Cities with a shitty freeway setup

[ColossalBlocks]

Since webny99 made a thread on cities with a great freeway setup, I decided to make a thread about cities with awful freeway setups.

So what are the cities with the shittiest freeway setup?

[silverback1065]

i feel like chicago could use 2 more east west interstates and one parallel route in between 90/90 and 294.  Milwaukee's is shitty

[sbeaver44]

Probably Philadelphia is up there.  1 major route with massive design issues from the west is not a good idea.

Nexus 6P

[I-90]

Chicago 

[CNGL-Leudimin]

London, UK.

[Pink Jazz]

Tucson is definitely one of them, and unfortunately Tucson area residents keep on voting down road bonds.

[pianocello]

Washington. There are only two freeways within the northern half-ish of the area encircled by the Beltway, and neither of them are truck-friendly. As a result, the surface arterials in Montgomery and PG counties are consistently jam-packed.

[jp the roadgeek]

Boston.  Granted you have 10 and 30 mile radius half belts, but there's only one expressway in from the west, and only one of the other expressways that connects to the 10 mile belt actually takes you directly into the city.  Plus, there's only one expressway directly through downtown and a street grid without much rhyme or reason.

[SteveG1988]

Probably Philadelphia is up there.  1 major route with massive design issues from the west is not a good idea.

Nexus 6P

Trenton NJ. Pretty bad. State Capitol with two major connections, one is a substandard freeway, the other ceases to be a freeway once it enters the city proper.

Philadelphia has one saving grace, i276 serves as a thru traffic bypass.

Memphis TN: Just...the mess that is 240. A bypass serving as the mainline interstate due to cancelation of the through route two bridges, needs a third one to the north to bypass town for 40 through traffic.

Atlanta GA: All non local delivery trucks must use I-285. Meaning that trucks are forced into commuter traffic even if 285 is jammed.

Birmingham AL, bypass route exists, but if you have to connect to i-22 you have to use the downtown viaduct on 20/65

Jackson MS: i-220 is nearly worthless unless you're going to the west or to the industrial area along it. 55/20 merge weirdly.

[Max Rockatansky]

Tucson is definitely one of them, and unfortunately Tucson area residents keep on voting down road bonds.

The problem is that it isn't all that difficult to get around Tucson even with just I-10 and I-19.  The metro area needs to grow a whole lot more for surface traffic to become a huge issue. 

My vote would go to Miami which largely consists of toll roads and geographic constraints.  There is only so much that you can do when your metro area is only 10-15 miles wide with the Everglades and the Atlantic Ocean as obstructions.  Pretty much every freeway, toll road, or even surface route is an exercise in sadism during rush hour.  I deliberately took a surface route just today on 997 just to avoid the city, even though it crawled along at 20 MPH most of the way....it can be that bad on the limited access roads.

[RobbieL2415]

Here my cities of note:
DC. There's no main through route running through downtown, unless you count I-695 but that's more of a spur route off the Capital Beltway.  And it's a pain in the butt trying to enter the city from the north.

Springfield MA.  Substandard interchanges, travel limited to surface streets entering from the SE (that means MA 83.  Boston Rd. is always cluttered

[jeffandnicole]

Probably Philadelphia is up there.  1 major route with massive design issues from the west is not a good idea.

In addition: I-95 and I-76 are missing some moves between each other.  I-676 doesn't directly connect with itself going from PA to NJ and vice versa.  Half the ramps to/from 676 and 76 are hairpin turns.  I-95 near the airport is a wonderful, 4 lane per direction highway, but with some horrendous ramp lane configurations with the airport (merging areas without accel lanes, etc).  Heck, I-295 never enters PA at all (we're talking the last 50 years here) and really isn't considered much of a loop around Philly, to the point where it's questionable if it even deserved the 295 designation.

[MikeTheActuary]

Hartford

Substandard interchange between the two primary interstates, an incomplete beltway, and one of the primary interstates in dire need of reconstruction.

[Roadgeekteen]

Boston. Not constructing 95 through Boston and 695 has really hurt. Now our roads are trafficked 24/7.

[NE2]

Key West.

[Roadgeekteen]

Key West.

I can fix that.

[jakeroot]

Vancouver, BC. One east/west bypass freeway, no north/south freeway whatsoever. There are some freeways, like the 91, but most don't seem to do a whole lot to connect far-flung places (they act more like feeder freeways). The 99 is the closest thing to a north/south freeway, but it ends just outside of Richmond, with a bunch more surface street driving to reach downtown.

Most of the traffic gets around on surface streets, which are wide but covered in signals. All told though, the city has flourished without freeways. The suburbs could do with some better connections, but the city proper is best without any freeways. Downtown already has too many cars. It's best not to make it easier to access. Focus should be on public transit and cycling.

