Outrageous detours

[wanderer2575]

Inspired by this story from the United Kingdom:  https://www.foxnews.com/world/detour

A 65-foot-long section of a road in Godmanstone, Dorset is being closed for a week for sewer work.  The official detour is a 41-mile-long out-and-back loop with its two ends 65 feet apart.  I get that official detours need to accommodate all traffic including trucks, overheights, etc., and most motorists will find shorter alternate routes, but this just seems to take absurdity to the extreme.

Any other seemingly outrageous detours you've come across?

[Max Rockatansky]

When I-10 at Tex Wash was damaged a couple years back the signed detour was I-8.  Traffic could have gotten around it the washout via CA 62 and CA 177 easier but it still would have been at least a 50 mile detour route.

[Techknow]

I was at Big Sur once during the winter rainstorms two years back. At the time, Highway 1 was recently closed at the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge, I heard one group of tourists came from LA but now in order to go back they have to go north to US 101 and then get go south. I think that may have added at least 100 miles or so to their trip, they probably had to drive 40 miles from the town of Big Sur to Salinas via CA 1 and CA 68 to US 101, then drive 330 miles back to LA. Pretty outrageous for a detour in California I think. Another one just as outrageous is the Mud Creek closure for 14 months, and the main route to get from Big Sur to Ragged Point was going through a one-lane road to get to US 101, and for a while was the only way to get to Big Sur.

BTW the main roads in Big Sur have been documented pretty well by Max: http://www.gribblenation.org/2017/12/challenger-adventures-in-coast-ranges.html

[jeffandnicole]

Inspired by this story from the United Kingdom:  https://www.foxnews.com/world/detour

A 65-foot-long section of a road in Godmanstone, Dorset is being closed for a week for sewer work.  The official detour is a 41-mile-long out-and-back loop with its two ends 65 feet apart.  I get that official detours need to accommodate all traffic including trucks, overheights, etc., and most motorists will find shorter alternate routes, but this just seems to take absurdity to the extreme.

Any other seemingly outrageous detours you've come across?

While we're not talking dozens of miles, New Jersey for its many closely spaced roads can have some unusually lengthy detours. As a general rule, NJDOT won't post detours *before* ramp closures. So in cases where a detour would only be a short distance along a parallel route, the official detour can often be upwards of a 10 mile loop on multiple roadways to get back to where you needed to go depending on the exits involved.

In other cases, our roads just aren't great for using as detours.  The ramp from 295 North to NJ 168 - Exit 28 - has been closed on occasion due to construction.  The detour is to go up to Exit 32, make the U-turn to 295 South, and go back to NJ 168.  That wouldn't be an issue if Exit 32 was the next exit.  However, motorists pass by Exits 29A, 29B and 31 in the process, but due to medians and other issues they're not great as a point to turn around.  In this example, most motorists will just get off at Exit 29 and make a U-turn in a parking lot off the exit, but since u-turning in a parking lot is kinda not proper, that can't be used as the official detour.  At least the ramp is usually closed at night, so the parking lots being used are empty.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

The MN 43 bridge over the Mississippi at Winona was closed for a short time in 2008 due to the same fracture-critical nature that brought down the 35W bridge. The next closest crossings were to go to either the MN 60 bridge at Wabasha or I-90 at La Crosse, making it a 65-mile round trip detour.

[paulthemapguy]

I was at Big Sur once during the winter rainstorms two years back. At the time, Highway 1 was recently closed at the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge, I heard one group of tourists came from LA but now in order to go back they have to go north to US 101 and then get go south. I think that may have added at least 100 miles or so to their trip, they probably had to drive 40 miles from the town of Big Sur to Salinas via CA 1 and CA 68 to US 101, then drive 330 miles back to LA. Pretty outrageous for a detour in California I think. Another one just as outrageous is the Mud Creek closure for 14 months, and the main route to get from Big Sur to Ragged Point was going through a one-lane road to get to US 101, and for a while was the only way to get to Big Sur.

