Worst freeway design

[iBallasticwolf2]

Post the worst, most cringey, most gut-wrenching freeway designs in your area here!

I'll start with the cancelled atrocity known as the Taft Expressway.

The freeway would have started at an incomplete interchange at I-75. You'll see a lot of incomplete interchanges on this actually. It then curves around a hill in the same area as McMillan Street currently is. After that it passes very close to University of Cincinnati and intersects a few roads to the university with incomplete interchanges.

It doesn't get any better after that last section.  In this section we see a very strange left exit jumble that has access to Burnet Avenue, US 42, and I-71. The one good side to this section is that a few spots on the map are marked for "possible replacement park" so at least ODOT wanted to make a few parks along the road.

This section is probably the least eventful section.  It mainly has a left exit to Victoria Parkway and an incomplete interchange with both Victoria Parkway and Woodburn Avenue.

At the end of this road we see an interchange that marks the terminus of the Taft Expressway with Columbia Parkway.  This also includes another interchange with Torrence Parkway. I bet that being on the ramp from eastbound Taft Expressway to Columbia Parkway would have had a nice view of the Ohio River though.

So all in all, the Taft Expressway was one of the worst freeway designs that I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people were happy it was cancelled, as well as the people who owned the 660 properties that would have been destroyed at the time!

[ekt8750]

The Schuylkill Expressway wins this hands down. Too many left lane exits and on ramps, on ramps that have little to no speed up lanes, 4 lanes for most of the route which not even close to enough to handle the volume it carries, and sharp curves that can flip over even the most slightly unbalanced truck. Need I say more?

[hotdogPi]

So all in all, the Taft Expressway was one of the worst freeway designs that I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people were cancelled, as well as the people who owned the 660 properties that would have been destroyed at the time!

I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

[ajlynch91]

I'd have to vote for the Gowanus/Brooklyn-Queens Expressway segments of I-278.

[kurumi]

Proposed interchange for I-95, CT 9, and freeway to Long Island, in 1965. If that's to scale, it would have carved up a huge amount of land for an ugly, confusing, low-capacity mess.

[Max Rockatansky]

CA 60 east of I-215 through the Moreno Valley badlands is a pretty out there design in a not really good way.  There is a crap load of truck traffic, the curves are all over the place, and there is a insufficient number of lanes in the city of Moreno Valley itself.  Oddly though it can be a hell of a lot of fun on an early morning when no traffic is out.

[Roadgeek2500]

The Schuylkill Expressway wins this hands down. Too many left lane exits and on ramps, on ramps that have little to no speed up lanes, 4 lanes for most of the route which not even close to enough to handle the volume it carries, and sharp curves that can flip over even the most slightly unbalanced truck. Need I say more?

I completely agree. It's an absolute nightmare. (Like most of PennDOT's roads)

[GCrites]

Post the worst, most cringey, most gut-wrenching freeway designs in your area here!

I'll start with the cancelled atrocity known as the Taft Expressway.

The freeway would have started at an incomplete interchange at I-75. You'll see a lot of incomplete interchanges on this actually. It then curves around a hill in the same area as McMillan Street currently is. After that it passes very close to University of Cincinnati and intersects a few roads to the university with incomplete interchanges.

It doesn't get any better after that last section.  In this section we see a very strange left exit jumble that has access to Burnet Avenue, US 42, and I-71. The one good side to this section is that a few spots on the map are marked for "possible replacement park" so at least ODOT wanted to make a few parks along the road.

This section is probably the least eventful section.  It mainly has a left exit to Victoria Parkway and an incomplete interchange with both Victoria Parkway and Woodburn Avenue.

At the end of this road we see an interchange that marks the terminus of the Taft Expressway with Columbia Parkway.  This also includes another interchange with Torrence Parkway. I bet that being on the ramp from eastbound Taft Expressway to Columbia Parkway would have had a nice view of the Ohio River though.

So all in all, the Taft Expressway was one of the worst freeway designs that I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people were cancelled, as well as the people who owned the 660 properties that would have been destroyed at the time!

Uptown still got ruined by the the high-speed modern Taft and MLK routes if you ask me.

[silverback1065]

the design of i-65 and 70 in downtown Indianapolis, the cancellation of 69 makes for a bizarre north split where both interstates make hard right/lefts in alignment.  i-70 on the southern side of downtown should have been moved further south, and had less exits.  also, i don't know who the genius was that thought it was a good idea to have 70 come in at the south split from the left, and leave on the right at the north split. the south split totally fucked up fountain square, and the Virginia ave exit has no merge area.  I would have liked a cross formation, somewhat like Albuquerque.

