How One's Perceptions are Shaped by Where One Lives

[Bruce]

Washington's logical and consistent numbering system, good signage, and generally decent road quality all has me spoiled. Compared to the mess next door in Oregon, it's far easier to naturally follow routes to clinch and to research them in general.

[StogieGuy7]

I-64 is the only interstate highway out of the Hampton Roads region, which is often heavily congested. And it's only useful when heading to specific destinations. Otherwise, it's all arterial highways for hundreds of miles (except only around 50 miles to I-295 via US-460 and 80 miles to I-95 via US-58) with artificially low 55 mph (ooh, they give you 60 mph on parts of US-58 and a small bit of US-17) limits until reaching an interstate highway / freeway (I-95, I-85, I-295, DE-1, I-77, I-81).

This is a good point, the Hampton Roads/Tidewater region is one of the most heavily populated areas that I can think of that's so poorly served by the Interstate highway system. Essentially, it's I-64 and not a lot else. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel gives you (expensive) access northward, but via US 13 which is not a freeway for the most part. It's a long haul to Wilmington, DE on that one. And routes to and through neighboring NC are 1950's style arterials, though that is slated to change eventually.

All this aside, the Hampton Roads metro is a top 40 market (population wise) but it's at a dead end on our IH system.

[vdeane]

It's weird to have major cities that aren't connected by interstate, as pretty much everything in Colorado is (largest town not within 15-20 miles of an interstate is Montrose, population 20K).

You'll love Ohio's system then. No interstate between Columbus and Toledo, the first and fourth largest cities in the state.

They're still on the system though.  Colorado Springs and Grand Junction aren't connected by one interstate, but you can get there the quickest way via interstate.  I was thinking more the Nashua, NH; Lynchburg, VA; Fresno, CA; Bend, OR's of the world.

Chris

While they're both on the system, the most direct/quickest route is actually US 23/OH 15/US 68/I-75.  Taking I-70 to I-75 adds 40 minutes to the trip; in fact, it's not even one of Google's suggestions.

[jeffandnicole]

It's weird to have major cities that aren't connected by interstate, as pretty much everything in Colorado is (largest town not within 15-20 miles of an interstate is Montrose, population 20K).

You'll love Ohio's system then. No interstate between Columbus and Toledo, the first and fourth largest cities in the state.

Connecting cities via interstate highways based on population will always be a moving shell game, as populations increase and decrease.  Is there truly a need to connect Toledo and Columbus via an interstate, just because of their population numbers within a state?  The *interstate* system seems more set up to connect cities country-wide; states can deal with highways to connect cities *intrastate* if the need was there.

[JCinSummerfield]

It's weird to have major cities that aren't connected by interstate, as pretty much everything in Colorado is (largest town not within 15-20 miles of an interstate is Montrose, population 20K).

You'll love Ohio's system then. No interstate between Columbus and Toledo, the first and fourth largest cities in the state.

And the closer you get to Columbus, the bigger the pain in the ass it becomes.

[sprjus4]

It's weird to have major cities that aren't connected by interstate, as pretty much everything in Colorado is (largest town not within 15-20 miles of an interstate is Montrose, population 20K).

You'll love Ohio's system then. No interstate between Columbus and Toledo, the first and fourth largest cities in the state.

Connecting cities via interstate highways based on population will always be a moving shell game, as populations increase and decrease.  Is there truly a need to connect Toledo and Columbus via an interstate, just because of their population numbers within a state?  The *interstate* system seems more set up to connect cities country-wide; states can deal with highways to connect cities *intrastate* if the need was there.

The two cities, at minimum, warrant a freeway design between them.

That corridor would also link Columbus and Detroit.

[tolbs17]

It's weird to have major cities that aren't connected by interstate, as pretty much everything in Colorado is (largest town not within 15-20 miles of an interstate is Montrose, population 20K).

You'll love Ohio's system then. No interstate between Columbus and Toledo, the first and fourth largest cities in the state.

Connecting cities via interstate highways based on population will always be a moving shell game, as populations increase and decrease.  Is there truly a need to connect Toledo and Columbus via an interstate, just because of their population numbers within a state?  The *interstate* system seems more set up to connect cities country-wide; states can deal with highways to connect cities *intrastate* if the need was there.

The two cities, at minimum, warrant a freeway design between them.

That corridor would also link Columbus and Detroit.

I-73, right?