BTW the main roads in Big Sur have been documented pretty well by Max: http://www.gribblenation.org/2017/12/challenger-adventures-in-coast-ranges.html

I actually thought about the CA-1 mudslide closure as a possible response to this topic.  That sounded awful.  The worst detour I encountered recently was two years ago in California due to wildfire damage.  I wanted to take US-101 and CA-299 from Crescent City to Arcata to Redding, but CA-299 was impassible.  So we had to take US-199 north, back into Oregon, to I-5 south, changing our 3-hour trip to a 5-hour trip.  We had to forego hiking Fern Canyon that morning, which we wanted to see because they filmed scenes from Jurassic Park at the lush forest there.

[Max Rockatansky]

I was at Big Sur once during the winter rainstorms two years back. At the time, Highway 1 was recently closed at the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge, I heard one group of tourists came from LA but now in order to go back they have to go north to US 101 and then get go south. I think that may have added at least 100 miles or so to their trip, they probably had to drive 40 miles from the town of Big Sur to Salinas via CA 1 and CA 68 to US 101, then drive 330 miles back to LA. Pretty outrageous for a detour in California I think. Another one just as outrageous is the Mud Creek closure for 14 months, and the main route to get from Big Sur to Ragged Point was going through a one-lane road to get to US 101, and for a while was the only way to get to Big Sur.

BTW the main roads in Big Sur have been documented pretty well by Max: http://www.gribblenation.org/2017/12/challenger-adventures-in-coast-ranges.html

I actually thought about the CA-1 mudslide closure as a possible response to this topic.  That sounded awful.  The worst detour I encountered recently was two years ago in California due to wildfire damage.  I wanted to take US-101 and CA-299 from Crescent City to Arcata to Redding, but CA-299 was impassible.  So we had to take US-199 north, back into Oregon, to I-5 south, changing our 3-hour trip to a 5-hour trip.  We had to forego hiking Fern Canyon that morning, which we wanted to see because they filmed scenes from Jurassic Park at the lush forest there.

Those slides were an absolute blast if you wanted a quiet time out in Big Sur.  The whole trip down the Nacimiento-Ferguson Road to get to the section of CA 1 between the slides one was one of the most memorable day trips I ever did. 

[renegade]

Not a construction detour, but on a roadtrip across southern Michigan earlier this summer, the town of Bronson had a festival which resulted in US-12 being detoured nearly ten miles to get around a five-block-long closure.

[US 89]

If I-15 ever closes or has construction in the northwest Arizona area, the detour is US 93 to Nevada SR 319 to Utah SR 56. According to Google, this adds 1h 23m of travel time in addition to being 75 miles longer.

This saw a lot of use in September 2014, when a section of I-15 in Nevada washed out due to monsoon floods, and the added traffic took a heavy toll on the state routes which weren't designed for I-15's traffic volumes. More recently, there's been significant construction in the Virgin River Gorge and trucks above a certain size haven't been allowed on I-15 through there. Not sure if it's still going on but it was happening during this summer for sure.

[HazMatt]

US-321 between Blowing Rock and Lenoir was closed frequently during construction, and for several months following a landslide.  The detour was about ~45 miles taking US-421/NC-18 through Wilkesboro.

Funny(ish) story, my college roommate at the time of the landslide was from west Charlotte.  While explaining he could take US-421 to I-77 instead of the official route, I had to explain the existence of both US-421 and I-77 as they were completely foreign concepts to him.  Our dorm was on King Street in Boone, we could see US-421 from our window.  As for I-77, he lived in Charlotte.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

An example from Spain: Last year the then-N-330 highway (now part of A-23 freeway) was closed for a week due to a landslide, so traffic had to detour on a narrow, winding road. Even worse, during that time a rockslide happened on the detour road (it was rapidly cleared). Both combined, they added over 60 miles to the route between Huesca and Sabiñanigo.

BTW, the OP example is better termed as a "diversion" .

