Road Friendly states

[Mergingtraffic]

What states are the most road friendly....meaning they are expanding their highway system at a pretty good clip and the expansions are rarely met my nimbyism and the expansions are really big.

Texas comes to mind
Anymore

or states that are NOT road friendly...where nimby-ism weeds out road projects to where they don't even matter anymore.

[Bryant5493]

I'd say Georgia -- Metro Atlanta in particular. We love our cars.


Be well,

Bryant

[agentsteel53]

Rural Nevada.  Two lane highways everywhere, spectacular scenery, and no other cars for hours.  Now *that* is a friendly road!

[Scott5114]

ODOT is in the process of building a 10-lane freeway just south of downtown Oklahoma City. If that doesn't say "road-friendly", I don't know what does!

Although the roads aren't particularly car-friendly...

[Chris]

New York between 1930 and 1960. Now completely the opposite.

[roadfro]

Rural Nevada.  Two lane highways everywhere, spectacular scenery, and no other cars for hours.  Now *that* is a friendly road!

Couldn't agree more!

[flowmotion]

A lot of rural roads in Nevada are not in very good condition, in my experience. There are roads which appear on highway maps that are barely above jeep trails.

All part of the fun of visiting Nevada 

[agentsteel53]

yes, Rand McNally sometimes labels something as a major through route and it turns out it's a goat path! 

I do believe every state highway in Nevada is paved.  I do not believe 8A and 34 are on the books anymore, though signs for them do remain.

[roadfro]

A lot of rural roads in Nevada are not in very good condition, in my experience. There are roads which appear on highway maps that are barely above jeep trails.

I do believe every state highway in Nevada is paved.  I do not believe 8A and 34 are on the books anymore, though signs for them do remain.

That's an interesting statement, flowmotion, considering Nevada usually rates pretty highly among the other states as far as smooth/good quality pavement is concerned.  There are several roads that appear on maps that are not actually paved...but these are not marked as important routes (many are former state highways that were relinquished in the 1976 renumbering).  Every state highway is paved and maintained by NDOT--the last highway to be get paved was SR 774 by 2002.  (8A and 34 have been off the books since the renumbering, with some sections being paved and maintained by Washoe County.)

[Crewdawg]

have to agree with you on NV loved diving form north to south along US 93 and NV 318 when I lived in ID. family live in SoCal.

[flowmotion]

roadfro - I was just making a humorous comment because I've lost a couple tires on Nevada's "blue highways". Calm down.

[thenetwork]

Ohio is NOT a road friendly state:

-  It took 30+ years to finish the Jennings Freeway (SR-176) connection between I-71 and I-480/SR-17 in Cleveland (a 3 Mile Stretch).

-  It took nearly 40 years to complete the SR-711 connection (a 2-mile  stretch) between I-80/SR-11 and US-422/SR-293 in Youngstown.

-  It's taking over 40 years (and probably will be over 50 years) before I-77 is completely 3+ lanes in each direction from I-90 in Downtown Cleveland to I-76 in Akron.

-  I-490 (nee I-290) will never become a much-needed freeway connecting Downtown Cleveland to the due-east suburbs by I-271.  BTW, was I-290 renamed I-490 by ODOT way back when to avoid confusing it with the East Shoreway (SR-2/I-90)?

-  The SR-59 Akron Innerbelt will never be a true bypass loop west and north of downtown Akron, connecting SR-8 to I-77/I-76.  In fact, the Akron Innerbelt may be replaced by a regular 4-6 lane boulevard!

-  US 62 will never become a full limited-access freeway east of Canton & I-77.

And this is just in Northeast Ohio!!!

[J N Winkler]

Road-friendly states not already mentioned:  Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming.  At the moment Kansas is adding more centerline mileage of untolled freeway than any other state in the same north-south tier, including Texas (which has almost ten times the population).

[Chris]

Which new untolled freeways are they building in Kansas at the moment? I guess turning US 69 into a freeway?

[Sykotyk]

US-69, and the slow methodical updating of US-400 which will take decades.

They're planning a bypass around Greensburg (the town destroyed by the tornado last year) that will be built as a freeway bypass.

Sykotyk

[J N Winkler]

It's more than that--the Kellogg Avenue freeway (US 54) in Wichita is being expanded on both ends, US 59 is being relocated to a new freeway alignment between Ottawa and Lawrence, freeway sections of US 54 are being built in Kingman County, etc.  I am less familiar with plans in northeastern Kansas, but I would expect further freeway upgrades for US 75, US 169, and US 69.

US 50 near Holcomb, US 169 near Coffeyville, and K-61 between Hutchinson and McPherson are being widened to four-lane divided, with interchanges in some cases and on alignments which are explicitly designed to support future upgrades to full freeway.

There is more work in the pipeline.  KDOT wants to make the K-18 western approach to Manhattan a full freeway from K-116 eastward (and the K-116 trumpet, which is currently a TOTSO for traffic continuing west on K-18, will become a partial cloverleaf interchange with K-18 as the through route).  There are plans to upgrade US 54 to full freeway pretty much all the way from Wichita to Mullinville, including a freeway upgrade in Greensburg (the town that achieved international notoriety when nearly all of it was destroyed by a tornado).  A Northwest Bypass (for which the K-254 number has tentatively been assigned) is planned for Wichita.  There is even crazy talk of making US 50 a freeway not just from Newton to Emporia (where it would threaten to compete with the Kansas Turnpike), but also west of Newton.  The K-10 South Lawrence Trafficway has been mired in controversy for over 20 years and may never be built, but would also be a new-location freeway if it were built.