[SkyPesos]

I-73, right?

A northern I-73 would be nice for an interstate designation, but upgrading US 23/OH 15 between Waldo and Findlay, as well as adding a freeway connection to I-75 south of there, would be great.

It's weird to have major cities that aren't connected by interstate, as pretty much everything in Colorado is (largest town not within 15-20 miles of an interstate is Montrose, population 20K).

You'll love Ohio's system then. No interstate between Columbus and Toledo, the first and fourth largest cities in the state.

Connecting cities via interstate highways based on population will always be a moving shell game, as populations increase and decrease.  Is there truly a need to connect Toledo and Columbus via an interstate, just because of their population numbers within a state?  The *interstate* system seems more set up to connect cities country-wide; states can deal with highways to connect cities *intrastate* if the need was there.

For a long distance purpose, it's part of the Detroit/most of Eastern Michigan to the Carolinas/Southern VA route.

[JayhawkCO]

Colorado has tons of areas off the interstate.

Colorado's top ten cities are all on the interstate system.

True, but a lot of the Southwest part of the state there are no interstates for hundreds of miles.

But the two largest cities in that area have a combined 40K people (Montrose & Durango).  They are the 32nd and 33rd most populous cities in the state respectively.  Important cities for their region, sure, but not for the state in general.

Chris

[Flint1979]

What's the big deal about connecting Detroit to Columbus via Interstate? It'll save you maybe 5-10 minutes total to make it an Interstate all the way. I-75 to OH-15 to US-23 doesn't seem to present too much of a problem.

[1995hoo]

I suspect this thread by one of the usual suspects is an example of someone's perception being influenced by where he lives (as I noted in my comment in that thread).

[Roadgeekteen]

What's the big deal about connecting Detroit to Columbus via Interstate? It'll save you maybe 5-10 minutes total to make it an Interstate all the way. I-75 to OH-15 to US-23 doesn't seem to present too much of a problem.

Fun

[thspfc]

I suspect this thread by one of the usual suspects is an example of someone's perception being influenced by where he lives (as I noted in my comment in that thread).

I'm going to start referring to the people who create random threads about nothing as "the usual suspects".

[jeffandnicole]

I-73, right?

A northern I-73 would be nice for an interstate designation, but upgrading US 23/OH 15 between Waldo and Findlay, as well as adding a freeway connection to I-75 south of there, would be great.

It's weird to have major cities that aren't connected by interstate, as pretty much everything in Colorado is (largest town not within 15-20 miles of an interstate is Montrose, population 20K).

You'll love Ohio's system then. No interstate between Columbus and Toledo, the first and fourth largest cities in the state.

Connecting cities via interstate highways based on population will always be a moving shell game, as populations increase and decrease.  Is there truly a need to connect Toledo and Columbus via an interstate, just because of their population numbers within a state?  The *interstate* system seems more set up to connect cities country-wide; states can deal with highways to connect cities *intrastate* if the need was there.

For a long distance purpose, it's part of the Detroit/most of Eastern Michigan to the Carolinas/Southern VA route.

That's a really specific and vague route all at the same time.  A lack of interstates between two medium-sized cities exist all over the country.

[vdeane]

Some of the discussion regarding toll by plate elsewhere made me think of another example: I believe that transponders should be completely free.  That's because that's how it is in NY (unless you get stuck with a PANYNJ tag, anyways); you pay $25 for the tag, $15 goes into the account immediately, the other $10 is refunded to the account once you set up automatic replenishment, and there are no monthly/annual fees.  While I was somewhat aware that this wasn't the case elsewhere, I only really had to confront that issue when I investigated what I'd need to do to get SunPass for a Florida trip in 2018 (I opted to shunpike for the one portion of the route where I would have needed to deal with AET toll roads).

[Bruce]

I suspect this thread by one of the usual suspects is an example of someone's perception being influenced by where he lives (as I noted in my comment in that thread).

On the same note, I find things like toll roads and covered bridges to be interesting because they aren't common nowadays in Washington.

[skluth]

I-64 is the only interstate highway out of the Hampton Roads region, which is often heavily congested. And it's only useful when heading to specific destinations. Otherwise, it's all arterial highways for hundreds of miles (except only around 50 miles to I-295 via US-460 and 80 miles to I-95 via US-58) with artificially low 55 mph (ooh, they give you 60 mph on parts of US-58 and a small bit of US-17) limits until reaching an interstate highway / freeway (I-95, I-85, I-295, DE-1, I-77, I-81).

