The AARoads Blog

I had an IM with my friend Jack earlier this evening and he asked when the next New York update would come to the site. I mentioned the I-490 and i-590 updates from last month, but that I had nothing on the imediate agenda with my continued work on the Florida Keys and a brief focus on Washington/Oregon with updates from Matt Strieby. Anyway, I still have a lot of New York material for inclusion on the website. Here’s a preview of some of it:

(more…)

The Cleveland Memorial Shoreway is a fantastic road that runs almost right along Lake Erie through downtown and northeastern Cleveland. It is signed, portionally, as Ohio 2 and I-90. The city of Cleveland has drafted and approved a plan to tear down a long elevated section of the freeway to turn into an at-grade urban boulevard – all in the name of urban renewal. Luckily, aaroads has it well photographed now. Here are some photos and, as always, click each photo for a larger version.

The shoreway runs over the Cuyahoga River on a surprisingly new viaduct. The road is literally within spitting distance of downtown buildings on either side.

(more…)

I know that there are many of us road enthusiasts out there who also consider themselves weather junkies. Personally for me, I know several road people that are either meteorologists, studying weather in college, or are about as obsessive about the weather as they are roads. I fall under the category of road junkie who loves weather, though I did study it in college.
So what happens when the two interests come together, such as roadding and thunderstorms, or taking road photos during a snowstorm? Well, part of what happens for me is the excitement of the weather comingled with the excitement of exploring new roads. The other part that happens is, oh crap, my photos are not gonna turn out with all of this rain. Either way there is a level of enjoyment and perhaps a level of frustration to encounter. How can you enjoy the weather if you are stuck in a car during gridlock for instance?
With this in mind, here is a suite of photos showing what sometimes happens or what thoughts cross my mind when mother nature downpours during a day of roadding…

(more…)

We decided to head to Picnic Island in south Tampa today, but first I wanted to document the historic west end of U.S. 92 in Tampa today for Dale Sanderson. For a period of time, U.S. 92 traveled west to Tampa from Plant City and ended at U.S. 41 (Nebraska Avenue) via Hillsborough Avenue. The highway was then extended west to its present terminus in St. Petersburg (junction of Florida 595 and 687). So we took the opportunity to document all of the perspectives of that intersection, which includes the beginning of signed Florida 45 (Florida 45 is the secret state road for U.S. 41 north of Hillsborough Avenue).

After that, we traveled south along Florida 45 into downtown Tampa where he hooked up with the LeRoy Selmon – Tampa Crosstown Expressway, otherwise known as Florida 618 Toll. The four-lane highway travels a viaduct through the central business district area and along railroad right-of-way from the Hillsborough River south to junction U.S. 92 (Dale Mabry Highway/Gandy Boulevard) near MacDill A.F.B. The toll road is notable in that it features elevated reversible lanes, a facility that opened to traffic from the downtown area to Brandon just last month.

(more…)

Cleveland’s Public Square is the heart of the city, and is the home of the termini for US 42, 322, and 422 along with a host of Ohio state routes. In addition, US 6 and US 20 pass through the square.

The US 42 end sign in Cleveland’s Public Square

(more…)

My mind wanders a lot, especially about roads, and tonight ever so randomly I was thinking of bridges, and bridges in New York City and its metro in particular. So with that stated I thought I would share some images of bridges not covered on AARoads or new coverage not yet added. These images will eventually be added to North East Roads @ AARoads, but for now here’s a few to comtemplate.

(more…)

I spent the better part of the last 8 days traveling around the upper Gulf Coast in southern Alabama and northwest Florida. I drove much of U.S. 98 along the coast in northwest Florida and U.S. 90 parallel to Interstate 10 east of Crestview and again through Tallahassee. Also covered was just about every road in the lower third of Baldwin County, Alabama.

(more…)

I headed out to El Paso on Monday to attempt to get some updated photos and add to our coverage around the city. Key word was attempted – due to an extreme monsoonal flow, most of the photo opportunities were rained out.

Greenout has come to Texas – all of the older exit numbers on US 54 were covered with Clearview greenout on both the Exit tab and the number tab. It reminded me of some of the things done by Caltrans – photos are on the new US 54 page. I am still trying to find out why the numbers were changed (rather than beginning with zero, they now begin with 20).

The 80 MPH speed limit starts around Mile 61 and is very well signed. I’ve also added more photos to IH-110 and IH-10 around El Paso, and have a few that I could salvage from Loop 375 to be added in the near future.

Flooding was already becoming a problem on Monday, and there are many street closures and partial closures of IH-10 in El Paso. The Rio Grande is at it’s highest level since the 1950s, threatening US 85 which was already partially flooded when I drove it.

Later this year (and with better weather) I’ll attempt another El Paso run. After these photos are done, I have a stack of IH-10 westbound photos around Houston to post.