Did you become a road enthusiast because of the internet?

[bugo]

How did you become a Roads Scholar? Did you find the online community and thought it would be a cool hobby to get into or were you always into roads? I have been interested in roads since before I could talk in the mid '70s. I found some webpages in 1996 and joined MTR in 1997 but before that I thought I was the only person who cared about road signs and pavement markings. I know some of the younger members discovered this forum and became road enthusiasts after discovering the online community. To paraphrase that old country song, I was a road enthusiast when roading wasn't cool and I know a lot of the members of this forum were too..

[Brandon]

Well before I found mtr.  Hell, mtr made me understand that I shared it with someone.

[Highway63]

I was interested in highways and signs before the Internet was a thing.

[iBallasticwolf2]

I had an interest in roads since I was young but for several years that dwindled until I started watching FreewayJim's videos again.

[lordsutch]

I was drawing maps and signs and stuff like that before there was an Internet (or at least USENET). There must have been some commercial consciousness that people liked this stuff, though, since my parents bought me things like "Road Sign Bingo."

When we lived in England that was supplemented with a board game called "Motorway" and an AA Road Atlas for Kids and probably some other stuff (I think we found a "field guide to roads" or something like that - it might have been one of the books on this list, "I-Spy On a Car Journey"). There was probably a lot of stuff like that because being a bit of an anorak is more socially acceptable in Britain than it is here.

[Takumi]

I was interested in maps and roads from a young age, before the internet really took off. I was directed toward the larger community by someone I knew in real life.

[Big John]

Loved roads long before I found this place.

[formulanone]

I was interested in maps and atlases and license plates over 30 years ago, wondered about the roads, then into cars and such. I received a good camera shortly after getting my driver's license, when I started to highlight my routes on a map. I didn't really think much about looking up anything about roads until 2002 (James Lin's site about state road shields, Kurumi's site, some site about I-99, a few others). I found myself coming back to AARoads several times when my job led to more travel outside my state, and that's when things got out of control...I would probably have a muted interest if it was not for the Internet, normally I wouldn't care about a bridge project eight states away if not for the information in the first place.

To be fair, I gave a very cursory glance at MTR; my main interest was in Florida, and nothing caught my eye, topic-wise, so I just moved on. But I could spend an entire afternoon reading that wonderful FAQ.

[swbrotha100]

I had interests in roads and highways long before the internet became popular. Although thanks to MTR and the internet, I had a better understanding of a lot of the interstate system than ever before.

[Rothman]

I've been into maps and roads since I was a very young tyke (late 1970s).  Got Rand McNally Road Atlases as Christmas presents (amongst other things).  Made a career out of it now.

Didn't find MTR until 2004. 

[kkt]

I would pore over maps and atlases from back when the internet was just a gleam in Licklider's eye.

[bugo]

I remember as a kid I would talk to my cousin's grandpa. He had some road enthusiast tendencies but he wasn't crazy about it like we are. We were talking about where the US highways went and I asked him about US 55. He had no idea where it was and why it no longer exists. I didn't find out about US 55 (the original Minnesota-Wisconsin highway or the proposed US 55 that became US 56 (whether this incarnation of US 55 was signed or not is a mystery)) until I read about it on the internet. I also remember "discovering" US 152 on a map that I found at the UCA library in Conway, Arkansas. Nobody in the community had ever heard of it until I saw that map. The amount of information that is currently available about roads is greater by many magnitudes than it was in the infancy of the internet.

[corco]

I was into cars since I can remember - I actually learned to read by reading nameplates on cars.

I was born in 1988, and we moved to Illinois from Ohio in 1989. We would drive from Illinois to Ohio roughly monthly, since everybody my parents knew and all of my extended family lived in Ohio.

It was the time spent going to and being in Ohio that got me into roads, I think. The differences between suburban Chicago and Ohio (primarily the Chillicothe and Columbus areas) were evident to me from a very young age.  I remember from age 3 or so noting the difference between the Ohio state highway shield and the Indiana/Illinois one and thinking it was so cool that Ohio had a state outline.

I also really, really enjoyed when we'd go to Ohio via I-70 (depending on where we were going in Ohio first, we'd enter on either I-70 or I-275 north of Cincinnati), because I loved the arch state welcome sign. I was also fascinated by the rolling hills in southern Ohio and the way the road just went up and down - I called them "whoopeeee" hills and would go "whoooop" as we went down and "eeee" as we went back up.

