The AARoads Blog

South Dakota. US-16 and interstate 90. And a wee bit of Wyoming and Colorado in the evening. December 2007. Grim winter.

18×18 I-90 shield. 1957 specs. And, more interestingly, an embossed arrow to point the way. Since the 1957 specification called for white, not blue, arrows, they took a 1948-spec arrow that they had lying around and used it to point to the new freeway.

This is the sign find of the day. There are only two shields with the original specifications left in South Dakota, and this is the only 18×18 example.

The Badlands – a sudden mountain range in the western half of South Dakota. These days, a tourist attraction – back then, in 1866, an impermeable obstacle that prevents one from reaching the west.

Black Hills, South Dakota. An eleven minute exposure, 6100 feet, -11 degrees. Yep, I was cold.

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East along I-80 in Nebraska, then north along I-29 into South Dakota, then westbound on I-90 – all the while looking for old signs.

First thing in the morning. US highway 30 eastbound in western Nebraska. We follow 30 for a while because it’s a mile or two away from I-80 and more likely to have old signs. It may or may not be rather cold.

Catch of the day! Over and over again, I scoured downtown Omaha for old interstate highway markers, and by the third time, I finally found one. This one was installed in 1963 or so, whenever I-480 was built through here along old US-75.

The shield was in an industrial area just south of US-275, and it was replaced in April, 2009. There is one 1957-spec interstate shield left in Nebraska that anyone knows about. It is an I-80.

The blue US-77 bridge in Sioux City. South Dakota is the far side, and Nebraska is where I’m taking the picture from.

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We’ve updated our South Dakota highway guides to include photos taken last April in southeast and northeastern parts of the state, including the city of Sioux Falls. New guides cover 100 miles or so of Interstate 29, Interstate 90 east from I-29 to Minnesota, some of the Business, or “Downtown”, Loop and Spurs in Sioux Falls, and the Interstate 229 loop freeway.

The new guides join the original Rapid City and Deadwood area coverage on AARoads itself. See South Dakota @ AARoads for the new pages.

Next up: Fargo, North Dakota!

Spent the morning in west Minneapolis and then headed west to Fargo and south to Sisseton, South Dakota. Heavy rains washed out the majority of the afternoon as I returned east along state highways and U.S. 12. As usual, some highlights and photos are found below.

While Minnesota 100 is a full freeway now, elements of its past as a lesser route remain in the form of old overpasses with no shoulders. One such span remains in place at the Minnesota 7 & Hennepin County 25 full-cloverleaf interchange. After a series of accidents, some fatal, Mn/DOT restriped the freeway mainline to provide limited acceleration lanes in place of a narrow shoulder at the overpasses, thus improving the situation from a safety standpoint. Before this improvement, drivers would come to a complete stop from the adjacent on-ramp, thus necessitating fast acceleration to freeway speeds while also dodging exiting traffic onto Minnesota 7 & Hennepin County 25.

Interstate 394, similar to a handful of other urban freeways, includes tunnels underneath buildings and other structures at downtown Minneapolis. Pictured here is the east end/beginning and one such building tunnel. Other freeways, such as the Cross-Bronx Expressway, Interstate 395 in Washington, D.C., Interstate 5 in Seattle, and the Georgia 400 Toll highway travel under such infrastructure.

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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.