Worst interchange on each interstate

[roadman65]

I-4 at Conroy Road in Orlando, FL.  It would have weaving issues with the forthcoming FL Turnpike exit as folks entered the freeway to go WB.  There would be a lane drop first followed by a right lane exit default plus commuters exiting the interstate to go to the toll road, would clash.

I think the I-4 ultimate is to alleviate all of this, but no plans for braided ramps which are really needed to eliminate it all.

[kkt]

I-70: Breezewood.

But that's a junction of two interstates!

[kkt]

I-5 in Washington at WA 520.

[jakeroot]

I-5 in Washington at WA 520.

Thanks to Mercer and NE 45 St. Either the 520 interchange wasn't designed around those two, or those two weren't designed around the 520. Either way, pure idiocy.

FWIW, I agree with your choice. Couldn't say which junction for I-90 or I-82 would be worst. All seem to be pretty good.

[kkt]

I-5 in Washington at WA 520.

Thanks to Mercer and NE 45 St. Either the 520 interchange wasn't designed around those two, or those two weren't designed around the 520. Either way, pure idiocy.

FWIW, I agree with your choice. Couldn't say which junction for I-90 or I-82 would be worst. All seem to be pretty good.

520 was supposed to extend west of I-5 and turn into the Bay Freeway, elevated paralleling Mercer with exits for the north end of downtown, Seattle Center, and 99.  There would still have been a weave, but it would have had a lot less traffic.

Also there was supposed to be the Thomson Expressway, a north-south route proposed from Empire Way, I-90 east of Mt. Baker, the Arboretum, a tunnel under the Montlake Cut, University Village, and Lake City.  It would have diverted a lot of traffic away from I-5.

I'm not sorry those freeways were cancelled, but it's too bad they didn't redesign the I-5 to 520 interchange to cope with the amount of traffic it would get as a result.

[jakeroot]

520 was supposed to extend west of I-5 and turn into the Bay Freeway, elevated paralleling Mercer with exits for the north end of downtown, Seattle Center, and 99.  There would still have been a weave, but it would have had a lot less traffic.

My understanding was that the Bay Freeway was to start where the Mercer ramps are today (and that the Mercer ramps were actually part of the original Bay Freeway before being cancelled). Unless they planned to build some C/D lanes somewhere, the weave would have been catastrophic (freeway to freeway I assume would be worse than freeway to arterial).

[cusey4574]

I-95 in Virginia: Exit 160(VA-123) no contest. Every day during the afternoon rush hour, the lane drop on southbound I-95 from 4 to 3 lanes, along with traffic merging in from Exit 161(US-1), usually gets traffic backed up all the way to Exit 166(Fairfax County Parkway) and sometimes even to the Springfield Interchange. 

I-66: This one is a bit harder. Right now an argument could probably be made for either Exit 53(VA-28), Exit 62(Nutley Street), or even Exit 57(US-50). However, all of these interchanges will be either modified or completely rebuilt as part of the I-66 Express Lanes project. After that wraps up in 2022, I think the new honor might go to Exit 55(Fairfax County Parkway).

For I-66, I say WB Exit 47 (Sudley Road).  It may not be objectively the worst, but it's a pet peeve of mine.  I grew up to Manassas and went to high school in Alexandria in the late '80s, so I "commuted" home every day on WB I-66 from the Beltway to Exit 47.  As bad as traffic might be on a given day, you always knew that once you crossed Bull Run, you were home free.  Now, when I go back to visit family, it seems like the exit onto SB Sudley Road always backs up, sometimes all the way back to Bull Run.  I know this is a surface-street problem, not an I-66 problem, but I still hate it.

[froggie]

Also, junctions of two interstates aren't allowed. Those are cop outs

It's not a cop-out when it's the reality.  The I-35W/I-494 interchange in Bloomington, MN is by most metrics considered the worst interchange in all of Minnesota and not just those two Interstate routes.

[jakeroot]

Needed some time to think more about Washington's other interstates...

For I-90, probably the Hwy 18 interchange outside of Snoqualmie. It's a diamond interchange right now, but it's busy enough that there's plans to turn it into a fully directional T-interchange (freeway-to-freeway), keeping the original ramps for access north of the interchange (which is not part of any state highway).

For I-82, the entire freeway is rural (suburban at best). No particular junction seems sub-par.

For I-705 (in Tacoma), either the off-ramp towards S 15 St, or the entire interchange with SR-509, which is a freeway approaching the 705. The SPUI cannot handle the amount of cars that now use the 509.

For I-205, no particular junction seems to suffer from congestion like the freeways south of the Columbia in Portland. The junctions with SR-500 and Mill Plain are the busiest, but most of the traffic is on those roads, not the freeway.

[Kacie Jane]

For I-82, the entire freeway is rural (suburban at best). No particular junction seems sub-par.