This is a good point, the Hampton Roads/Tidewater region is one of the most heavily populated areas that I can think of that's so poorly served by the Interstate highway system. Essentially, it's I-64 and not a lot else. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel gives you (expensive) access northward, but via US 13 which is not a freeway for the most part. It's a long haul to Wilmington, DE on that one. And routes to and through neighboring NC are 1950's style arterials, though that is slated to change eventually.

All this aside, the Hampton Roads metro is a top 40 market (population wise) but it's at a dead end on our IH system.

Tidewater may be a dead end on the interstate system, but that's true of many coastal cities including Charleston and San Francisco. Tidewater has pretty good highway connections. US 58, which arguably should be a freeway to South Hill, is mostly expressway and freeway connecting Tidewater to I-85 and I-95. US 17 south is four lanes past Elizabeth City down to the excellent NC highway system. US 17 north is a leisurely four lane road through mostly rural Eastern VA. VA 168 to US 158 is four lanes to the Outer Banks. US 13 north is four lanes through the Delmarva Peninsula to Dover with good highways connecting to the I-95 corridor. The underused, slow US 460 is four lanes to I-295 around Petersburg. For only having one interstate highway, Tidewater is still pretty well-served for highway transportation with the main problem being the local bottlenecks any time one needs to cross a body of water (HRBT, High Rise Bridge, etc).

[ThatRandomOshawott]

I've lived in the rural Jackson Purchase region of Kentucky for all of my life. Regular commutes here usually involve either two-lane highways and/or lightly trafficked four-lane arterials (which have 65 mph speed limits). Freeways are what you take to either make a day trip to Nashville or go on vacation somewhere.
When I was a child, I was excited to go on freeways in metropolitan areas because I thought roads with eight or more lanes and stack interchanges were cool, and today, the prospect of driving on such roads is intimidating to me, since I've only ever driven on my local, rural roads.

[kphoger]

I grew up in northwestern Kansas, in a county whose county roads (and there are a lot of them!) had no names when I lived there.  No letters, no numbers, no names, just nothing.  I thought that was normal.

When I later lived in southern Illinois, and I saw two-tracks out in the countryside given full-named green street blades, I thought it was ridiculous.

[jeffandnicole]

Some of the discussion regarding toll by plate elsewhere made me think of another example: I believe that transponders should be completely free.  That's because that's how it is in NY (unless you get stuck with a PANYNJ tag, anyways); you pay $25 for the tag, $15 goes into the account immediately, the other $10 is refunded to the account once you set up automatic replenishment, and there are no monthly/annual fees.  While I was somewhat aware that this wasn't the case elsewhere, I only really had to confront that issue when I investigated what I'd need to do to get SunPass for a Florida trip in 2018 (I opted to shunpike for the one portion of the route where I would have needed to deal with AET toll roads).

Yeah, Florida's tag system sucks in that you have to pay for it.

The Northeast in general were some of the original adopters of electronic toll payments, and to encourage usage they basically "gave away" the toll tags by treating the $10 as a deposit.  They also provide free toll tag replacements when the internal batteries go dead - an issue with the 1st generation of toll tags, but the current tags have much longer-lasting batteries.

Of course, for what's it's worth, the Northeast population tends to be a bunch of hotheads that complain about anything and everything.  Telling them they'll need to pay for a tag to drive on a toll road would've been disastrous for the politicians.

[sprjus4]

I-64 is the only interstate highway out of the Hampton Roads region, which is often heavily congested. And it's only useful when heading to specific destinations. Otherwise, it's all arterial highways for hundreds of miles (except only around 50 miles to I-295 via US-460 and 80 miles to I-95 via US-58) with artificially low 55 mph (ooh, they give you 60 mph on parts of US-58 and a small bit of US-17) limits until reaching an interstate highway / freeway (I-95, I-85, I-295, DE-1, I-77, I-81).

This is a good point, the Hampton Roads/Tidewater region is one of the most heavily populated areas that I can think of that's so poorly served by the Interstate highway system. Essentially, it's I-64 and not a lot else. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel gives you (expensive) access northward, but via US 13 which is not a freeway for the most part. It's a long haul to Wilmington, DE on that one. And routes to and through neighboring NC are 1950's style arterials, though that is slated to change eventually.

