Youthful Misconceptions

[cpzilliacus]

(1) Assuming that building the Washington Metrorail would replace an extensive system of proposed but mostly cancelled freeways in the District of Columbia and nearby Maryland - it didn't.

(2) Just because there were dashed lines on the maps of the 1960's and 1970's, that an Outer Beltway would get built between 5 and 15 miles beyond the Capital Beltway.  So far, all we have are Sam Eig Highway, I-370, Md. 200 (ICC) and Va. 7100 (Fairfax County Parkway, soon to be posted as Va. 286).

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I used to think when I was a kid that roads were quick, easy, and cheap to build. I'd always envisioned my favorite route being given massive extensions in all sorts of directions until I learned the reality of how building a road is none of those three things, and that killed all my fantasies permanently.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

I used to think "XING" was its own word (pronounced like "sing"). It was just until recently that I learned that it was an abbreviation for "crossing."

[kurumi]

I used to think "XING" was its own word (pronounced like "sing"). It was just until recently that I learned that it was an abbreviation for "crossing."

And "PED XING" was something you make with rice noodles, tofu, chili, lime and peanuts.

[english si]

XING PED, however isn't Asian cuisine, though normally appears near to where you are warned of it with Ped Xing signs:


Perhaps it's an Asian-hispanic man (Ped being short for Pedro) who likes eating Ped Xing?

[DaBigE]

XING PED, however isn't Asian cuisine, though normally appears near to where you are warned of it with Ped Xing signs:


Perhaps it's an Asian-hispanic man (Ped being short for Pedro) who likes eating Ped Xing?

Looks like someone got the spacing just a little off there.  When placed in that order (the order you reach them while driving rather than how you would read them on a page), there should be more of a gap between 'PED' and 'XING'

[txstateends]

I remember when I was pre-school age...I guess I thought every sign had a front and back display to them, or at least some of them.  I must have had a real big hangup about signs then, because I'd turn around after every sign passed to look to see if there was anything on the back!

This affected another big hangup of the time--ice cream.  I'm sure more than once my mother had to change my shirt after getting home because I was paying so much attention to signs that the ice cream had melted without me eating much or any of it...

[national highway 1]

XING PED, however isn't Asian cuisine, though normally appears near to where you are warned of it with Ped Xing signs:


Perhaps it's an Asian-hispanic man (Ped being short for Pedro) who likes eating Ped Xing?

Looks like someone got the spacing just a little off there.  When placed in that order (the order you reach them while driving rather than how you would read them on a page), there should be more of a gap between 'PED' and 'XING'

They do this in Canberra and the Australian Capital Territory, where if read like on a page it says 'LANE ONE FORM', but it's used rather than a diagonal arrow to indicate when driving along 'FORM ONE LANE'

I also found 'PED XING' in a McDonalds carpark in Cooma, south of Canberra, i guess McDonalds imported that from the States.

[Central Avenue]

I used to think "XING" was its own word (pronounced like "sing"). It was just until recently that I learned that it was an abbreviation for "crossing."

When I was about 5 I saw a small sign in a Kroger parking lot that said only "PED XING". I asked my mother "What's 'ped k-sing' mean?"

Her answer: "It means they're too cheap to get a real sign."

[the49erfan15]

Tangentially road related, but as a toddler I thought for some reason the Exxon logo was supposed to be telephone poles at an angle. I knew it was two X's crossed, but thought there was supposed to be a double-meaning.





Kind of? Maybe? No? Okay.

[swbrotha100]

Some of the things I thought when i was younger:

- My parents led me to believe that I-95 and US 1 were the same highway in Philadelphia.
- I thought every state had a turnpike (such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike and New Jersey Turnpike).
- Every freeway I saw I assumed was part of the interstate system.
- Every state had yellow traffic signals.
- Every state issued drivers licenses at age 16. (I hated living in NJ at the time.)

[vdeane]

From a friend of mine, though I'm not sure if the term "youthful misconceptions" applies because she's 20 and still believes them:
-I-87 begins at US 20 in Albany and follows the Adirondack Northway for its entire length
-The New Jersey Turnpike is "New Jersey's Thruway"
-US 11 follows NY 11B from Potsdam to Malone and NY 11B follows the real US 11

XING PED, however isn't Asian cuisine, though normally appears near to where you are warned of it with Ped Xing signs:


Perhaps it's an Asian-hispanic man (Ped being short for Pedro) who likes eating Ped Xing?

I thought he was the Republican presidential nominee (ironically, today is the one year anniversary of that clip).

[hbelkins]

-The New Jersey Turnpike is "New Jersey's Thruway"

I wouldn't argue with that assertion.

[national highway 1]

Tangentially road related, but as a toddler I thought for some reason the Exxon logo was supposed to be telephone poles at an angle. I knew it was two X's crossed, but thought there was supposed to be a double-meaning.



Kind of? Maybe? No? Okay.

I thought the Exxon logo's Xes were two sets of crossed legs of a picnic table that you'd find at rest areas.

