BUS Spurs off Interstates?

[bluecountry]

Not seeing those too much on the east coast, what is the deal with those?
It makes little sense to have a BUS interstate that is clearly not an interstate as it has signals.

[oscar]

Not seeing those too much on the east coast, what is the deal with those?

Business interstate routes (both spurs and loops) are less common in the eastern states, but there are some of both. Many non-eastern states don't bother with business Interstates, or U.S. or state business routes.

It makes little sense to have a BUS interstate that is clearly not an interstate as it has signals.

They serve a useful purpose, kind of, to help travelers find travel services off the regular Interstates. They aren't as helpful as they used to be, with logo signs and smartphones, and I wouldn't favor creating new ones.

[ilpt4u]

Most of the Business Loop I-55's in IL merely follow the old US 66 routing like Bloomington/Normal, Lincoln, Springfield

It makes sense because much of I-55 in IL in rural areas was a direct upgrade of the existing US 66 corridor, and using one of the existing 66 carriageways and a new one for I-55 and the other 66 carriageway for local access/frontage road. Designating Old 66 as Business 55 at the bigger towns/cities is a bit of a tip of the cap of I-55 to its predecessor US 66

[Rothman]

Here comes BL-81!

[MATraveler128]

Pennsylvania has BL I-83 and BL I-376 the latter of which is up to freeway standards.

[wanderer2575]

They serve a useful purpose, kind of, to help travelers find travel services off the regular Interstates. They aren't as helpful as they used to be, with logo signs and smartphones, and I wouldn't favor creating new ones.

What I found interesting in, I think it was Wyoming, was that Interstate business routes were signed as such only for the first half of their length in each direction.  The second half was signed as TO I-xx.

[Scott5114]

Business interstates are normally the route of the old highway through town before the Interstate was built. All of the Business I-40s west of Oklahoma City are snippets of old US-66, for instance.

The reason for marking the route through the middle of town is that the old highway is most likely to have traveler services along it. Thus a traveler unfamiliar with the area would be able to more easily locate a hotel, gas station, or restaurant in the days when you couldn't access the Internet from just any old place.

[Bruce]

Washington doesn't have state-maintained business routes, with one exception:


I-5 Business Loop in Seattle by SounderBruce, on Flickr

(This is actually a collector/distributor lane)

[zachary_amaryllis]

They serve a useful purpose, kind of, to help travelers find travel services off the regular Interstates. They aren't as helpful as they used to be, with logo signs and smartphones, and I wouldn't favor creating new ones.

What I found interesting in, I think it was Wyoming, was that Interstate business routes were signed as such only for the first half of their length in each direction.  The second half was signed as TO I-xx.

Unless they've changed it, I recall approaching 3rd St. (287) from the east on Grand (30/B-80), and seeing TO 80 signed both directions at the light, since the 'official' routing of B-80 has you turn right at 3rd and go a few blocks to Harney St, then to I-80.

Alternately, you can turn left at 3rd, go like 3 blocks, and there's I-80.

[US 89]

As someone from the west where we have more of these, I find business interstate routes quite useful and would oppose getting rid of them. Out there, there is much less availability of motorist services - typically only in towns that may be many tens of miles apart. The existence of a business loop generally tells me that the town I'm coming up on is going to be more significant than some podunk exit that just happens to have a gas station. Plus, if the place I'm going isn't right next to the freeway, the business loop provides some reassurance that I'll be able to get back to the interstate through town instead of spending a bunch of time backtracking.

As far as confusing them with mainline interstate freeways... nobody does that. The shields are a whole different color and the "Business"  designation suggests they have businesses on them...ergo, not a freeway. All-freeway BLs like the ones in SC/NC are the weird ones.

[Bitmapped]

Pennsylvania has BL I-83 and BL I-376 the latter of which is up to freeway standards.

While both routes have freeway sections, they both also have at-grade intersections.

[vdeane]

As someone from the west where we have more of these, I find business interstate routes quite useful and would oppose getting rid of them. Out there, there is much less availability of motorist services - typically only in towns that may be many tens of miles apart. The existence of a business loop generally tells me that the town I'm coming up on is going to be more significant than some podunk exit that just happens to have a gas station. Plus, if the place I'm going isn't right next to the freeway, the business loop provides some reassurance that I'll be able to get back to the interstate through town instead of spending a bunch of time backtracking.

As far as confusing them with mainline interstate freeways... nobody does that. The shields are a whole different color and the "Business"  designation suggests they have businesses on them...ergo, not a freeway. All-freeway BLs like the ones in SC/NC are the weird ones.