These are just KDOT projects for building freeways on new location or converting existing non-freeways to freeways.  KDOT has big plans for the existing freeway network too.  US 69 is getting expensive upgrades at the I-35 interchange and more work is in the pipeline further south.  KDOT wants upgrades to the K-10 and K-7 corridors, including a Maltese cross stack (which would be Kansas' first) at what is now the K-7/K-10 cloverleaf.  In Wichita, upgrades to the I-235/US 54 cloverleaf are in the pipeline.  KDOT commissioned an I-235 corridor study which recommended widening and a stack/turban hybrid at the US 54 interchange (a full stack was considered, but rejected for no good reason I can tell, and I actually want to contest this decision because I think it would cost the same to put in a full stack but all of the left-turning ramps would be able to handle 45 MPH as opposed to 35 MPH for the ramps which "wrap" in what is currently proposed).

Kansas is nowhere near as aggressive in building new centerline mileage of freeway as Arizona, but some of the same methods are in use such as sales tax increments (used to fund Kellogg construction in Wichita, and possibly also bits of US 69 in Overland Park), and the amount of work which has been done and is planned is unusual for a state which has relatively slow population growth.

[Tarkus]

Oregon is one of the least road-friendly states out there, sadly:

• Pathetic NMSL-era speed limits still in effect, lowest west of the Mississippi.  65mph on Interstates, 55mph on everything else.  Even US-20 out in the middle of the desert where there's 100+ miles between towns is a 55 zone.
• Diversion of road funding toward light rail and streetcar projects in Portland.
• Proposed use of government-mandated GPS tracking devices to implement a "mileage tax".
• Rampant NIMBYism since the mid-1970s, which killed off numerous freeway projects.
• Metro, the "regional planning agency".
• Columbia River Crossing, the plan to replace the existing, non-tolled I-5 Interstate Bridge with a $5 billion toll bridge.  They also want to toll the parallel I-205 bridge.

It's amazing just how sad the state of affairs has gotten over the past 40 years--to think that we almost got a Robert Moses-designed freeway setup in Portland.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[agentsteel53]

also in Oregon, don't forget mandatory full-serve gas stations.  As JN Winkler put it very eloquently in another thread, it really disrupts one's rhythm when they have to obey someone else's rules at the pump.  About the only thing more disruptive than a mandatory full-serve gas station is a speeding ticket!

[yanksfan6129]

I can't believe how many people see full-serv as destructive! Seems like a convenience, a nice service provided to you like a doorman in an apartment building or going to a restaurant to be served dinner instead of serving it yourself, to me.

With regards to Oregon, that's what you get for living in a place where everyone is all about being "environmentally friendly."

[Chris]

I don't know, not being able to pump yourself takes away some freedom... I wouldn't feel comfortable with it. I'd love to do such things myself.

[roadfro]

I must agree with some of the mentions about Oregon.  I'd really like to know the rationale behind their lower speed limits...

I can't believe how many people see full-serv as destructive! Seems like a convenience, a nice service provided to you like a doorman in an apartment building or going to a restaurant to be served dinner instead of serving it yourself, to me.

To follow the restaurant analogy: I always have the option of being served a burger at Chili's versus picking up a burger at McDonald's.  I don't want to wait that long for someone to seat me, take my order and bring me my burger every time I want one--but it is a nice service that I enjoy on occasion.  More importantly, nobody forces me to go to Chili's every time I want a burger--I can always go pick up my own at McDonald's if I want.  I don't view full-service gas as destructive and might even use it on occasion (provided I could find one around here), but I wouldn't want to be compelled to use full-service every time I need gas.

[agentsteel53]

I can't believe how many people see full-serv as destructive! Seems like a convenience, a nice service provided to you like a doorman in an apartment building or going to a restaurant to be served dinner instead of serving it yourself, to me.

I am not a fan of doormen, porters, etc.  I can carry my own luggage, and keep my own cash, thank you very much.  You'd think the US has no aristocracy but we certainly do.  We're just not as honest about it.

[hm insulators]

California used to be road-friendly, but not any more. NIMBY-ism killed off a lot of proposed freeways in the Los Angeles area that were never built (the I-710 through South Pasadena being the most notorious example); the urban and suburban freeways that were built in California (including the Bay Area and San Diego) are not only inadequate and heavily congested, they have been allowed to deteriorate so badly your car can disappear into a pothole the size of a small swimming pool, and the surface streets are just as bad!

More and more, I think the only way that California's ailing road system can be fixed is for the "Big One" to knock down a bunch of overpasses and such, then they'd HAVE to be rebuilt!

[corco]

I must agree with some of the mentions about Oregon.  I'd really like to know the rationale behind their lower speed limits...

They've actually authorized speed limit increases to 70 MPH within congress, but ODOT doesn't want to post them because they don't want trucks going any faster than 55 MPH and think a 15 MPH disparity is too large (which it is, but why not let trucks go 60, 65, or  70)

[hm insulators]

Which they probably do anyway! (At least when Smokey's not around.)