The AARoads Blog

For movie buffs, you may be surprised to know that Los Angeles’ Terminal Island Freeway is used quite often for freeway or highway related scenes set in locations nowhere near Southern California. The reasons being is because of its general location from movie studios, so its easy to get to; relatively light traffic, so its easy to close for filming; and an urban/industrial landscape, so it can simulate many different settings.

In the most recent episode of the hit NBC series Heroes, a freeway scene was shot where the character “Nathan Petrelli” and his wife are driving in a convertable at night. First Petrelli and his wife are talking when a black suv approaches from behind. As the camera angles shift, a large lift-bridge appears in the background. The next scene sees the two get rear-ended by the SUV, with Petrelli ascending unexpectedly to safety. Following that dramatic event, the convertable caroms into a freeway off-ramp gore point, with his wife still in the car. The camera pans outward revealing a button copy overhead with “New Dock Street” on it. Heroes moves on to a hospital scene next…

This was the gore point hit by Nathan Petrelli’s convertable in Heroes.

The “New York City” freeway in question from Heroes was actually that of the Terminal Island Freeway, otherwise numbered California 47. Tell tale signs of the Terminal Island Freeway in movies start with the Shulyer F. Heim Bridge. The Helm Bridge is a lift bridge with steel superstructure that spans the harbor between Terminal Island and the city of Los Angeles. Its dark steel is similar to that of Interstate 280 in Newark, New Jersey, and just a handful of other freeway bridges throughout the country. So thats giveaway number one.

. Tell tale signs of the Terminal Island Freeway in movies start with the Helm Bridge. The is a lift bridge with steel superstructure that spans the harbor between Terminal Island and the city of Los Angeles. Its dark steel is similar to that of in Newark, New Jersey, and just a handful of other freeway bridges throughout the country. So thats giveaway number one.. Tell tale signs of the Terminal Island Freeway in movies start with the Helm Bridge. The is a lift bridge with steel superstructure that spans the harbor between Terminal Island and the city of Los Angeles. Its dark steel is similar to that of in Newark, New Jersey, and just a handful of other freeway bridges throughout the country. So thats giveaway number one.Giveaway number 2 is the industrial background that seems to repeat with each scene. That is because the freeway is just 3.7 miles in length between the south end at Ocean Boulevard and the north end at Willow Street. There are only so many segments of Terminal Island Freeway between exits that can be filmed without catching glimpses of the freeway guide signs.

In movies and tv, signs are almost rarely shown to add to the illusion of location. So you just have to recognize buildings, landscapes, bridges, interchanges, etc to truely recognize an area. That is how you go about recognizing the Terminal Island Freeway in film, such as Being John Malkovich. In that 1999-film, the the New Jersey Turnpike and Interstate 95 signs props used in the movie were posted ahead of the Helm Bridge. However during Heroes, the recognition was made easier by panning far enough out to show the New Dock Street exit sign and off-ramp, which L.A. freeway experts knows is the last exit of the Terminal Island Freeway southbound before it ends at Ocean Boulevard.

A story for another time is California 47’s Vincent Thomas Bridge, a suspension bridge made equally famous from films. That bridge connects Terminal Island with the 110 at San Pedro…

Thanksgiving took me to Pensacola and Mobile for the holiday weekend, and I have a few road notes to share from the way up and travels in the area.

Legitimate Interstate 10 Florida shields found in Freeport at the overlap of U.S. 331 and Florida 20. In all of our years of travel in and around Interstate 10 in Florida, we’ve never discovered any signs with the state name, until now.

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After on and off debate for well over 35 years, Delaware officials have finally chosen a path for U.S. 301 that most people can live with. South of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal in the bustling community of Middletown, whose city limits have expanded dramatically in recent years to accommodate the pervasive sprawl of the Wilmington metro area, is the only two-lane bottleneck of U.S. 301 between the Washington metropolitan area and the Newark area. U.S. 301 already follows a full freeway with U.S. 50 east from the Bowie area across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge onto the Eastern Shore of Maryland. North of the split with U.S. 50, U.S. 301 follows a four-lane expressway (access controlled but not limited) to the Delaware state line southwest of Middletown. Once in Delaware, U.S. 301 narrows to just four lanes through Middletown and Mt. Pleasant, before again expanding to four-lanes at the merge with Delaware 896. U.S. 301 & Delaware 896 head northward across the Summit Bridge to junction U.S. 40, the northern terminus of U.S. 301.

Open fields and farmland becomes suburban sprawl on a yearly, if not monthly, basis in Middletown. The increased and unorganized development puts a strain on U.S. 301 and the other Middletown area roads (Delaware 15, 71, 299).