[SP Cook]

They have never been used, but the WV Turnpike has five signed detours.  The deal is that the Turnpike staff, as usual, was unprepared for a winter storm back in 2011, and hundreds of people spent upwards of 30 hours trapped in their cars.  The rest of the region got the same weather, but he competent staff at the regular highway departments in WV, VA, and KY got the job done. 

Rather than address the personnel and management issues, the PR centric (and grossly overpaid) Turnpike manager ginned up these detours and sent his staff around putting up signage. 

A is to take 79 North to Sutton and then then Corridor L to Beckley.  People who understand geography will realize that Corridor L is at a much higher elevation and thus likely to get more snow.  This is 84 miles.

B, C and D are short detours around Marmet and Beckley. 

E is to take I-64 East from Beckley to Lewisburg, then US 219 South into Glen Lyn, Virginia and then Corridor Q to Princeton.  This is 84 miles and enters two small towns in Virginia which are notorious for catching trucks without proper Virginia permits cutting this corner.

None have ever been used, of course.

[hbelkins]

Kentucky does not like to sign detours of state routes on county routes, due to road and pavement quality, etc. This can result in some long detours sometimes.

Indiana does the same thing.

Occasionally, US 51/60/62 will flood and close between Wickliffe and the Ohio River bridge into Illinois. The detours involve going to Paducah and crossing on I-24 and then making your way back to Cairo, or going to Dyersburg and crossing on I-155 and back north on I-55.

They have never been used, but the WV Turnpike has five signed detours.  The deal is that the Turnpike staff, as usual, was unprepared for a winter storm back in 2011, and hundreds of people spent upwards of 30 hours trapped in their cars.  The rest of the region got the same weather, but he competent staff at the regular highway departments in WV, VA, and KY got the job done. 

Rather than address the personnel and management issues, the PR centric (and grossly overpaid) Turnpike manager ginned up these detours and sent his staff around putting up signage. 

A is to take 79 North to Sutton and then then Corridor L to Beckley.  People who understand geography will realize that Corridor L is at a much higher elevation and thus likely to get more snow.  This is 84 miles.

B, C and D are short detours around Marmet and Beckley. 

E is to take I-64 East from Beckley to Lewisburg, then US 219 South into Glen Lyn, Virginia and then Corridor Q to Princeton.  This is 84 miles and enters two small towns in Virginia which are notorious for catching trucks without proper Virginia permits cutting this corner.

None have ever been used, of course.

A big issue was the nearly unbroken barrier wall along the turnpike between the Mossy and Cabin Creek toll plazas. There was no place to get cars turned around and headed back the other way. Since then, they've also made several cuts in the barrier wall and replaced them with removable guardrail. The WVDOT spokesman, Brent White, pointed this out to us when we were on the bus from Charleston to Fayetteville during TransComm.

[jay8g]

This was an emergency situation rather than construction so it's a little different, but still... Back in 2007, I-5 in Chehalis, WA flooded out and had to be closed for a while. The official detour from Portland to Seattle was I-84 to US 97 to I-82 to I-90, over 300 miles (roughly doubling the normal distance, worse, of course, if you were heading to or from somewhere in between Seattle and Portland). Making matters worse, the flooding happened during the winter, so the official detour route through the Columbia River Gorge and back over Snoqualmie Pass likely would have had some weather issues as well.

[Verlanka]

They have never been used, but the WV Turnpike has five signed detours.  The deal is that the Turnpike staff, as usual, was unprepared for a winter storm back in 2011, and hundreds of people spent upwards of 30 hours trapped in their cars.  The rest of the region got the same weather, but he competent staff at the regular highway departments in WV, VA, and KY got the job done. 

Rather than address the personnel and management issues, the PR centric (and grossly overpaid) Turnpike manager ginned up these detours and sent his staff around putting up signage. 

A is to take 79 North to Sutton and then then Corridor L to Beckley.  People who understand geography will realize that Corridor L is at a much higher elevation and thus likely to get more snow.  This is 84 miles.