Looking at a paper map of California, I sort of knew that the x5s and x0s were major, but I couldn't discern there was a grid because I-40 was so close to I-10, so far away from I-80 and there was no I-50 or I-60

[D-Dey65]

• I thought if a road had Turnpike in the name, it had to be a toll road.

I suppose roads with names like "Jericho Turnpike" may have prevented me from this false notion. On the other hand, it used to baffle me that parkways weren't supposed to allow trucks to drive on them, and yet Long Island Motor Parkway and William Floyd Parkway had no such restrictions.

[ce929wax]

I remember being 5 or 6 years old and being surprised the first time I saw a SOUTH I-196 sign.  Up until then I had thought that Interstates only ran east-west because I had only been exposed to I-94 and the portion of I-196 that ran east-west.

[CtrlAltDel]

When I was about 5 years old, I asked my mother what the next level of road was. I was referring to an overpass, but since I didn't know the word, I didn't say that. The answer she gave what that the next level is a highway. And then, being 5, I asked what the level above that was, and she said tollway. Continuing on, I asked what the level after that was, and she said freeway.

So, to this day, in my mind I still call an overpass over another overpass a tollway, and the rarely seen overpass over that a freeway. Also, at some point in my teens, I decided that the fifth level would be a causeway, but I think I've only seen that once in my life.

[Andrew T.]

* All U.S. highways everywhere are done to Appalachian Development corridor standards: Four lanes, 55-mph speed limits.
* "To" plaques can only appear over Interstate shields, never U.S. or state highway markers. (I also didn't realize it was the word "To;" I thought it was the initials "T. O." when I was five.)
* All U.S. states have the same route marker design.
* 3-digit Interstate highways are much busier and much more dangerous than "normal" 2-digit Interstates.
* "No Trucks" signs mean that absolutely NO trucks may drive on that road. Not even light pickups.
* The central bar on the U.S.-style "Do Not Enter" sign was covering over a third line of text.  Like a redacted statement.
* Canada is international; therefore Canada must use international (i.e., Vienna Convention) road signs: Triangles for diamonds, circles for squares, etc.

[bandit957]

This goes beyond actual roads, but has to do with road trips.  Growing up, neither of my parents tended to listen to the radio in the car.  When we left Columbus, they would appease us until the signal dropped and usually no more.  For us, that was WNCI and its 175,000 watt monster full of 80's joy, so we made it 90 miles or so before static set in.  Imagine my shock when we pulled into Savannah one day and...get this...the radio station there played the same music as back home!  I really couldn't understand how it was possible for our pop music to follow us around the country, and/or why Savannah didn't have its own music?!?

When I was about 5, I thought every song was exclusive to just one station. I remember that some of the presets on our AM car radio were 7 and 14 (probably WLW and WSAI), and I was surprised that a really big song at the time was played by both stations.

When I was 9, I thought you needed a special permit from the station to add it as a preset on a car radio. That's because my parents refused to add WCLU as a preset. For some reason, they had the airport information station as a preset, but not WCLU's rock and/or roll.

[bandit957]

When I was young (like 6), I used to think road atlases used a state route shield based on whatever state the atlas was sold in. That's because road atlases acquired in Kentucky used a circle for every state.

I also thought an analemma was a place, because we had a globe that had a huge figure-eight type thing called the analemma out in the Pacific Ocean. I wanted to visit the analemma. This photo on Wikipedia shows a Cram's globe like the one we had that had an analemma...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma#/media/File:Globenmuseum_Vienna_20091010_479.JPG

[bing101]

I thought Interstates had to actually cross state borders and they were the only type of roadway that could be freeways.

I think most of us have done this.

When I was *really* young I thought freeways were race tracks.

For some reason, I thought interstate numbering was completely random, and for reason I never noticed that all the Interstates in the area either had '05' or '10' and were related to I-5 and I-10.

When I was young I used to think ALL state route routes in other states used California's spade shape. I tried imagining a CA state route shield that said "Pennsylvania" when where "California" would be on the shield.

When I was young when I went on a family trip to Hawaii I saw the Hawaii State route shield and thought umm Caltrans is in Hawaii too but with a white space route shield instead of Green spade.
However I later learned that Hawaii's spade was really a rain drop.

[J N Winkler]

Misconceptions in my case:

*  US highways were always built with a 50% federal, 50% state funding split.  (Even now, I am not sure that formula applied to US highways qua US highways, or for how long it was used.)

*  Every country in the world uses shields to indicate numbered routes.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

Being young, I always thought that street signs denoting a cross street on mast arms, when driven under meant that we were on a new street.

[US 89]

I grew up in Salt Lake City, so for me, east was always towards the mountains. Imagine my shock when we went to Denver and I was told the mountains were on the west.

[DJ Particle]

Perhaps it's an Asian-hispanic man (Ped being short for Pedro) who likes eating Ped Xing?

In "Max Headroom", it was the name of the Chinese owner of Zik Zak.     Network 23's primary sponsor.