Around here, people don't really differentiate by shield.  Even in the Capital District where interstates are largely identified as such (unusual for upstate NY, I should note), this commonly gets called "Interstate 787" even though the red, white, and blue shields ended a couple miles back.  People would probably be asking "I wonder why one is blue and the other is green...".

(personal opinion)

[roadman65]

Not seeing those too much on the east coast, what is the deal with those?
It makes little sense to have a BUS interstate that is clearly not an interstate as it has signals.

Not seeing those too much on the east coast, what is the deal with those?

Business interstate routes (both spurs and loops) are less common in the eastern states, but there are some of both. Many non-eastern states don't bother with business Interstates, or U.S. or state business routes.

It makes little sense to have a BUS interstate that is clearly not an interstate as it has signals.

They serve a useful purpose, kind of, to help travelers find travel services off the regular Interstates. They aren't as helpful as they used to be, with logo signs and smartphones, and I wouldn't favor creating new ones.

Georgia has plenty, though phasing out some such as I-75 BL in Adel and I-95 BL in Darien, however plenty of state and US ones though the only businesses they serve are classic downtown businesses as gas, food, and lodging are now on the bypass.

That is one of the reasons why Indiana made the US 31 bypass of Kokomo a limited access freeway, as it's 1956 bypass of downtown caused sprawl on the new bypass to bring strip malls and chain department store to it making it another part of the city.  So the business route ( although not officially bannered though) turned Mayberry and motorists would find it on the newer alignment. The new freeway requires one to exit and go into the city to the former US 31 to find your service.

[kirbykart]

As someone from the west where we have more of these, I find business interstate routes quite useful and would oppose getting rid of them. Out there, there is much less availability of motorist services - typically only in towns that may be many tens of miles apart. The existence of a business loop generally tells me that the town I'm coming up on is going to be more significant than some podunk exit that just happens to have a gas station. Plus, if the place I'm going isn't right next to the freeway, the business loop provides some reassurance that I'll be able to get back to the interstate through town instead of spending a bunch of time backtracking.

As far as confusing them with mainline interstate freeways... nobody does that. The shields are a whole different color and the "Business"  designation suggests they have businesses on them...ergo, not a freeway. All-freeway BLs like the ones in SC/NC are the weird ones.

Around here, people don't really differentiate by shield.  Even in the Capital District where interstates are largely identified as such (unusual for upstate NY, I should note), this commonly gets called "Interstate 787" even though the red, white, and blue shields ended a couple miles back.  People would probably be asking "I wonder why one is blue and the other is green...".

(personal opinion)

Yes. When I went on a road trip this summer (my parents were driving), and we went through Illinois and they were quite confused about the business Interstates. At least once there was an exit with a Business 55 shield and they asked if they had to exit there to stay on 55.

[roadman65]

California writes out Business Route 5 in text to avoid confusion.

[cwf1701]

If you look at Michigan, you can see many Business routes from both US and Interstate routes. For example, many of the BUS-US-127 routes north of Lansing are former aliments of US-27. many of the Business i-94 follow the 1926 version of US-12, I-96 Business routes are former parts of US-16, I-69 Business follows former aliments of US-27 and M-21. BUS-I-75 follows old aliments of US-10, M-76, US-27 and US-2.

[US 89]

As someone from the west where we have more of these, I find business interstate routes quite useful and would oppose getting rid of them. Out there, there is much less availability of motorist services - typically only in towns that may be many tens of miles apart. The existence of a business loop generally tells me that the town I’m coming up on is going to be more significant than some podunk exit that just happens to have a gas station. Plus, if the place I’m going isn’t right next to the freeway, the business loop provides some reassurance that I’ll be able to get back to the interstate through town instead of spending a bunch of time backtracking.

As far as confusing them with mainline interstate freeways… nobody does that. The shields are a whole different color and the “Business” designation suggests they have businesses on them…ergo, not a freeway. All-freeway BLs like the ones in SC/NC are the weird ones.

Around here, people don't really differentiate by shield.  Even in the Capital District where interstates are largely identified as such (unusual for upstate NY, I should note), this commonly gets called "Interstate 787" even though the red, white, and blue shields ended a couple miles back.  People would probably be asking "I wonder why one is blue and the other is green...".

(personal opinion)

Yes. When I went on a road trip this summer (my parents were driving), and we went through Illinois and they were quite confused about the business Interstates. At least once there was an exit with a Business 55 shield and they asked if they had to exit there to stay on 55.

This is almost certainly a factor of what regions you grew up in/live in/are familiar with. If you’re from the west, where business routes are quite common and usually represent the original US Highway routing through a city, you probably don’t bat an eye.  But these things barely exist in the northeast, or even the east in general.