All this aside, the Hampton Roads metro is a top 40 market (population wise) but it's at a dead end on our IH system.

Tidewater may be a dead end on the interstate system, but that's true of many coastal cities including Charleston and San Francisco. Tidewater has pretty good highway connections. US 58, which arguably should be a freeway to South Hill, is mostly expressway and freeway connecting Tidewater to I-85 and I-95. US 17 south is four lanes past Elizabeth City down to the excellent NC highway system. US 17 north is a leisurely four lane road through mostly rural Eastern VA. VA 168 to US 158 is four lanes to the Outer Banks. US 13 north is four lanes through the Delmarva Peninsula to Dover with good highways connecting to the I-95 corridor. The underused, slow US 460 is four lanes to I-295 around Petersburg. For only having one interstate highway, Tidewater is still pretty well-served for highway transportation with the main problem being the local bottlenecks any time one needs to cross a body of water (HRBT, High Rise Bridge, etc).

Agreed on the points about the good, built up 4 lane highway system. And US-460 becomes divided four lanes west of Petersburg / I-85. The freeway system, however, lacks, for a metropolitan area over 2 million population with other major cities in a 4-5 hour radius.

My only two complaints -
- There should be at least two other freeway leaving the area, such as US-58 at least to Emporia / I-95, and then US-460 to Petersburg / I-295. The US-17 / US-13 corridor through North Carolina, Virginia, and the Delmarva Peninsula should ideally be a continuous interstate highway corridor as well, but that's obviously in the realm of fiction.
- The speed limits on the existing divided highways should be at least a minimum of 65 mph, ideally 70 mph. Despite not being limited access, they can still easily handle it based on current geometry. It becomes a slog crawling along at 55 mph or 60 mph for 60+ miles of wide open road.

[frankenroad]

What's the big deal about connecting Detroit to Columbus via Interstate? It'll save you maybe 5-10 minutes total to make it an Interstate all the way. I-75 to OH-15 to US-23 doesn't seem to present too much of a problem.

...except for the southernmost 10-15 miles of that stretch....

[triplemultiplex]

Milwaukee and Chicago are the big cities that I go to the most. Both those cities have long stretches of suburbia along their main freeway approach from the west (about 30 miles for Milwaukee along I-94, and about 45 miles for Chicago along I-90). This is due to the fact that west is one of the only directions those metro areas can continue to sprawl, as they have Lake Michigan to the east and all of the land between the two cities is pretty much developed. For that reason I thought that all major cities have similarly long stretches of suburbs, but that's not the case.

I think I can echo this perception as well, citing the Twin Cities as my other fairly well traveled example.  Then one finally goes on a long road trip somewheres else and a place like Nashville just kind of comes up out of nowhere coming in from the northwest on I-24.  You're in the woods, and then suddenly, skyscrapers!

I also had the impression that for mid-sized and bigger cities, if there were freeways, they'd be hemmed in by subdivisions and big box stores and other sorts of development since that's what I saw most of the time in the Midwest.  But it's not always going to be like that.  Do a lap around the Quad Cities and it doesn't seem like there's very much to it.  The northern half of I-435 in KC was another one that struck me like that.

Going back further when I was first getting into maps, I at first expected that red and yellow Rand Mac generic divided highway to mean that road looked pretty much like the rural Wisconsin expressways I was familiar with.  Basically a freeway-style road with at grade junctions.  But I quickly figured out that wasn't the case and there was a wide range of roads that got the divided symbology.

[Sctvhound]

Living in Charleston:

That one bridge being closed down paralyzes the entire area. That is the case here. We've had tarps fall on bridges, ice storms close down bridges, hurricane issues, and numerous other scares.

We have the Ravenel Bridge (US 17), the Ashley River Bridge (17 as well), the James Island Connector (SC 30), the Wando Bridge (I-526), the Don Holt Bridge (526), the Westmoreland Bridge (526), the Wappoo Cut Bridge (SC 171), the Isle of Palms Connector (SC 517), the Stono Bridge (SC 700), and the Limehouse Bridge (Main Rd).

That's TEN major bridges in our metropolitan area. All with at least 20,000 vehicles a day, most way more than that. If one of them has to close for any sort of time, traffic backs up through the entire area.

[HighwayStar]

Generally speaking, those from regions with poor road infrastructure are quick to support "public transit" schemes and other boondoggles, while those who know what good roads look like prefer good road infrastructure.