There was (is) a covered bridge on Lower Twin Rd, just west of South Salem right by my Grandfather's house that I loved exploring from a young age too.

My first really concrete memory was getting our 1994 Rand McNally when I was six. By that point I could read and understand maps, and I would bury myself in it.

In 2001, my sister graduated from college at UNCG and bought a new car. My Dad and I flew to North Carolina to get my dad's car that she had been using, and we drove it back to Idaho. My Dad let me plan the entire trip, and that's where I learned about roadgeeks. I definitely remember browsing HB's site and really enjoying the Kentucky coverage, but other specific sites slip my mind. I began lurking MTR in 2005 or so, and probably posted for the first time in 2007 (when I started my Washington Highways website), but probably had less than 50 posts between 2007 and 2009, when this forum booted up.

[davewiecking]

Good question. I also poured over Atlases and AAA maps at a young age, and was always the one in the back seat keeping an eye on our route during family trips back in the late 60's. The one map that showed the planned route for straightening out the Rock Creek Rollercoaster portion of the DC Beltway made me realize that not all plans come to fruition (and of course many other DC area freeways never happened either). Alas; many of my mid-90's VHS tapes taken with a camera bolted to my dashboard are pretty unwatchable now, but I do have lots of video from the "C-D"ing of I-270. All that was before the internet, but my first posting on a USENET site was MTR in '97 or so.

[AsphaltPlanet]

... Has becoming a road enthusiast become cool?

[Rothman]

... Has becoming a road enthusiast become cool?

No, thank goodness.

[US71]

If memory serves correct, I was on the Roadgeek Yahoo group and was steered to MTR.

But I've had a fascination with roads and maps as far back as I can remember.

[Rothman]

If memory serves correct, I was on the Roadgeek Yahoo group and was steered to MTR.

Heh.  I believe I went the other way:  MTR to the Yahoo group.

[1995hoo]

I'm sure I'm like many others: I was interested in maps and roads long before the rise of the Internet, and the Internet was what allowed me to find other people who share that interest.

[bandit957]

I didn't have Internet access in the mid-'70s, so it wasn't the Internet that made me a Roads Scholar.

[bugo]

In 2001, my sister graduated from college at UNCG and bought a new car. My Dad and I flew to North Carolina to get my dad's car that she had been using, and we drove it back to Idaho. My Dad let me plan the entire trip, and that's where I learned about roadgeeks. I definitely remember browsing HB's site and really enjoying the Kentucky coverage, but other specific sites slip my mind. I began lurking MTR in 2005 or so, and probably posted for the first time in 2007 (when I started my Washington Highways website), but probably had less than 50 posts between 2007 and 2009, when this forum booted up.

HB's site was one of the first sites I remember. The very first one I remember was a list of US highways by a guy named James Sterbenz (I know I spelled that wrong). I remember Andy Field's site and Tim's Kentucky highways site. They inspired me to start my Arkansas Highways website (that I never got around to completing.) There was also Xyzzx (or however you spell it) and Kurumi's site. Ah, the good old days. Now get off my lawn.

[bandit957]

My interest in Scholaring has kind of come and gone.

I was very interested as far back as I could remember, but it slowly waned around the time I was in middle school. Then when I was in 8th grade, I rapidly became interested again, as never before. I'm not sure why I got so interested all of a sudden. But then it waned again as I got more interested in radio. But then in 2002, I really got interested again, after I began bicycling.

[bugo]

... Has becoming a road enthusiast become cool?

Many road enthusiasts are awkward geeks but there is a small clique of us who are super cool....we like to do things like party and chase girls and have fun. That's part of the reason my personality clashes with many roadgeeks because I'm so laid back and they are so anal.

[bandit957]

I think my first memory of being in a car and noticing road features was probably before I turned 3. I'd say it was about 1976. My brother and I were in the car, and my mom was driving. We lived in Highland Heights, and I remember going north on US 27 across the big viaduct into Fort Thomas. (I-275 opened under the viaduct later.) I made a sound every time I saw one of those yellow curve warning signs. I also remember the old "BRIDGES FREEZE BEFORE ROADWAY" sign on the viaduct. I learned to read from that sign.

[Rothman]

My mother tells me that I would shout out, "One way!" when seeing a one way sign when I was a toddler.  However, my earliest memory of road features was probably being fascinated by the concept of the various types of stop signs in my hometown: 2-way, 3-way and 4-way.

*shrug*