U.S. 301 creates a popular truck bypass route of Baltimore for commercial drivers emanating between Virginia and points south to New Jersey and points north. In addition some local motorists use the highway between Washington and the Wilmington metropolitan area. As Middletown grows in an unregulated fashion, U.S. 301 becomes increasingly congested with the addition of local commuters to the pre-existing through traffic. Factor in the fact that the highway is both four-lanes north and south of Middletown, and the situation becomes worse with impatient drivers unable to make safe passes.

Beginning in the 1960s, Delaware officials began planning a north-south freeway along the U.S. 301 corridor from Interstate 95 south to the Maryland state line. Corridors included alignments along the state line and alignments tying into the planned Pike Creek Freeway at unconstructed Exit 2 of the Delaware Turnpike. All of the previous proposals for a U.S. 301 freeway met stiff resistance and by 1995, all were shelved.

Flash forward to 2000 and the suburbanization of Middletown, and the freeway idea was reconceptualized as a toll road. The growth of previously rural southern New Castle County has put great strain on U.S. 301 and other area roads. The lack of access control on U.S. 301 also plays into the increasing congestion of the Middletown through-road network. So with all that stated, officials went to the drawing boards and presented the public with numerous options for a limited-access highway to replace the surface-road routing of U.S. 301 in Middletown. Alternatives considered even included the ‘Ridge Route’ and other options from the original 1960s and 70s freeway concepts between Summit Bridge and the Maryland state line.

Last week officials chose a preferred alternate for the new U.S. 301, which will be a tolled facility, after two years of data collecting and public input. Dubbed the green route on planning maps, new U.S. 301 will split from the existing road just north of the Maryland state line and travel along the “Ridge” alternative west of Middletown (the Ridge represents the line from which water flows west to Chesapeake Bay and east to Delaware Bay). Northwest of Middletown, new U.S. 301 turns northeast toward existing U.S. 301 at point south of Mt. Pleasant. The toll road arcs across the Whitehall property, farmland long awaiting the addition of 2,500 new homes, to its end at the SR 1 Turnpike near the Biddles Corner Toll Plaza.

In addition to the U.S. 301 toll road mainline, the green alternative includes a Super Two spur from Summit Bridge southward to U.S. 301 north of Middletown. This concept also revives another element of the 1960s/70s proposal to incorporate Summit Bridge into a U.S. 301 freeway. The Super Two toll road ties into Delaware 71 & 896 at their intersection with Delaware 15 on the south approach to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal crossing.

The News Journal ran an article on the toll road today:

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The Nihonbashi (which translates to “Japan Bridge”) is decrepit bridge huddled under an elevated expressway, and spanning a little polluted river. Why is it important? Not only is it the site of Japan’s oldest stone bridge it’s also the nation’s zero milestone and the starting point for a whole slew of national routes – including 1, 15, and 4 (signed) and 2,3,6 and 7 (on paper).

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I’m starting this roadtrip summary on day 4, as I have yet to retrieve the photos for Days 1 through 3 from Justin’s laptop. Rather then wait on that, I will just start from the back ala the Washington Trip reports, and focus on the drive from South Carolina back to Florida. The trip overall involved traveling north to visit my brother in South Carolina, and spending daytrips to see Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, North Carolina, and Charleston.

Day 4 starts on the road at around 11 am and proceeds west from Summerville, SC to Interstate 95 on  U.S. 17 Alternate. A little bit about U.S. 17A first: U.S. 17 veers northeast from the Interstate 95 corridor at Yemassee, South Carolina for Charleston and the coast. U.S. 17A provides an overall inland bypass route for the U.S. 17 routing between Yemassee and Georgetown. While Interstate 95 and other freeways have dwarfed the U.S. highway system in importance overall, U.S. 17 and the Atlantic Coast from Savannah northward generally is not served by an Interstate highway. So Interstate 95’s path provides a long-distance bypass of the coast, but does not serve the regional needs such as movements between Savannah and Myrtle Beach. That is where U.S. 17 Alternate comes into play. However the path is two-lanes for the most part, and between Summerville and Moncks Corner, congestion and heavy development rules the road. Traffic counts are relatively low in the rural areas though.

U.S. 15 ends at junction U.S. 17 Alternate within the town of Walterboro, South Carolina. The U.S. highway travels northward from here all the way to Painted Post, New York, and originally continued from there to downtown Rochester, New York.

