Encountering Closet or Aspiring Roadgeeks

[signalman]

A few weeks ago I was on a train bound for NYC. A few stops past where I got on the train a man and his son boarded and sat in the seat in front of me. I could certainly hear their conversation well and as we got east of Newark, the Pulaski Skyway came into view. I heard the boy ask his dad if that was the Pulaski  Skyway and the man replied yes. The boy replied, "I thought so. It looks like how I remember seeing it on a map." Presumably he was referring to Google maps and more specifically street view. I can't think of how else he saw an image of the bridge on a map. A little further east as we neared the NJ Turnpike he says to his dad, "I like the turnpike in this area, it's so wide." He then proceeded to talk about 6th Avenue in Manhattan in vivid detail. This kid was young, I'd guess 6 or 7, but he left me quite impressed. I was grateful that they chose to sit within earshot of me.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything close to this?

[Max Rockatansky]

One of the people who works for me would fall under this definition.  One of his favorite hobbies is to go out on drives along weird mountain roads.  He mentioned the Parkfield Grade and Los Gatos Creek Road a couple months back which prompted me asking if he was into roads.  Recently he did some really metal stuff on the way to Tuolumne in the form of County Route J16, CA 49 in the Merced River Canyon, Old Priest Grade and Wards Ferry Road. 

[JoePCool14]

I wonder if that kid in OP's post will ever end up posting on this forum! I, and probably many others of us, may have spoken like this when we were that age.

I can't say I've met anyone who's necessarily a road geek in the sense that they would like to discuss the intricacies of Clearview or their favorite interchange design, but there's a lot of people who enjoy road trips and driving in general. In many ways, we aren't a whole lot different from them. We just tend to sweat the small stuff more like sign design, route numbering, route clinching etc.

None of that stops me from casually mentioning Travel Mapping. I'm at the age where I don't care if people know it's something I enjoy.

[webny99]

I have not really mentioned this forum or Travel Mapping in other settings. Maybe that will change someday. I've convinced myself that I don't really care if people know about it, but at the same time... I figure most people aren't going to care, and there's never really been a great context for me to bring it up.

I do recall asking/saying a few things as a kid that were similar to what's mentioned in the OP. I specifically remember asking my dad if there were any six-lane sections of the Thruway, and being enthralled when we drove on one (between I-490 and NY 332) later that same day on a day trip to the Finger Lakes! I credit that section of the Thruway for my fascination with long-distance interstates and long-distance road travel in general.

[vdeane]

I can't say I've met anyone who's necessarily a road geek in the sense that they would like to discuss the intricacies of Clearview or their favorite interchange design, but there's a lot of people who enjoy road trips and driving in general. In many ways, we aren't a whole lot different from them. We just tend to sweat the small stuff more like sign design, route numbering, route clinching etc.

That is true.  When I made a Facebook page for my site, I was surprised by how many people outside the roadgeek community were interested.  In fact, I think I have more activity from outside the community than within it at this point.

[Max Rockatansky]

I can't say I've met anyone who's necessarily a road geek in the sense that they would like to discuss the intricacies of Clearview or their favorite interchange design, but there's a lot of people who enjoy road trips and driving in general. In many ways, we aren't a whole lot different from them. We just tend to sweat the small stuff more like sign design, route numbering, route clinching etc.

That is true.  When I made a Facebook page for my site, I was surprised by how many people outside the roadgeek community were interested.  In fact, I think I have more activity from outside the community than within it at this point.

We have a way bigger draw from history groups (especially in California) than we do road groups.  If I post something on the Gribblenation Facebook page and link to a history group or two it usually gets anywhere from four-to-twenty times the views.  There is definitely an untapped potential outside the road community for historic items, not so much more traditional Roadgeek topics such as signage or road pictures.

[Scott5114]

I can't say I've met anyone who's necessarily a road geek in the sense that they would like to discuss the intricacies of Clearview or their favorite interchange design, but there's a lot of people who enjoy road trips and driving in general. In many ways, we aren't a whole lot different from them. We just tend to sweat the small stuff more like sign design, route numbering, route clinching etc.

That is true.  When I made a Facebook page for my site, I was surprised by how many people outside the roadgeek community were interested.  In fact, I think I have more activity from outside the community than within it at this point.

We have a way bigger draw from history groups (especially in California) than we do road groups.  If I post something on the Gribblenation Facebook page and link to a history group or two it usually gets anywhere from four-to-twenty times the views.  There is definitely an untapped potential outside the road community for historic items, not so much more traditional Roadgeek topics such as signage or road pictures.

California is really sort of unusual in how much interest the the local historians have in the roads in their area. Of course, it makes sense considering how much of early 20th century history is tied to the roads in California, and you had groups like ACSC and CSAA running around facilitating it (I don't know about CSAA, but I know ACSC still exists and has their own staff historian). Around here, you get the usual Route 66 stuff, but local history hardly ever talks about, like, US-62 or US-77 or the auto trails that crossed Oklahoma.

[Max Rockatansky]

I can't say I've met anyone who's necessarily a road geek in the sense that they would like to discuss the intricacies of Clearview or their favorite interchange design, but there's a lot of people who enjoy road trips and driving in general. In many ways, we aren't a whole lot different from them. We just tend to sweat the small stuff more like sign design, route numbering, route clinching etc.

That is true.  When I made a Facebook page for my site, I was surprised by how many people outside the roadgeek community were interested.  In fact, I think I have more activity from outside the community than within it at this point.

