Denied before, North Carolina again sent their request to add an Interstate designation to a stretch of U.S. 264 and U.S. 117 between Wilson and Goldsboro at the recent AASHTO Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This time, the application was approved. Among the benefits of a new Interstate for Goldsboro, North Carolina, the designation allows trucks exceeding 48 feet in length to legally drive the U.S. 117 freeway between the [...]
An inside joke, sort of... The fact of the matter is that Maine @ AARoads is once again up to date with all our existing coverage that includes a short excursion in the Kittery and York areas as part of our July-August New England road trip. That joins Maine with Arkansas as the only two of the lower 48 states without existing coverage in the queue for future AARoads updates! [...]
New South Carolina State Highway Sign Design. Graphic created by AARoads. Just caught this on a recent Southeast Roads Yahoo! Group post http://groups.yahoo.com/group/seroads/message/7077; on June 22, 2007,1 SCDOT unveiled a new highway shield design to replace the current black and white box shields used throughout the Palmetto State. The state follows Oklahoma (2006) and Vermont (1995) as states that changed from a drab shield design. A grandfathering [...]
Have you seen this rendering? It is the megasized symmetrical stack interchange currently under construction at the eastern junction of Interstate 95 and 695 at Baltimore, Maryland! Construction began in 2006 on a multi-year project that will bring express toll lanes to the busy corridor. Presently Interstate 95 carries eight lanes between Interstate 895 and Maryland 24 (Exit 74). This project expands the overall lanes to 12 with the addition [...]
Since our friends decided to leave early, we followed suit and made a day out of it on the way back south. Decided on Interstate 89 south to check out the Barre Connectors first, both of which appear as freeways on maps sometimes, but really are expressway-like roads with no private driveways. Vermont 62 spurs east from Exit 7 into northern Barre, complete with a connector leading to U.S. 302. [...]
Spent our final full day in Vermont visiting Burlington and the University of Vermont. As always with this trip, we took convoluted routes to see more of the area. Departing Interstate 89 south via Exit 16 (U.S. 2 & 7), we traveled through Winooski, an old mill town situated along the north banks of the Winooski River. Redevelopment of the downtown area is phenomenal when compared to previous visits in [...]
Spent Day 7 driving around the Lake Champlain Islands and then down a combination of U.S. 7 and Interstate 89 among other routes to Burlington and back. U.S. 2 travels north-south through the Lake Champlain Islands, passing through small towns such as South Hero, Grand Isle, and North Hero. The roadway carries only two lanes with the exception of a brief four-lane section just northwest of the Sandbar at South [...]
Day 5 was spent mainly around Lake Champlain with an afternoon in Burlington to see a movie. A few road notes from the day: VTrans took a page out of DelDOT's play book and undertook carbon copy signing along Interstate 89 southbound at the full-cloverleaf interchange (Exit 14) with U.S. 2. A new sign bridge was installed to go with new signs. Signs unfortunately continue to omit the exit tabs [...]
Began the trip by plotting out a circuitous route to Lake Champlain, Vermont via the New Hampshire seacoast and Hampton Beach. Started out on Interstate 93 southbound to its end and encircling Boston via Interstate 95 north. Traffic on Interstate 95 and the Boston area was relentless, even on a Sunday night at 10:30 am. The number of cars and trucks barreling down the road on the area freeways makes [...]
Started the day off with a bang, a huge crash of thunder at around 6:30 am at the onset of a thunderstorm in Quincy, MA. A few hours later storm clouds gave way to brilliant skies, setting the tone for the day. We were due in Vermont this night, but opted to stay with our friend in Quincy another night and explore more of the area roads instead. Beginning on [...]
