The AARoads Blog

Yokohama is about 30 miles south of Tokyo and is Japans’ second largest city. The two cities, the nations’ largest, were connected by one freeway until the late 1980s. The government could not figure out where to put a reliever route, so in true Japanese fashion, they built one in the coolest way possible – my making a bunch of islands connected by cable stayed bridges, tunnels, and 10-story high freeway stacks out in the bay. The Yokohama Bay bridge was the first built, opened in 1989 – click the images for bigger versions.

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Let’s enjoy the last day of daylight savings time and take advantage of the 6:48 sunset. On the agenda, the elevated Express lanes of the Tampa Crosstown Expressway (Florida Toll 618), Brandon, and whatever else catches our desire.

The drive begins with a pass through the Florida 60 (Memorial Highway) and Florida 616 (Spruce Street) construction project. Underway is the upgrading of the current substandard interchange serving Tampa International Airport from the Florida 60 freeway. The present interchange involves substandard ramps, weaving traffic concerns, and close proximity to the busy exits with the Courtney Campbell Causeway (Florida 60), Memorial Highway (Hillsborough County 576), and Interstate 275. The freeway curvature coupled with the numerous on and off-ramps placed in a two-mile stretch creates havoc on morning and evening peak travel hours. The result is virtual gridlock and overall sluggishness for hours at a time. Crews are building new flyovers and collectori/distributor roadways to alleviate the problem. During the last two months, the towering pier supports at the interchange have gained steel bridge beams for the eventual flyover to Florida 616 west. The beams now join the earthened ramp approach to the west. The middle pier support however is not complete, so it will be awhile longer before the steel continues east toward the airport.

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A new stretch of freeway opened in northern Mississippi this month, and much to our surprise, it’s signed as Interstate 69! Interstate 69 presently travels between Indianapolis, Indiana and Port Huron, Michigan. The highway has been that way for years, but since the late 1990s, a proposal to extend the freeway south to Laredo, Texas slowly works toward fruition. Some states are taking a lead in the process, while others are are still planning.

Mississippi got a head start on Interstate 69 by opening a fully signed stretch in DeSoto County. During the Fall of 2006, Mississippi 304 opened as an east-west freeway between U.S. 61 and Interstate 55 in the far northern part of the state. The road improves access to Tunica from the east and also serves the growing Memphis southern suburbs. The freeway is the first step within Mississippi in the completion of Interstate 69.

As envisioned, Interstate 69 will travel southwest from Memphis to McGehee and El Dorado, Arkansas. Mississippi still has a lot of road to build, including from U.S. 61 near Memphis to Rosedale and a new Mississippi River crossing but in Arkansas, the freeway is still in the early planning stages. Memphis meanwhile plans to use part of its existing freeway network for the Interstate highway.

Robert Lee passed along several photos covering the new Interstate 69 earlier this month. Here’s a sample of what the road looks like:

Interstate 55 northbound at the east end of the new Interstate 69 & Mississippi 304 freeway. A full-cloverleaf interchange with collectori/distributor roadways facilitates the movements between the two freeways. Interstate 69 receives the control city of Tunica for the connection with U.S. 61 south.

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US 1 through the Florida Keys, from Key West to Homestead, FL is one of America’s great drives – and now its covered extensively on AAroads. Alex and I went down there in March and May of this year and took a ton of photos. Check them out, on the Florida Keys pages.

Presenting: The Aqua Line! Little known outside of Japan and civil engineering circles, it is one of the coolest things in Japan to see. Not just because of the road, but because of the amazing view.

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For those of you who follow the happenings with AASHTO, they are meeting on October 26, 2006 to review a handful of U.S. highway numbering changes, which is a regular occurance for members on their committee.

Of the items on the agenda are two pertaining to the state of Florida. The first is the elimination of U.S. 98 Alternate at Panama City Beach in Bay County on the panhandle. The 16-mile loop serves the coastal condos and beach homes to the south of the four-lane U.S. 98. Panama City Beach officials want to take over maintenance of the roadway and state that it no longer serves through traffic needs. Well having been through the area this Summer, and once in 1996, that statement is definitely true.

U.S. 98 westbound at the eastbound beginning of U.S. 98 Alternate and Panama City Beach.