[Chris19001]

The Schuylkill Expressway wins this hands down. Too many left lane exits and on ramps, on ramps that have little to no speed up lanes, 4 lanes for most of the route which not even close to enough to handle the volume it carries, and sharp curves that can flip over even the most slightly unbalanced truck. Need I say more?

My favorite part of the Schuylkill is the merge or die ramps at South Street.  PENNDOT just replaced the whole South Street bridge several years back, and the best they could muster for the Schuylkill connection was still the merge or die left hand ramps..  (the river, the train station, and the other nearby ramps didn't leave much of an option I guess.)  It is what it is..

[silverback1065]

Post the worst, most cringey, most gut-wrenching freeway designs in your area here!

I'll start with the cancelled atrocity known as the Taft Expressway.

The freeway would have started at an incomplete interchange at I-75. You'll see a lot of incomplete interchanges on this actually. It then curves around a hill in the same area as McMillan Street currently is. After that it passes very close to University of Cincinnati and intersects a few roads to the university with incomplete interchanges.

It doesn't get any better after that last section.  In this section we see a very strange left exit jumble that has access to Burnet Avenue, US 42, and I-71. The one good side to this section is that a few spots on the map are marked for "possible replacement park" so at least ODOT wanted to make a few parks along the road.

This section is probably the least eventful section.  It mainly has a left exit to Victoria Parkway and an incomplete interchange with both Victoria Parkway and Woodburn Avenue.

At the end of this road we see an interchange that marks the terminus of the Taft Expressway with Columbia Parkway.  This also includes another interchange with Torrence Parkway. I bet that being on the ramp from eastbound Taft Expressway to Columbia Parkway would have had a nice view of the Ohio River though.

So all in all, the Taft Expressway was one of the worst freeway designs that I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people were cancelled, as well as the people who owned the 660 properties that would have been destroyed at the time!

i'm not sure what they were thinking with that weird ass hump in the road in your first picture.  on a different note, why the hell did they put i-676 where they did?  it ends up creating that gap in downtown philly.  also, i feel like a lot of Pennsylvania's highways will make this list, 376 and 279 are a hot mess too. 

[plain]

The Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike had a somewhat poor design in several spots, probably owning to the highway planners of the 1950's having not yet came up with the vison that led to today's standards. In Richmond there were several ramps with no acceleration or deceleration lanes (some of these issues are fixed but even most of that didn't occur until long after the tolls were removed). There were also several interchanges very close to each other (especially after I-64 was added to the turnpike in the late 1960's and VA 195 was built in 1976), which leads to obvious problems. These issues are worse today, especially at the ramp from I-64 WB & I-195 NB to I-95 NB. No capacity was added to the I-95/I-64 duplex.. it's still the same 6 lanes today as it was when opened in 1958. The median north of the James River was built with a small cross section of probably about 4 feet and originally had curbs, like the curbs you would find on a typical street, with no guardrail. Eventually the curbs were gutted and thin railing were added instead (today it's jersey barrier). Much of this stretch lacks an adequate left shoulder, typical of most old freeways through cities. There was a very short ramp from the Turnpike NB directly to Broad St EB that existed until the 1976 building of the interchange with VA-195 Downtown Expwy. The replacement for this is the ramp from Exit 74 C (formally Exit 10 to Broad St WB only) to Oliver Hill Way (17th St, a one-way street)... this has led to some weaving issues and accidents in recent years on OHW, particularly during the morning rush. VDOT has a plan to fix this issue.

[iBallasticwolf2]

i'm not sure what they were thinking with that weird ass hump in the road in your first picture.  on a different note, why the hell did they put i-676 where they did?  it ends up creating that gap in downtown philly.  also, i feel like a lot of Pennsylvania's highways will make this list, 376 and 279 are a hot mess too.

The hump is because the road goes up a hill.  McMillan Avenue's current alingment goes up a fairly steep hill.

[ekt8750]

The Schuylkill Expressway wins this hands down. Too many left lane exits and on ramps, on ramps that have little to no speed up lanes, 4 lanes for most of the route which not even close to enough to handle the volume it carries, and sharp curves that can flip over even the most slightly unbalanced truck. Need I say more?

My favorite part of the Schuylkill is the merge or die ramps at South Street.  PENNDOT just replaced the whole South Street bridge several years back, and the best they could muster for the Schuylkill connection was still the merge or die left hand ramps..  (the river, the train station, and the other nearby ramps didn't leave much of an option I guess.)  It is what it is..