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The second day of our marathon drive continued us northeast into the Treasure State of Montana, my first visit there, and then back west via Interstate 90 to Seattle. A bout of allergies made life difficult through Boise, but the sleep I got in Kooskia all but removed the effects of that!

We resumed our journey along Idaho 13 north to U.S. 12 east for the eastward trek into Montana. U.S. 12 is considered a scenic route throughout its routing in Idaho, so signs are all coloured brown (shades of the old Florida days, I tell you!). The road lives up to its scenic designation, paralleling the Lochsa River from Lowell east to McConell Mountain and Lolo Pass. Surprisingly, the road moves fast and passing opportunities are available more than you would think.

Westbound reassurance shield for U.S. 12 posted at the settlement of Lowell. The Lochsa River flows into the Clearwater Middle Fork river at Lowell. U.S. 12 parallels the waterway west to Kooskia and Kamiah.

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This past weekend’s roadtrip took us to Jacksonville, Florida, Savannah, Georgia, Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. But before I get into the details of those travels, it is time to take care of unfinished business…
Now two and half months removed from the trip, here’s a summary of Day 6 of our Northwest U.S. roadtrip.

Chris Kalina joined Andy and I for the two-day marathon drive from Seattle east to Montana and back. To get as far east during daylight hours, the day began before sunrise in Burien, Washington with myself loading up on coffee at 5:45 am (!). We arranged to meet Chris at a park and ride lot next to Interstate 405 at Bellevue by 6:30, but a gnarly traffic accident clogged the northbound lanes of I-405 at 6:15, causing us to get there 15 minutes late. Chris also showed up late, so all was ok, and we piled into our rental car and ventured east toward Snoqualmie Pass by 7 am.

The climb eastward into the Cascade Mountains was magnificent with layers of low clouds and fog shrouding the valleys and passes of Interstate 90.

Climbing toward the West Summit interchange (Exit 52) on Interstate 90 east. Snoqualmie Pass rises to 3,022 feet and is snow covered for most of the year. During this last day of August, the temperature was already down to 37 degrees!
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In between other things this weekend, we traveled portions of the Orlando Toll Road system and other area surface roads. We drove all of the Western Beltway northbound, portions of Florida 408 Toll in both directions, the Florida’s Turnpike mainline south from U.S. 27 to the East-West Expressway, all of Florida 417 Toll southbound, and various parts of the Orange Blossom Trail, Colonial Drive, U.S. 17 & 92, Maitland Boulevard, etc. Some highlights are below:

The stack interchange between Interstate 4 and Florida 429 Toll is nearing completion. According to our friend Larry, the Daniel Webster Western Beltway opens to traffic during December of this year. This entails the southernmost six miles of freeway between U.S. 192 and Interstate 4.

Looking northbound on Interstate 4 (east) at the future on-ramp to Florida 429 Toll. The ramps await their final coating of pavement, striping, and guard rails.

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If you have been following the updates over the last month at southeastroads.com, you will have noticed that I’ve shifted my focus to the Interstate 4 corridor and greater Orlando. With the Keys pages completed, I wanted to shift my focus back to the Northeast, but in the process with a project at work, I was drawn to the Orlando area and noted that our Interstate 4 guides were vastly lacking. Having good portions of the freeway documented within the last year (some in decent lighting, others in marjinal lighting), I’ve undertaken the process of splitting the existing guide into segments based upon county and also pages based upon direction traveled. Completed as of yesterday evening are east and westbound in Osceola, Orange, Seminole, and Volusia Counties. Polk and Hillsborough are on deck, but are going to have to wait until at least next week. The reason being, we are headed to Orlando for part of the weekend to redocument parts of the freeway network and to drive other parts of the toll road system for the first time.
As of right now, I have very few photos of Florida 417 Toll (Central Florida Greeneway), and some photos (all looking west or south into the sun through a bug splattered windshield) of Florida 429 Toll (Daniel Webster Western Beltway) and Florida 408 Toll (Holland East-West Expressway). Fortunately through the efforts of Justin from the past couple of years, I have many photos to fill in those gaps with. So this weekend I hope to travel the reverse directions of what he did in 2004 to both clinch and document the toll roads that we need at the same time. Mainly, I’ll cover Florida 417 and 429 Toll, and then perhaps some of the more roadworthy arterials too. Florida 528 Toll is covered in both directions by myself and Justin earlier this year and from 2004 (I’ll create a guide for that at some point soon too).

December 29, 2005 look at the Seminole Expressway (Florida 417 Toll) southbound beginning near Sanford. The portions of the toll road system outside of Orange County are part of the Florida’s Turnpike system. Portions of the toll roads within Orange County are maintained by the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority.

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