B, C and D are short detours around Marmet and Beckley. 

E is to take I-64 East from Beckley to Lewisburg, then US 219 South into Glen Lyn, Virginia and then Corridor Q to Princeton.  This is 84 miles and enters two small towns in Virginia which are notorious for catching trucks without proper Virginia permits cutting this corner.

None have ever been used, of course.

If they're not used, why post them at all?

[Finrod]

In the 1980s when INDOT was replacing the US 231 overpass over the railroad tracks a mile and a half south of Linden, the official detour was I-74, SR 25, and SR 28, which pretty much no one took as it tripled the distance.  If you were going to Lafayette from Crawfordsville and you went out to SR 25, you'd just continue on it into Lafayette instead of taking 28 back to 231, but what people did instead was just go one mile west over to County Road 100 W and take that around.  It was a gravel road, but it was still far better than the official detour.

[hbelkins]

In the 1980s when INDOT was replacing the US 231 overpass over the railroad tracks a mile and a half south of Linden, the official detour was I-74, SR 25, and SR 28, which pretty much no one took as it tripled the distance.  If you were going to Lafayette from Crawfordsville and you went out to SR 25, you'd just continue on it into Lafayette instead of taking 28 back to 231, but what people did instead was just go one mile west over to County Road 100 W and take that around.  It was a gravel road, but it was still far better than the official detour.

Indiana is notorious for signing detours only on state-maintained routes.

[webny99]

It seems entirely foreign to me that some states wouldn't consider county routes good enough for state- or US route detours. Do their county routes have no standards whatsoever?  Around here, anything county-maintained can handle through traffic, and serves at least some regional purpose, if only as a suburban collector/distributor. No dead ends, no bridges that can't handle large trucks, no narrow lanes, no anything else I can think of why they might not be up to par.

[kphoger]

It seems entirely foreign to me that some states wouldn't consider county routes good enough for state- or US route detours. Do their county routes have no standards whatsoever? 

Here is a signed county route near where I grew up.

[webny99]

It seems entirely foreign to me that some states wouldn't consider county routes good enough for state- or US route detours. Do their county routes have no standards whatsoever? 

Here is a signed county route near where I grew up.

Yikes. I don't think anything gravel would be signed as a county route in most rural areas I'm familiar with (Minnesota, North Dakota, PA, Ohio) and certainly not here in New York*.


*There is one exception in Wyoming County, although it may be temporary. I was going to link to it, then realized there's no street view, so forget it.

[kphoger]

I don't think anything gravel would be signed as a county route in most rural areas I'm familiar with (Minnesota, North Dakota, PA, Ohio) and certainly not here in New York*.

I didn't even have to try twice to find a signed county route for a gravel road in Minnesota–found one on the first attempt.  They're all over the place there.

[webny99]

OK, you've got me there, because I wasn't really thinking about farm country.

I guess what I don't understand is, how does that translate into ALL county roads not being able to be used as detours?
For every substandard one, there's probably at least one that could potentially be used (since we're talking about Minnesota, here's one).

[kphoger]

rural areas

I wasn't really thinking about farm country.

WTF ???

[webny99]

I mean, I was, but not very thoroughly; nothing that immediately came to mind, or surfaced after a quick check, qualified; but I'm sure there are plenty of counter-examples. I guess I can't not look like a fool at this point, but I will say that to me, farm country is secondary. This type of thing is what comes to mind first.

[vdeane]

It seems entirely foreign to me that some states wouldn't consider county routes good enough for state- or US route detours. Do their county routes have no standards whatsoever?  Around here, anything county-maintained can handle through traffic, and serves at least some regional purpose, if only as a suburban collector/distributor. No dead ends, no bridges that can't handle large trucks, no narrow lanes, no anything else I can think of why they might not be up to par.

It's worth noting that detours do lead to more wear and tear on the roads they're on.  Some states might not want to pass that burden on.