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Holy Unique the traffic signal is installed on the highway sign post
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3824593,-119.0111031,3a,15y,118.66h,93.94t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sIBx2oWtpa04dhtfVngB8xQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DIBx2oWtpa04dhtfVngB8xQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D134.08272%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

There was once a proposal to extend the Garden State Parkway northward to the Palisades Interstate Parkway (the New Jersey Turnpike was also once proposed to connect with the New York State Thruway). Both extensions were likely as impossible then as they would be now, although old road proposals fascinate me deeply (and I doubt I'm alone with that fascination on the AARoads Forum). Assuming such extensions overcame all obstacles (about as likely as FritzOwl giving up naming every road an Interstate), how do all of you think these extensions would have been utilized, and would they do much to reduce congestion in the areas where they would have ran?

Parkway to PIP would take pressure off the existing merge into 87S/287E and the cloverleaf at PIP, which is currently a major bottleneck (in both directions even!). Turnpike to Thruway would be nice, but would add traffic to the Turnpike and take it off the Parkway, so while you'd help Essex County somewhat you would also be hurting the West/East Alignments and they'd need to be even wider even sooner.

Very weird story from yesterday. A small plane made an emergency landing on the 91 Freeway in Corona. The pilot needed to make an emergency landing and took advantage of a gap in freeway traffic. He did hit the back of a pickup and the plane itself is a wreck but fortunately nobody was hurt. Someone's car video amazingly captured the crash which happened just behind them.

These stories make me angry.  I worked in Concord for a while and could easily have been on I-680 when this one happened.  A busy freeway is not an emergency runway; if the pilot tries to save his own life by setting down on the freeway he's putting a lot of innocent people at risk.  From that one in 2004:

A four-seat airplane crashed on a busy Contra Costa County highway shortly after takeoff Tuesday, severely injuring an 11-year old girl as it sliced open the minivan in which she was riding, and burst into flames during the evening commute.

Miraculously, no one else was seriously injured in the crash, and the pilot and his son walked away from the charred wreckage of the Piper Turbo Arrow that littered Interstate 680 in Pleasant Hill.

"I just aimed for an open spot on the freeway and prayed," said the pilot, Robert Curt Hatch, 43, of Grand Junction, Colo.

The girl remained in surgery at Children's Hospital in Oakland last night after her leg was cut by the plane's propeller as it sliced through the roof and a door of her parents' minivan.
...
Hatch said the plane was going about 75 mph when it grazed a pickup truck before landing atop a blue Dodge Grand Caravan minivan. As the wings caught fire, the three-blade propeller ripped through a passenger door like a can opener, smashing the window, shearing the vehicle's body and slicing the girl's leg. The van skidded 100 feet before stopping.

Here's a subsequent follow-up.  I hope Mr. Hatch is still paying for his actions.

National Transportation Safety Board Judge Patrick Geraghty ordered Robert Curt Hatch's pilot license to be suspended for five months for operating an aircraft in a "reckless" manner. Hatch landed a malfunctioning Piper PA-28RT-201T, N2920C on a busy freeway April 13, 2004, seriously injuring an eleven-year-old girl.
...
(Hatch) landed the airplane on the southbound side of the I-680 freeway. During the landing rollout the left wing struck one vehicle and the right wing of the airplane struck a second vehicle, which spun the airplane around.

The propeller struck Arianna Jimenez, a passenger in the second vehicle, nearly amputating her leg. She has undergone numerous surgeries and will face more in the future. The family claims more than $1 million in medical bills. A civil suit is pending.

Hatch and his son escaped unharmed, and the aircraft was consumed by fire.

Dumb question, but one i always want to ask after a vacation or trip outside of New York Stte: is there any reason why there's no internally illuminated overhead street name signs anywhere in the state?  Does the state ban internally illuminated road signs for some irrational reason, much like they ban pavement reflectors?

They should say "Avoid overheating engine, turn off A/C next xx miles". This pretty much guarantees overheating the passengers.

This new project seems to have a certain clumsiness to it. If you're coming down 99 and want to take the Westside Pkwy, there is no connection between 99 and Truxton Ave, and there will be no connection between Westside and California Ave, so you'll have to go way down and way back up. And now, no connection between Stockdale Hwy and either Westside or 99.

They shoulda built 58 as a straight line west decades ago, when they had the chance.

I heard stories in Wiki that SR 27 might of been US 41 at one time carrying the US route from Jasper to Chattanooga.  Is there any truth to this?

Yes, there is. I'm not enough of a history buff to elaborate, though. Actually, I think there was extensive discussion of the topic in the thread about the new US 41 bridge, which is how I learned about it.

I wonder if CalTrans eventually makes the Stockdale Hwy (CA-58) a full freeway, could they just do something similar to what KDOT did with I-35 in Emporia, Kansas?
KDOT made the freeway go over the roundabout to create a nice compact interchange. It uses a lot less space than a dumbbell interchange (2 roundabouts at the end of a normal diamond).

The Boston area has lots of those. They call them "rotaries" though, and they're usually a bit bigger.

It looks like SR-190 in Death Valley is going to be experiencing some closures for another week: https://apnews.com/article/floods-california-department-of-transportation-climate-and-environment-a09b3c47f1d941eeb889618e35ffc375

The road was covered for 30 miles, so they closed 80 miles of it?

NASCAR on Fox > NASCAR on NBC

NASCAR on ESPN, before 2001 > the rest

CBS in the early to mid 90s for me. Ken, Ned, Neil. Neil Bonnett was the best NASCAR color commentator of all time. Ned Jarrett is 2nd. Dale Jarrett is my favorite of the modern group even though he’s a studio guy mow

Some more potentially unpopular sports announcer opinions…

I don’t understand why Dale Jr is so beloved in the booth aside from name recognition. I think he’s much better as a host (like on his podcast or his TV show Lost Speedways). In the booth I think he’s so over the top he makes Darrell Waltrip look like Wally Dallenbach.

Kurt Busch should go into the booth when he retires from driving (which sounds like it’ll be soon).

Sky should replace David Croft as its F1 play-by-play commentator with Alex Jacques, who calls F1 for Channel 4 in the UK. I enjoy Alex’s style better.

Gary Thorne is underrated.

I agree with you about Dale Jr. He needs to hang out with Rutledge Wood more and be in the booth less.