And they're a major choke point for traffic in both directions with the horrendous and dangerous weaving that goes on with the on ramps from Schuylkill Av coming in eastbound and University Av westbound literally hundreds of feet from the South St ramps. I think had they extended Schuylkill Av to South St when they replaced the bridge and eliminated those subsequent ramps, traffic in that area would do a lot better.

[sparker]

Pretty much the entire BQE/I-278 in Brooklyn & Queens.  Essentially a piecemeal facility cobbled out of several other components, it's narrow, winding, with little in the way of merging lanes -- lines of sight are at times nonexistent!  I was born & raised about ten miles from L.A.'s Arroyo Seco Parkway and thought that was an obsolescent relic -- but my first encounter with the BQE in the early '80's reminded me of that parkway -- only with less attractive surroundings coupled with heavy traffic, merges, lane drops, and numerous TOTSO's!  The first time I took it I was exploring the area, so I slugged it out from the Verrazano all the way to the Triborough; subsequent times where I was on business that took me into Manhattan I only took it as far north as the Brooklyn Bridge, where I shunted across the river to the NB FDR.  Believe me when I tell you I was never as glad to get off a particular road as that one!  I'd venture a guess that it's more or less unexpandable -- at least beyond marginal spot "fixes" -- for both physical and political reasons.  Haven't needed to use it for the last 16 years or so -- no big loss by any means!   I'll stick with the description I supply to friends -- an alley with ramps!   

[froggie]

Regarding the BQE (not to mention most other NYC freeways), the Surekill, and the Parkways in Pittsburgh:  keep in mind when all of those were built (most of them pre-Interstate), and also keep in mind that it's very time-consuming, very land-invasive, and VERY expen$$$ive to upgrade such urban freeways.

[silverback1065]

Regarding the BQE (not to mention most other NYC freeways), the Surekill, and the Parkways in Pittsburgh:  keep in mind when all of those were built (most of them pre-Interstate), and also keep in mind that it's very time-consuming, very land-invasive, and VERY expen$$$ive to upgrade such urban freeways.

i know, but 279 and 376 still suck

[iBallasticwolf2]

Regarding the BQE (not to mention most other NYC freeways), the Surekill, and the Parkways in Pittsburgh:  keep in mind when all of those were built (most of them pre-Interstate), and also keep in mind that it's very time-consuming, very land-invasive, and VERY expen$$$ive to upgrade such urban freeways.

i know, but 279 and 376 still suck

Even though I agree, at least 279 has reversible HOV lanes that help somewhat. But 376 is just too thin especially with the tunnel portions.

[epzik8]

This is the interchange of I-695 and MD-702 in the area of Essex, Maryland, just east of Baltimore. I don't think I-695, AKA the Baltimore Beltway, was supposed to be a full loop, and Route 702 was all that was built of the cancelled Windlass Freeway, or something like that. But eventually, the Beltway became a full loop linked by the Francis Scott Key Bridge, resulting in this crazy interchange.

[NE2]

[CtrlAltDel]

This is the interchange of I-695 and MD-702 in the area of Essex, Maryland, just east of Baltimore. I don't think I-695, AKA the Baltimore Beltway, was supposed to be a full loop, and Route 702 was all that was built of the cancelled Windlass Freeway, or something like that. But eventually, the Beltway became a full loop linked by the Francis Scott Key Bridge, resulting in this crazy interchange.

Does anyone know what this ramp to nowhere is all about?

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3240118,-76.4792116,3a,66.3y,182.07h,93.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWZyBy3uZEksgQrrHKO2IBg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[CNGL-Leudimin]

(Hypotenuse)

Also, does Breezewood count?

In this part of the world I nominate the so-called first generation autovias. Some of them have been rebuilt to full freeway standards.

[catsynth]

I'd have to vote for the Gowanus/Brooklyn-Queens Expressway segments of I-278.

The Gowanus/BQE is an awful freeway, but hey, it's "our awful freeway".  I have a soft spot for it.
I recall reading about the original Gowanus parkway and its associated controversy in Caro's biography of Robert Moses.

[compdude787]

It amazes me that the BQE even has an interstate shield on it.

[sparker]

It amazes me that the BQE even has an interstate shield on it.

Like I said in my previous post -- an alley with ramps; with little or no hope of improvement given the uber-dense area it traverses.  It's a relic -- but for worse or better the only non-surface N-S option until one gets out to 678.  It's something we'll likely be bitching about for years to come!