Tim Powers' "Alternate Routes" novel

[kurumi]

(maybe, as a fiction book involving highways, this should go into Fictional Highways...)

I just finished reading Alternate Routes by Tim Powers -- an SF/Fantasy book about freeway traffic helping bring about a portal between this world and another. Naturally, it's set in Los Angeles, and features the 710 and 110, phantom exit ramps, and a tiny bit of Pasadena Freeway history. The following might be the roadgeekiest passage I've read in a mainstream novel:

... and when Vickering was able to read the lettering on the freeway sign, his ribs went cold and a full two seconds later the backs of his hands tingled.

"That sign," he said unsteadily, "says 401 Beverly Hills Freeway west, in half a mile."

"Is that the one you want?"

"No. No, it's not. There is no 401 Freeway, no Beverly Hills Freeway."

Her hands were over her face. "Don't take that freeway," she advised in a muffled voice.

Now there was a proposed, but never built, Beverly Hills Freeway, part of CA 2, from US 101 to I-405. It would have been cool to see some real "ghost freeways" (e.g CA 64) make an appearance.