Adam_West

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...