwhile, one state to the north, you can go 30 completely unmolested on much narrower two-lane streets directly lined with single-family homes.) What's more, a City Council meeting in 2004, where they discussed raising the limit to 30 to be more consistent with similar roads in the Des Moines area, featured a man who just about went into orbit screaming THE CHILDREN, THE CHILDREN, WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?!?!??!?!

[Socorocks 7]

Oh, yes... My fellow Southern Californians, how could we forget the ignominious CA 91. Don't forget about that wild and crazy, $15 billion, 11-mile tunnel proposal under the Santa Anas between Irvine and Corona! Fun. Four miles from my home. Can't wait for that one to be approved.

[DOXXP29 5]

Winkosmosis, there was something pathetic about the Cross Bronx Expressway, though it was the scenery when driving on it as opposed to the road itself. In the late '70's and early '80's, there were so many abandoned and burned out buildings that NYC was concerned about people who were driving through on 95 seeing what deplorable condition the place was in. Someone in the city came up with this brilliant idea: paint the plywood over the windows to look like someone was actually living in these burn outs. Now drivers passing through would see plants in the windows, cats on the window sills, outlines of a family serving dinner, etc, etc. Of course they didn't really exist, but to someone unfamiliar and passing by at high speed, they figured it would work and would dupe the travellers into believing the buildings were occupied with happy families. Now THAT is really PATHETIC!

[Duke87 1,070]

Well, the Cross Bronx is a crappy highway, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a mistake. After all, a crappy highway is better than no highway. Besides, if it didn't exist, where woud all those people who jam pack it to what it is today be going? They'd have to go elsewhere, making traffic worse elsewhere.

Not to mention, where would I-95 go? If not for the Cross Bronx, the GWB would likely have never recieved a second level, and I-95 would likely be stuck being routed down what's now I-278, along the Brooklyn-Queens and Gowanus Expressways (other less-than-nice highways in NYC), and meeting the Jersey Turnpike at exit 13. The part of I-95 in new jersey between exits 69 and 74 would likely be part of I-80 instead (and, coincidentally, the exit numbers wouldn't be any different, since the mileposting on I-80 happens to just about meet that of I-95 there)

Point being, no matter how bad a highway is, you can never say building it was a mistake. You can say it could have been built better, but ultimately, more transportation capacity is always better than less, since it means more ways for people to get places.

Though, what really concerns me about NYC area highways is what would happen in the event of some severe emergency that required the entire metro area to be evacuated. Given how many people there are and the way the network is, a complete removal of people from the area would take days, maybe even weeks. That's not good when there's a tsunami coming in a few hours. Or a dirty bomb spreading fallout where the faster you get out, the better.

[timotheus4 39]

I lived in Pennsylvania for several years, near the border with Delaware. You could tell when you crossed into Delaware because the roads got better!

I have been down I-97 a couple of times...it's not so bad as you think. It's very short, to be sure, but fairly important for that section of MD.

I-70, as I recall, has a stoplight in Breezewood. That is pathetic.

And the evil Barbara Mikulski is responsible for any and all traffic jams you encounter in Baltimore, for the moronic nixing of a plan to unite I-95, I-83, and I-70. They all go within one mile of each other but they don't connect. You have to use the Baltimore beltway to get from one to the next. Totally pathetic.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: timotheus4

I-70, as I recall, has a stoplight in Breezewood. That is pathetic.

quote>

Actually, it has two. Going westbound, the highway ends, you make a right turn onto a local street, then another right onto the PA Turnpike entereance ramp.It would be fairly easy to build a couple ramps to link the highway with the PA Tpk ramps (they in fact even cross), and PADOT wanted to. The reason it wasn't done? The businesses along that short stretch of local street I-70 uses loudy protested it. After all, it would mean a lot of lost busines to them!

And the evil Barbara Mikulski is responsible for any and all traffic jams you encounter in Baltimore, for the moronic nixing of a plan to unite I-95, I-83, and I-70. They all go within one mile of each other but they don't connect. You have to use the Baltimore beltway to get from one to the next. Totally pathetic.quote>

Well, for I-83 to I-95, you're meant to use Martin Luther King Boulevard to make the connection. Of course, mapquest will never send you that way since it means getting off the highway. And a lot of people don't like getting of the highway before they reach their destination just to get back on it again, anyway. Hence MLK Blvd is a city street and not the connecting arterial it was intended to be.