We have a way bigger draw from history groups (especially in California) than we do road groups.  If I post something on the Gribblenation Facebook page and link to a history group or two it usually gets anywhere from four-to-twenty times the views.  There is definitely an untapped potential outside the road community for historic items, not so much more traditional Roadgeek topics such as signage or road pictures.

California is really sort of unusual in how much interest the the local historians have in the roads in their area. Of course, it makes sense considering how much of early 20th century history is tied to the roads in California, and you had groups like ACSC and CSAA running around facilitating it (I don't know about CSAA, but I know ACSC still exists and has their own staff historian). Around here, you get the usual Route 66 stuff, but local history hardly ever talks about, like, US-62 or US-77 or the auto trails that crossed Oklahoma.

The CSAA is still around, but it never was to the same scale or prominence as the ACSC.  Regarding particular highways California has it's own following for several other notables such as US 99, US 40, US 395, US 101, CA 1, the Lincoln Highway and National Old Trails Road.  For a while I was even part of an effort with several counties to promote tourism on CA 49 related to the history tied to the Gold Rush.  Really it is hard to divorce the history of the state from the highway network, even historic highway corridors in the Gold Rush era Sierra Nevada Mountains have a colorful background. 

Even the National Parks have a unique road following.  I've never received really any pushback from the outdoors crowd regarding the historic corridors of Yosemite National Park and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park.  Yosemite in particular has a very large historic road following, definitely not something one would intuitively expect from a National Park crowd. 

[1995hoo]

I juts came across the following on another forum I visit. This guy sounds like he belongs here:

"Watching videos about traffic patterns is like crack cocaine to me."

[US 89]

Usually when I wear my t-shirt with the Utah SR 24 shield on it, people will give me blank looks and questions along the lines of “now what is that? Is that a beehive? Why? Why 24?” Which of course I’m happy to answer. But when I wore it one day a couple weeks ago, the question from one guy was “is that Utah state highway 24 down by Capitol Reef?” I was impressed and asked how he knew not only what it was, but where. His response: “oh, I used to look at a lot of maps when I was little”.

Given that I’m pretty sure he has lived in Florida his entire life, that’s gotta be some serious road geek level map viewing. Now that I think about it, he’s also mentioned I-19 being signed in metric before.

[andrepoiy]

When I was a kid I would comment on how the design of streetlights/signs/roads/traffic lights were different when we went outside of Ontario. So I'm sure that kid might just join us here someday

[mgk920]

a couple of years ago while doing a quick house visit while at work, I noticed what appeared to be the product of a 7 to 10 YO kid, he filled the entire driveway at that house with chalk lines of roads, streets, freeways and so forth, complete with signs and everything else.  I wasn't able to stick around, but I did comment  to what I assumed was the kid's father about what looked to me to be the work of a budding traffic engineer.

mike

[kirbykart]

I have not really mentioned this forum or Travel Mapping in other settings. Maybe that will change someday. I've convinced myself that I don't really care if people know about it, but at the same time... I figure most people aren't going to care, and there's never really been a great context for me to bring it up.

I do recall asking/saying a few things as a kid that were similar to what's mentioned in the OP. I specifically remember asking my dad if there were any six-lane sections of the Thruway, and being enthralled when we drove on one (between I-490 and NY 332) later that same day on a day trip to the Finger Lakes! I credit that section of the Thruway for my fascination with long-distance interstates and long-distance road travel in general.

When I was younger, the first time I remember being on the brief five-lane (I refer to freeway lane counts as to how many there are in one direction; Webny99 among others would call it ten-lane) section of the Thruway in Buffalo, well I was shocked. It was the widest road I had ever been on, and well I had always known freeways to be two lanes each way.

It was also crazy to me how much of I-190 is three-lane.

[webny99]

It was also crazy to me how much of I-190 is three-lane.

Still, not enough of it is three lanes per direction IMO!  It will probably never happen but I would love to see I-190 widened from I-290 to Niagara Falls, including both Grand Island bridges.

[kirbykart]

^Mmmm... delicious lanes! But the Grand Island bridges will never be widened, I'm afraid.

[andrepoiy]

I have not really mentioned this forum or Travel Mapping in other settings. Maybe that will change someday. I've convinced myself that I don't really care if people know about it, but at the same time... I figure most people aren't going to care, and there's never really been a great context for me to bring it up.

I do recall asking/saying a few things as a kid that were similar to what's mentioned in the OP. I specifically remember asking my dad if there were any six-lane sections of the Thruway, and being enthralled when we drove on one (between I-490 and NY 332) later that same day on a day trip to the Finger Lakes! I credit that section of the Thruway for my fascination with long-distance interstates and long-distance road travel in general.

When I was younger, the first time I remember being on the brief five-lane (I refer to freeway lane counts as to how many there are in one direction; Webny99 among others would call it ten-lane) section of the Thruway in Buffalo, well I was shocked. It was the widest road I had ever been on, and well I had always known freeways to be two lanes each way.

It was also crazy to me how much of I-190 is three-lane.

Meanwhile, I had the opposite experience.

I was shocked to find out that it was possible to have freeways with less than 3 lanes... The first time I was on a 2-lane section of Highway 401 I was very surprised given that I was under the impression that freeways had to have at least 3 lanes. 2 lanes was one less lane compared to the arterial outside my house!