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Drastic road standard changes

Started by fillup420, November 20, 2017, 10:04:22 AM

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vdeane

I believe this thread is meant for a road that is of one standard immediately becoming a much lower standard, not a route that has two vastly different sections with an arbitrary distance between them.  If allowing the latter, QC 138 is a major example, having freeway and expressway sections around Montreal and Quebec City, but (currently) ending as an unpaved road in Kegashka.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.


CNGL-Leudimin

Or CV-35 in the Valencian Community in Spain, which starts in Valencia as a full freeway and gets progressively worse until it reaches the Castile-La Mancha border as a goat path.

Anyway, State/Regional borders are the best place to search abrupt changes. Sometimes one subdivision has upgraded its section and while the other didn't, resulting in a good road becoming a goat path at the border.
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US71

Alexandria, LA has two-way frontage roads that suddenly become one-way. No warning, simply the road in one direction ends at a curb.
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kkt

CA 299 is a 2-lane road with high design speed and shoulders.  It crosses the Nevada border and turns into former Nevada state highway 8A, which is about 1 1/2 lanes, dirt, never was paved, now recommended for jeeps and pickups and not much else.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: kkt on November 23, 2017, 10:41:36 PM
CA 299 is a 2-lane road with high design speed and shoulders.  It crosses the Nevada border and turns into former Nevada state highway 8A, which is about 1 1/2 lanes, dirt, never was paved, now recommended for jeeps and pickups and not much else.

I wonder if those 8A shields are still standing after all these years?   That's the kind of area that vintage shields would last because of how remote it is. 

dgolub

The expressway section of NY 27 used to end at the "Shinnecock Squeeze" where it narrowed down to one eastbound lane and two westbound lanes, undivided.  Relatively recently, they widened is so that it's now four-lane undivided after the expressway ends.

thenetwork

In NE OH, US-422 goes from a 4-lane freeway to a narrow 2-lane road a few miles east of OH-44 for several miles before it reverts to a 4-lane divided roadway.  ODOT is in no hurry to upgrade that 2-lane stretch despite being narrow and dangerous with high traffic AND the occasional Amish buggy to make things interesting.

Ian

NH 101 is one of my favorite examples. It starts off as a narrow one-way pair in Hampton Beach, then less than two miles west turns into a short-lived super-two freeway before turning into a full-blown divided freeway not long after that.
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fillup420

When US 74 was being upgraded in eastern NC during the late 1990's, it would frequently jump between 2-lane road and interstate-standard freeway, as new sections were built and opened. Now its done so we don't get any of that.

SD Mapman

Benson Road in eastern Sioux Falls transitions directly from a 4-lane with turning lane concrete surface to gravel: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.5871969,-96.6880323,3a,75y,79.43h,82.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLnJTyEOq4wRQUgLfse2TRA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

(This may be fixed with the SD 100 project; they're building from SD 42 to I-90 next year...)
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CYoder

Quote from: SD Mapman on November 25, 2017, 08:33:13 PM
Benson Road in eastern Sioux Falls transitions directly from a 4-lane with turning lane concrete surface to gravel: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.5871969,-96.6880323,3a,75y,79.43h,82.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLnJTyEOq4wRQUgLfse2TRA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Interesting TRUCK ROUTE sign with a PRIMARY banner... never seen that before.

cpzilliacus

#36
U.S. 1 southbound in Pennsylvania goes from being a four-lane freeway to a two-lane divided arterial as it approaches and crosses the Maryland border.

U.S. 1 further degrades as it crosses the Conowingo Dam at the Susquehanna River (the lanes are quite narrow at the south (west) end of the dam at the power house).   
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Max Rockatansky

US 95 goes from a 70 MPH expressway in Nevada before dropping down to a worn two-lane road following the original 1926 alignment of US 66 upon entering California.

Joe The Dragon

Quote from: mgk920 on November 20, 2017, 04:04:28 PM
US 12, from very poorly designed local street to interstate-standard freeway at the IL-WI state line.

Mike
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lepidopteran

In Ohio:

Near Fairborn, I-675's northern terminus at I-70 is actually a full cloverleaf.  So what happens in the fourth direction to the north?  The freeway quickly downgrades to 2-lane County Road 335, also known as Spangler Rd.  IMHO, not only does the interchange seem like overkill, there are two interchanges a few miles in either direction that are just as good to get to the control city of Medway.

In Northbridge, OH, just north of Columbus, SR-315 (Olentangy Freeway) is a full freeway right up to the interchange with I-270.  A traffic signal then appears before EB->NB ramp even finishes merging!  It then quickly whittles down to 2 lanes with a center turn-lane, then becomes a 2-lane road through a wooded area along the river.  The interchange, which used to have an at-grade left turn for one movement, is now a 3/4 cloverleaf with one mixing bowl ramp, and most recently a supplementary ramp was added to access a C/D lane serving US-23.
About 30 years ago, the suddenness of this shift caught me off-guard, on a bicycle!  I was coming down from the north, then was like, "Whoa, I'm on a freeway!"  (I know, some non-interstate freeways allow bicycles on the shoulder, but...)  I had to backtrack to the Linworth Rd. overpass to continue southward.

