The AARoads Blog

Day 2 of the trip involved generally spending time in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the associated metropolitan area. Some photos and thoughts from the day:

Minneapolis-St. Paul is one of several metropolitan areas that institute the use of ramp meters. The premise of such meters is to limit the amount of merging traffic during peak hours of traffic. Whether they work or not is a question that many drivers debate. However there are benefits to through traffic movement when the number of cars merging at once is reduced from 20 or more at a time to two or three at a time. One issue that I have with the Minneapolis area ramp meters is that they include freeway to freeway connections, such as the one pictured here along the ramp from Minnesota 100 south onto Interstate 494 west. So in a sense a high-speed connection becomes an off-ramp with a stoplight.

Adam Froehlig has a master list of cities that use ramp meters. Thus far we’ve come across ramp meters in Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area, and Metro Philadelphia among other locations. Los Angeles is the only other city that I know of that implements ramp meters on freeway to freeway connection.

The Twin Cities are one of two areas in the country to retain suffixed Interstate highways (Dallas-Fort Worth being the other). Interstate 35 splits into Interstate 35W through Minneapolis and Interstate 35E through St. Paul. Interstate 35E retains Interstate 35’s mile based exit numbers, while Interstate 35W’s mileage starts at zero (this is similar to Dallas Fort-Worth’s as well). Although AASHTO mandated that all suffixed Interstate numbers be changed to remove the alpha character, both the Twin Cities and DFW could not compromise as to which would get Interstate 35 and which would get a I-x35. Thus two sets of Interstate 35E and 35W remain.

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Started the day in west Omaha on U.S. 275 and U.S. 6 (West Dodge Road) and quickly departed for Minneapolis by way of Sioux City, Sioux Falls, Worthington, Albert Lea, and Faribault to the Twin Cities.

As written about in a previous post, the West Dodge Road freeway is now wholly complete between U.S. 275 and Interstate 680. The final portion of this project are the twin viaducts carrying U.S. 6 high above the original West Dodge Road between 132nd Street and Interstate 680. The elevated roadways are dubbed the U.S. 6 Express Lanes while the original West Dodge Road continues below as an at-grade facility, serving movements to 120th Street, 114th Street, and the Old Mill area.

U.S. 6 splits with West Dodge Road for a pair of six-lane viaducts west of the 120th Street intersection. Before construction of the elevated roadways, West Dodge Road met 120th Street at a diamond interchange. That interchange was removed and replaced with an at-grade intersection.

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Just got back from a five-day trip to Omaha, Minneapolis, and the Upper Midwest. I will post photos and observations from my travels over the next few blog posts. Here’s a taste of what I saw.

‘The worst state highway ever,’ South Dakota 10 between Interstate 29 and Minnesota 28. Not only does the road become a gravel stripeless road, but at one point South Dakota 10 transitions into a pot-hole ridden dirt road… Minnesota does a much nicer job with its side of highway, providing two-lanes of striped asphalt. Pictured here is the state highway eastbound after its intersection with Roberts County 7, on a showery day.

The Arizona Pages have been undergoing a number of changes. Pictures have been replaced and added throughout the site, and additional background information is being researched and added to the site.

New to the Arizona Pages are Historical Road Maps of Arizona, dating as far back as 1919. Check them out!

As requested, here is a map showing the proposed Foley Beach Express extension set to begin construction as soon as late this spring. The Wolf Bay Bridge and associated road location are approximate based upon news article descriptions. Click the map for a larger version (184 kb).

The Foley Beach Express extension follows existing segments of Baldwin County 28 South and Baldwin County 83 northward to Baldwin County 64. Where Baldwin County 64 turns east toward Interstate 10 Exit 53, the proposed alignment turns northwest to meet Baldwin County 68 at its proposed interchange with Interstate 10.

The current idea of the Wolf Bay Bridge alignment is to construct a span from Alabama 161’s northern terminus at Alabama 180 (Canal Road) northward to the peninsula at Sapling Point. From Sapling Point northward, the road will curve and tie into the Baldwin County 20 and 95 intersection. Baldwin County 95 likely will carry the road northward to U.S. 98. Alignments north of U.S. 98 to Interstate 10 are unclear at this time.

Charlotte’s Beltway grew by several miles in mid-December 2006 with the opening of Interstate 485 between Interstate 85 and North Carolina 27 (Mt. Holly Road). The segment is the first to open north of Interstate 85.

Steve Delery sends us the following photos covering the newest section of Interstate 485 from early April 2007:

Interstate 485 northbound continues through the interchange with Interstate 85. Until December 15, 2006, all traffic was forced to use the ramps to the right.

The first interchange along Interstate 485 north of Interstate 85 is the diamond with Moores Chapel Road. Exit 12 features roundabouts at the off-ramp ends in place of signalized intersections, a concept used along Interstate 70 at West Vail and Avon, Colorado.

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Four major highways serve the greater Spokane area. They are Interstate 90, U.S. 2, U.S. 195, and U.S. 395. U.S. Of those, only Interstate 90 is a full freeway, although U.S. 2 does constitute a freeway towards Spokane International Airport. Growth currently focuses on the U.S. 2 & 395 (Division Street) corridor leading north from central Spokane to their split near Country Homes.

At present Division Street provides the main route to the growing northern suburbs. The surface highway carries six lanes overall through a busy commercial corridor. To alleviate the arterial, WSDOT is constructing a new freeway for U.S. 395 in conjunction with the FHWA between Interstate 90 and U.S. 395 near Wandermere Golf Course (north of the U.S. 2 and 395 split at Country Homes).

U.S. 2 & 395 follows the one-way couplet of Ruby Street (north) and Division Street (south) east of downtown Spokane, and Division Street wholly from Cleveland Avenue northward. Division Street consists of a six-lane arterial through the intersection of Central Avenue (pictured here). Washington 291 (Francis Avenue) intersects U.S. 2 & 395 at a busy intersection in two blocks. Photo taken 09/01/06.

Construction began on August 22, 2001 on initial grading and drainage projects associated with the northernmost freeway alignment at Farwell Road and U.S. 2. Work continues at the Farwell Road interchange and overall corridor between Francis Avenue and U.S. 395 (Wandermere) with a potential opening by 2009. Additional freeway north of the Spokane River may open as soon as 2011 depending upon funding. However the freeway south of the Spokane River to Interstate 90 may take as long as 20 years to complete at current levels of funding due to a $3.3 billion overall price tag.

A look at the North-South Freeway corridor between U.S. 2 and Hawthorne Avenue.

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Unfortunately the servers at the hosting company for AARoads.com and the AARoads Blog went down on Thursday for a period of almost 48 hours. During this shut down, email, blog posts and comments made throughout this week (April 2-6) were lost. Things were restored last evening and hopefully will not undergo such a long down period again. Thanks for bearing with us.

I’ve put the finishing touches on all of our current Interstate 95 main line coverage from the state of Maine online this evening, completing the southbound guide from the Falmouth Spur (unsigned Interstate 495) to the New Hampshire state line. The Interstate 95 guides are the first covering the state of Maine on NorthEast Roads @ AARoads. Others including the rest of the Interstates, U.S. 1, etc. will follow.

Since the new year, my focus on Interstate 95 updated or created guides from Georgia northward to Maine. This all but completes our existing coverage of East Coast’s Main Street. Additional material covering gaps in Florida and updating Delaware, New Jersey, and Virginia remains in the queue however.

New or updated pages include:

• Interstate 95 Connecticut
• Interstate 95 Massachusetts
• Interstate 95 New Hampshire
• Interstate 95 Maine