[jeffandnicole]

Corbin City, NJ

[Rothman]

Springfield MA.  Substandard interchanges, travel limited to surface streets entering from the SE (that means MA 83.  Boston Rd. is always cluttered

There is nothing southeast of Springfield.  Don't see that as a major issue.

Frankly, I thought the biggest problem with Springfield is that I-91 has seemed to be constantly under construction since that useless ramp reversal project.  Of course, Springfield was happy to have the viaduct when the Connecticut River was an industrial sewer.  Trying to rejuvenate the waterfront has still been tricky despite the new Hall of Fame (and the associated, massive corruption of the Albano administration).

Anyway, I place my chip on Philly, if only because the connection to NYC is so idiotic.  The lack of direct freeway-to-freeway connections from New Jersey is a decades-long embarrassment.

[Rothman]

Hartford

Substandard interchange between the two primary interstates

My word, you must have forgotten what it was like before the flyover!  I remember having to wait in that horrendous backup to go from I-84 EB to I-91 NB (IIRC), where you had to take surface streets!

Because of the improvements, Hartford's system doesn't seem that bad to me.

[jp the roadgeek]

Hartford

Substandard interchange between the two primary interstates

My word, you must have forgotten what it was like before the flyover!  I remember having to wait in that horrendous backup to go from I-84 EB to I-91 NB (IIRC), where you had to take surface streets!

Because of the improvements, Hartford's system doesn't seem that bad to me.

Oh, that dreaded exit onto Morgan St S where you'd have to merge with traffic, wait out a loooong light, then turn right onto Columbus Blvd before turning onto I-91 North where you had to fight crossing traffic trying to get from I-91 North to Morgan St N to catch the I-84 West ramp.  Legend has it that the owner of G. Fox department store refused to let an interchange be built for fear of losing business.  Made going to Bradley for a morning flight an absolute nightmare unless you went through before 7 AM.

[Tarkus]

Portland, Oregon, a million times over.  The whole road grid for the metro area is, in and of itself, terrible.  The freeways were largely crap already, but all the development that's gotten thrown in during just the past three years has pushed all the road infrastructure past its breaking point.  The local politicians don't realize and/or don't care that their solutions to the "housing crisis" that they created (largely via corporate welfare for Intel, Nike, and developers; Metro's mere existence; and general self-aggrandization) is going to cause a massive infrastructure crisis, that they don't have the intelligence or money to solve.

• The I-405/US-26 interchange (where the Vista Ridge Tunnel comes in) is backed up at just about any time of day.  The ramps to get on to I-405 from US-26 are just a single lane, really short, and dump out into a weaving situation.  I-405 itself is a mere two to three lanes per direction for most of its length.
• OR-217, the poster child for substandard design, and the only north-south freeway that really serves Washington County--where Nike HQ is located, and Intel has four campuses.  It's two lanes per direction for most of its length, has severe weaving issues, and its interchange with I-5 consists of a badly-built flyover ramp, and two signalized intersections.
• I-5 through the Rose Quarter--right through the area with the Moda Center, and between I-84 and the northern terminus of I-405--is largely only two lanes per direction, also with weaving galore. (Sensing a theme here?)
• Left exits and general bizarre design everywhere--the fast lanes on I-84 westbound coming into the metro area dump onto I-205 northbound, headed toward the airport, which usually causes those fast lanes to suddenly grind to a halt.  Additionally, the exit off I-5 southbound onto I-405 northbound at the south end of the Marquam Bridge also is a big ol' left exit.  It's often used by people coming from I-84, trying to get to US-26 and the west side, meaning . . . you guessed it . . . heavy-duty weaving.
• There's also the fact that I-5, despite crossing under the Ross Island Bridge (which carries US-26 over to the east side, where it become Powell Blvd) has no direct access.  Instead, there's the Ross Island Maze.
• Aside from very short stretches and auxiliary lanes for exits/entrances, there are very few spots that exceed three lanes per direction, all in a metro area of over 3 million.
• The most recent limited access roadway built--the Sunrise Corridor (part of OR-224)--took over 30 years from planning to completion.  It's two miles in length, two lanes per direction, and only has a 50mph speed limit at the highest (there's a surprisingly long 35mph zone near the OR-212 intersection).  Its termini are, of course, signalized intersections.
• If we start discussing surface streets, there are very few out there with more than two lanes per direction for any appreciable length, so there's very little that the surface streets can absorb to help relieve the crappy freeways

[plain]

Pittsburgh's definitely sucks. But not much can be done about that

[dgolub]

How about Manhattan?  Except for all the way up in Washington Heights, there are no east/west highways.  The only ways to get across the island are to either take the local streets or circumnavigate it on the FDR Drive and NY 9A.

[ET21]

Chicago 

More of a capacity issue than design.

I'd go with Milwaukee and Philly