WillWeaverRVA

In the Seven Pines area of eastern Henrico County, traveling westbound on US 60 from I-295 sees it rather dramatically drop from a 4-lane divided road with a 55 mph speed limit to a 2-lane road with a 25 mph speed limit as it approaches the rather messy intersection with VA 33 and VA 33Y.
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jp the roadgeek

CT 25 going from a 6 lane freeway, and after crossing CT 111 at-grade, becomes a 2 lane road.

US 7 in Norwalk hitting a dead end at Grist Mill Rd. and turning right to connect to the road that becomes its old alignment

The old west ending of the CT 72 expressway in Plainville where continuing straight put you on a neighborhood street with a 25 MPH speed limit.

CT 9 in Middletown that goes from a 65 MPH expressway to 2 traffic lights in less than a mile.

The west end of I-291 that connects to CT 218 (similar to CT 40). 

The Berlin Turnpike which goes from the US 5/CT 15 portion which is 4 lanes divided and a 50 MPH speed limit to CT 314 which is 2 lanes undivided and a 40 MPH speed limit, then about a mile later becomes Maple Ave in Hartford and a 25 MPH limit.

The north end of I-678 which becomes the Hutch Parkway where commercial vehicles are banned. 
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Max Rockatansky

CA 58 is largely an Expressway or a Freeway east of Bakersfield.  West of Bakersfield the route is largely rural and curvy, in fact you'd might mistake it for CA 178 because it was at one point.

JasonOfORoads

This historical example is one of my favorites:



Kansas Turnpike in 1956 at the Oklahoma border. If you're not careful, you'll go right into a field.

I'd love to see any ground-level photos of this intersection from that time.
Borderline addicted to roadgeeking since ~1989.

Beltway

When the VA-76 Powhite Parkway Extension was opened in 1988, at the west end it transitioned in 1/2 mile from a 4-lane freeway to a 2-lane at-grade expressway to the gravel road VA-652 Old Hundred Road, in one seamless road.

This is near where now VA-288 and VA-76 cross.  VA-652 Old Hundred Road was upgraded a few years later into a modern 2-lane paved secondary road.
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1995hoo

#45
Quote from: JasonOfORoads on November 29, 2017, 05:49:10 PM
This historical example is one of my favorites:



Kansas Turnpike in 1956 at the Oklahoma border. If you're not careful, you'll go right into a field.

I'd love to see any ground-level photos of this intersection from that time.

There are some somewhere on this forum.

Edited to add: Found a link in a prior thread to a grainy newspaper photo. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19570403&id=FFdIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wgAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7241,5569082&hl=en
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ftballfan

The northern end of the US-131 freeway, when it reverts to a two-lane road (although that stretch of 131 may be considered a Super 2 as there are very few if any driveways between the northern end of the freeway and Fife Lake)

Techknow

I'm surprised no one here yet has mentioned US-101 from Novato to Petaluma, between Marin County and Sonoma County in California. After the last exit in Novato, it goes down from 8 to 6 lanes, then very quickly goes down to four lanes, in less than a mile of highway! If you get caught in traffic in this part of US-101, expect a 30 minute delay when going to Petaluma or Santa Rosa, probably because at one point Caltrans though cost-cutting in highway building was a good idea but didn't foresee millions of dollars of wasted productivity as a result of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Caltrans today is well aware of this - it has been working on a project called the "Sonoma-Marin Narrows" and you can see the effects of its construction as you pass through in either direction. I have gone southbound here multiple times and I can see enough space for a third lane, except it's currently painted over so you can't drive on it. The idea is they are working on a new lane so it only drops to 6 lanes, except the center most lane is HOV.

triplemultiplex

Quote from: dgolub on November 24, 2017, 09:13:59 AM
"Shinnecock Squeeze"

This sounds like something that results in a sexual harassment lawsuit. :-D
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froggie

Quote from: TechknowI'm surprised no one here yet has mentioned US-101 from Novato to Petaluma, between Marin County and Sonoma County in California. After the last exit in Novato, it goes down from 8 to 6 lanes, then very quickly goes down to four lanes, in less than a mile of highway!

No worse than US 12 in Wayzata, MN.  Prior to the Long Lake bypass, it went from a 6-lane freeway to 2-lane surface road in the span of about a half-mile.  Not quite as bad now with the bypass (but still comparable to your US 101 example), where it now goes from 6-lane freeway to Super-2 in about 3/4-mile.



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