What's the first road you remember traveling on?

[Roadgeekteen]

For me it is great plain avenue in Needham center.

[GaryV]

Well since I don't remember being driven home from the hospital ...

I'm sure it had to be the street we lived on.  Not sure when awareness hit my young psyche, but whenever it happened, it must have been when we got in the car to leave home and go somewhere.

Now the first freeway, that I do remember.  We only had 1 car when I was young, so once in a while my mom had to drive my dad to work, and the kids had to pile in.  US-131 was open southbound only from Pearl Street.  So we crossed the Grand River (on the old Ann Street Bridge) and took Turner down to the entrance to 131.  Then got right off again at Market St.

[bandit957]

I remember being lectured by my parents when I was 2 because I walked up the sidewalk along our street when I wasn't allowed to. This had to be 1975 or 1976.

I remember being in the car on US 27. I guess I was 2.

I'm trying to remember the first time I heard various types of geographic features mentioned. I guess I was about 4 when my brother told me Campbell County was unusual because it has 2 county seats. I didn't really understand yet why this was important.

Another of my earliest memories of local roads is seeing a pile of human feces on the sidewalk in my neighborhood.

[jp the roadgeek]

I seem to have a flash of me being about a year or 2 old in a car seat in the back of my mom's car on CT 364 taking the back roads to get to Meriden Square Westfield Meriden.

[Roadgeekteen]

I seem to have a flash of me being about a year or 2 old in a car seat in the back of my mom's car on CT 364 taking the back roads to get to Meriden Square Westfield Meriden.

Everyone has so much of a better memory than I do!

[Rothman]

IN 45/IN 46 in Bloomington, IN, probably when I was around 3.

[sparker]

I have a decent memory back to age 3, so it's almost a certainty -- if we're talking about numbered routes, that the first one of these that I encountered/traveled upon was a multiplexed US 6 & 99/SSR 134 on San Fernando Road in Glendale, CA (where I was born/raised).  It was only about 5 blocks from my first home, and my folks' closest friends only lived a block off the highway.  The Division of Highways was pretty diligent about signage in those days, so a 3-shield "sign salad" was posted on SF Road after every signalized intersection.  The 134 multiplex ran about 4 miles between Colorado St. in Glendale and Alameda Ave., right over the Burbank city line -- and was posted until the Golden State (I-5) freeway was opened in late 1957.   

[1995hoo]

Hard to say. I remember trips to New York via I-95, the Jersey Turnpike, and what later became I-895 as a very little kid. But I think my earliest memories are probably of some combination of Tobin Road and Woodburn Road in Fairfax County, Virginia (I have no idea what the route numbers are and I don't much care because nobody uses them as to those roads). The neighborhood we lived in was such that we had to use Woodburn Road whenever we went anywhere. Tobin Road is the most direct route from Woodburn to that neighborhood, although often my father used a different street to connect if we were headed to Mass on Sunday.

[Max Rockatansky]

M153/Ford Road in Canton, MI which was where the first house I lived in was located.

[kphoger]

Other than neighborhood streets immediately near my house, the first I remember is getting on eastbound I-80 from Lincoln Highway in New Lenox, IL.  I think we were going to Orland Square Mall, but my memory of that part is fuzzy.  I also have an early memory of taking Sauk Trail across the south suburbs towards Park Forest to visit my sister's friend, near the same timeframe.

[ColossalBlocks]

The first I remember? Probably I-55 when I was 2.

[epzik8]

Local - Probably my short little cul-de-sac in Forest Hill, Maryland (about 25-30 miles north of Baltimore)
State - Maryland Route 24 in the area of Forest Hill
U.S. - U.S. Route 1 just north of Bel Air, Maryland
Interstate - Interstate 95 between Joppa and Baltimore, Maryland

[Roadgeekteen]

Local - Probably my short little cul-de-sac in Forest Hill, Maryland (about 25-30 miles north of Baltimore)
State - Maryland Route 24 in the area of Forest Hill
U.S. - U.S. Route 1 just north of Bel Air, Maryland
Interstate - Interstate 95 between Joppa and Baltimore, Maryland

you remember all the details! For me it is just a blur.

[roadman]

One of my first roads I remember riding on, at about the age of four, was Route 128 (before it became part of I-95) through Lynnfield.  It was just after dusk, and my father turned to me and said "Watch me make this sign blink."  He then turned the high beams on and off a couple of times, and the sign - a ground-mounted panel with button copy on a non-reflective background - appeared to blink.

Another early road memory, at about the same age, was riding up the Northeast Expressway through Chelsea and Revere.  I was fascinated by both the "Barricade XXXX Feet" signs approaching the end of the highway at Copeland Circle (now MA 60), and how the road took a sharp left hand turn at the large barricade arrows blocking the bridge that was supposed to carry I-95 north onto the embankment across the Rumney (Great Lynn) Marsh.

[cpzilliacus]

Local suburban streets - in front of my childhood home (we lived on a corner lot) in  Maryland;
Local urban streets - 16th Street, N.W. and Georgia Avenue, N.W. in the  District of Columbia;
State routes - MD-193 (University Boulevard) and MD-192 (Forest Glen Road);
U.S. route - U.S. 29 (Colesville Road) and U.S. 50 (John Hanson Highway);
Toll road - probably Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Thruway (decades before it was signed as I-895), Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95 Northeast Expressway (JFK Highway now); and
Interstates - I-495 (Capital Beltway); I-70S (then called Washington National Pike, now I-270); I-83; I-66 (when it only ran from U.S. 29 at Gainesville to I-495, though the westbound control city  was always Front Royal) and I-95 (JFK Highway and Shirley Highway).