Item number two involves the U.S. 98 & 301 Business loop through the Pasco County seat of Dade City. The current configuration sees the U.S. 98/301 mainline bypass the two-mile or so business loop to the east, with signs discouraging through truck traffic from downtown. The city of Dade City applied to have U.S. 98/301 Business removed so that they can take over maintenance of the route and reinforce the bypass as the truck route. Having traveled up to Dade City today to scope out the Business Loop ourselves, we can report that the route is already virtually unsigned with the exception of one sign bridge per direction on U.S. 98 & 301. Further more signs along Florida 54 sign the loop as the U.S. 98/301 mainline, while also directing traffic to U.S. 98 east of its intersection with the soon-to-be decommissioned loop. And if that was not odd enough, signs at the south end also act as if U.S. 98 and 301 split at Dade City, with U.S. 301 following the in-city routing along the loop.

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Day 5 was probably the shortest with regards to roading in the Northwest, but nonetheless full with the things that we did see. The main goal of the day was to drive Interstate 5 northward to the International Border and be back in time for dinner. From Burien we pretty much took Interstate 5 up and back, with a couple of side detours thrown in for good measure.

As mentioned previously, Interstate 5 through central Seattle features reversible express lanes and a couple of cut and cover tunnels. The freeway’s interchange with Interstate 90 is stacked, and Interstate 90 itself is double-decked.

Interstate 5 leaves the interchange with Interstate 90 and approaches downtown Seattle. The express lane split occurs ahead of the cut-and-cover tunnel sections.

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While most of Japan is served by “National Routes” with the upside-teardrop shape (see the previous Japan post) Tokyo’s Expressways are called “Shuto Expressways” and are managed by a different company, and have different route markers and different construction styles, different signs, all that. The routes even have their own numbering system. You can get a good map here (click) – it’s in Japanese but as maps go, it’s fairly self explanatory and you can run it through google’s translator.
There are two belt roads, called C1 and C2. Numbered routes radiate out clockwise. The B expressway runs along the Bay, while the tunneled Y expressway is buried under the Yaesu Neighborhood – Routes prefixed with a K serve Kanagawa prefecture, while routes prefixed with an S serve Saitama prefecture. Easy, right? Remember, click the smaller images for the larger ones – you’ll need to for these freakishly complex overhead signs. We’ll start with an easy one :

I could not figure out what this sign was for at first – until my friend translated it for me. It means, be quiet! The Japanese politeness culture extends even on to the untamed road network. Don’t play loud music, or honk, or have a loud muffler because people in the very closeby apartments might be asleep.

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After two marathon days of driving, we got together with Chris and tooled around the Seattle and Tacoma area during day 4, and then rendezvous with Andy’s cousins in Burien.

The day started off with some typical Seattle weather, even with it being late August. A rainy mist converted into light rain and then a solid sheet of rain as we ate breakfast at a local diner in Shoreline, Washington. Since Chris had to work this day, we decided for some local road stuff before dropping him off in downtown Seattle.

First up with Interstate 5 north to Interstate 405’s northern terminus. There are end and begin signs posted on the I-405 overpasses above I-5, and the freeway itself converts into the Washington 526 freeway spur north to Washington 99. Andy’s one cousin said to us “you should never take Interstate 405 under any circumstance”, or something to that effect, because of its traffic. Even with it being around 11:30 am, traffic definitely complied with that statement. As for Washingotn 526, which technically is Washington 5-26, as Washington uses an impliled route family numbering system neaning that 500 is 5-00, 501 is 5-01, etc, it provides a continuation of “the 405″ (thanks L.A.) northward to Washington 99 at Lynwood.

Interstate 405 southbound at directional-cloverleaf interchange with Washington 522 at Bothell. Washington 522 provides a freeway spur east to Woodinville. We headed south to get out of the rain, and mother nature actually complied for all points south of Interstate 90!

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I got to spend the last week and some in Japan, mostly Tokyo but with some time in rural Chiba and Kanagawa Prefectures. The freeway system in Tokyo is subpar for being the largest city in the world (or one of them) – but what’s there is astounding. Lots of double decker elevated jobs winding through skyscrapers. There will be 6 Japan posts, this one is just a primer on the guide signs they have there. As always, click the smaller photo for a larger one.

Guide signs on national expressways are green, and usually contain tons of text. This sign is on the Tateyama Expressway south of Chiba. Route numbers are shown, as are the romanji equivalents of the names of control points.

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