[roadman65]

I cannot remember what road, but on the way to Plymouth, MA I remember seeing an endless viaduct (or at least appeared endless from the eyes of a toddler) as I looked to left of the forward motion of the car while passing under what appeared to be a freeway then.

[DandyDan]

The first I really remember was US 61 southeast of St. Paul, as I remember seeing my youngest brother after being born at a hospital in St. Paul.  One thing I remember is Kellogg Blvd. being MN 5.

[catsynth]

It was Riverdale Avenue and Tyndall Avenue in the Bronx.

First signed/numbered routes I remember were US 202 and Taconic Parkway in Westchester County, NY.

[wxfree]

My earliest definitive memory of a road was when I was being taken to a hospital along I-35W.  I remember the road and seeing the hospital on the left side of the freeway.

For years I had an occasional dream about an unknown piece of road, at an intersection.  I even knew that the terminating leg of the T-intersection was the way home, and it was about 400 miles.  I never knew what it meant or even whether it was real.  Years later I realized I knew exactly where that was, based on the characteristics of the intersection, because I'd been there recently.  Before then, I hadn't been there since before I was a year old.  Back in those days it wasn't uncommon to hold a baby while riding in a car.  I don't remember traveling on the road, but I seemed to have an unconscious memory of a little piece of it.  In my childhood dream, I was on a bicycle, the mode of transportation I was accustomed to that I could do alone.

[Super Mateo]

I would be very surprised if my mom and dad didn't take me on 95th Street/US 12 and 20 the first minute I got out of the hospital after being born.  Naturally, though, I don't remember any of that.  The first I do remember are the side streets of Westhaven (which was renamed Orland Hills sometime after my family and I moved out).  For major roads, I'm certain US 6/159th Street was frequently used by anyone that drove me.

[bzakharin]

From Russia, I remember only the streets I lived on and maybe two others near where I lived the longest. No numbered routes. This despite living there until I was 11. Honestly, I can name more subway stations. We used public transit most of the time.

Now, here in the US, I certainly remember the first street I lived on, the two major nearby cross streets in each direction, and the minor cross streets in between. Otherwise, I certainly remember features of and landmarks on certain roads from which I can tell you *today* what they are, but didn't necessarily know their names or numbers back then. If we count those, then NJ 38 is the first numbered road I remember features of (Yes, Cherry Hill Mall). The first freeway I remember in this way is the NJ Turnpike, and thus I-95. I'm not going to count county numbers because I only found out what they were years later when they were posted on traffic light blades.

I can also guess the route we took from the Philadelphia Airport to that first home, I-95 was almost certainly involved, but that's not really remembering.

The first numbered routes I remember for real were on the school bus route once I started to go to school in Philadelphia two years later (there were no major numbered routes on the local public school's bus route before that), NJ 38, NJ 70, US 30, US 1, I-76, and I-676. Outside of this route it's the NJ Turnpike and I-95 again from our trip to Boston.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I think for me it's MN 100 between MN 62 and Benton Avenue in Edina.

[slorydn1]

I can really remember the stretch of Chicago Drive (back then it was M-21, now M-121) between 12th Ave in Jenison MI and I-196.  We moved to Jenison from Kalamazoo in December of 1971 when I was barely 2 years old and I remember the snow being really really deep. The drifts along side the highway between the westbound lanes and the RR tracks that parallel the highway were so tall that I can remember being only able to see the tops of the locomotives and boxcars and the cupola of a caboose as a train went by in the opposite direction. Of course I had no idea what a locomotive, box car or caboose was, it was all LOOK MA, TRAAAAAIIIINNN to me back then.

I do find it wierd that I have actual memories of moving into the new house in Jenison, but I have zero memory of leaving the old house in Kalamazoo or what it even looked like. I don't remember anything about the drive between Kalamazoo and Jenison that day, other than the snow drifts along Chicago Drive, and seeing the top of the train. But I do remember getting to the new house, the bright red carpet, the big moving truck (American Vanlines 18 wheeler) my mom fussing about this and that, the big dark basement downstairs and all of the yet to be unpacked boxes.

[MNHighwayMan]

During my very formative early years, my family lived a couple blocks off MN-120 (Century Ave), and I will always distinctly remember the many times I rode over that sudden dip that exists just after you cross Stillwater Rd/Blvd going northbound (picture is taken looking south). It's going to be an emotional time (well, kinda ) when the MN-120 signs finally come down, not just because I'm going to really, really want one, but also because that road is a part of my childhood. To me, that road will always be Highway 120, not Century Ave.

[slorydn1]

During my very formative early years, my family lived a couple blocks off Century Ave (MN-120), and I will always distinctly remember the many times I rode over that sudden dip that exists just after you cross Stillwater Rd/Blvd going northbound (picture is taken looking south). It's going to be an emotional time (well, kinda ) when the MN-120 signs finally come down, not just because I'm going to really, really want one, but also because that road is a part of my childhood.

I can relate. I would give body parts to have an M-21 sign (all my non-roadgeek friends here in NC would be scratching their heads wondering what the M over the 21 stands for).