This mess.  Particularly the left-hand merge onto I-82 WB, which is followed immediately by a left exit on the other side of the river.  Which at the risk of pulling this off topic, begs the question, are there any other cases of an arterial in the median of an interstate?

[Roadsguy]

For I-82, the entire freeway is rural (suburban at best). No particular junction seems sub-par.

This mess.  Particularly the left-hand merge onto I-82 WB, which is followed immediately by a left exit on the other side of the river.  Which at the risk of pulling this off topic, begs the question, are there any other cases of an arterial in the median of an interstate?

Was that little arterial connector added later? It looks like it. Seems all the local traffic was originally funneled into I-82.

[jakeroot]

For I-82, the entire freeway is rural (suburban at best). No particular junction seems sub-par.

This mess.  Particularly the left-hand merge onto I-82 WB, which is followed immediately by a left exit on the other side of the river.  Which at the risk of pulling this off topic, begs the question, are there any other cases of an arterial in the median of an interstate?

I'm very familiar with that interchange. Every year, my family has a reunion right off Yakima Ave (next junction south), so we go through there a lot. The junction has always struck me as odd (my first experience with a left-hand exit -- we didn't go to Seattle when I was young) but never particularly "bad" or "worst-of". If traffic in Yakima grew exponentially (never heard those words used before) over the next twenty years, it may prove problematic. But for now, seems okay.

In the same vein, the I-90/150th/Eastgate junction near Factoria blows just because of all the ramps all over the place, yet somehow it's still a Cloverleaf. But it still handles the traffic that it receives, so I don't think it should count for this thread.

[ColossalBlocks]

Interstate 270 St Louis.

Worst interchange: Erm, all of them.

[jakeroot]

Was that little arterial connector added later? It looks like it. Seems all the local traffic was originally funneled into I-82.

There has been an interchange in that gap since at least the 50s. Selah Road was the main thoroughfare until the 82 was built (through there in the 60s, but not finished until the 80s). It fits in there quite nicely due to the geography (the "gap" in the hills between Yakima and Selah).

[SteveG1988]

I78 in NJ's holland tunnel exits. Just an arterial that thinks it is an interstate. Plus the circle on the NY side.

I-95 in NJ at the Scudder Falls Bridge for NJ29. It's a complete mess of random ramps and full stops required

[thefraze_1020]

Was that little arterial connector added later? It looks like it. Seems all the local traffic was originally funneled into I-82.

There has been an interchange in that gap since at least the 50s. Selah Road was the main thoroughfare until the 82 was built (through there in the 60s, but not finished until the 80s). It fits in there quite nicely due to the geography (the "gap" in the hills between Yakima and Selah).

The original bridges, southbound 82/ 97, were built in 1932, and the northbound side bridges were built in 1960. The bridges on WA-823/ Selah Rd were built in 1947. Improvements were made to the interchange in 1999, widening Selah Rd over the Yakima River, and adding the bridge in the median of 82/ 97. It should also be noted that before I-82 was built through here in the 1960's, US97 took a course to the east of Selah, like 82 does now. There is a stretch of road called E Selah Rd, between exits 29 and 26, that was US97 before the freeway.

So is the interchange kind of "strange"? Yes, but there is a lot merging together in one small space. However, before the road was built in the median of I-82 in 1999 it was much worse. And to my knowledge, there really are no traffic problems at that interchange (at least yet).

To answer the thread's subject, yes it could be argued that this is the worst interchange on I-82, but it certainly by far is not the worst interchange in Washington.

P.S. Credit where credit is due; I got the bridge dates from Bridgehunter.com.

[Darkchylde]

I'd have to say that for I-470 (MO), it'd have to be the interchange with US 40 near the north end. It's a diamond, nothing so wrong with it by itself, and on the south side of the interchange, it's fairly decent.

However, on the northern side of the interchange, there's EXTREMELY short auxiliary lanes that default to interchange with I-70, and the interstate itself usually has a fair bit of traffic there. This makes for nightmare weaving if you're trying to get onto 470 to either take I-70 West or MO 291 North. The same is true southbound - with the added caveat that traffic is coming off of I-70 East, and usually moving faster, so it's even tougher to get to 40's offramp. Then factor in all the shopping centers nearby, and you end up with an absolute mess of traffic all around.

The ideal solution would have been to have rerouted US 40 slightly and moved the interchange itself down about a quarter of a mile, but that's impossible now with as built up as it is. The same buildup also makes changing the configuration to a folded diamond impossible.

[Charles2]

I-459 at US-280 in Birmingham.  The interchange design was inadequate when it was built, but 35+ years later, it's an absolute disaster.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Summit+Birmingham/@33.4430983,-86.7349767,16.06z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x8889177a0699ece7:0x6337ea9fc23726da!8m2!3d33.4488736!4d-86.7289262?hl=en

[Jardine]

I-29 would be the interchange with I-480 and Broadway and the parasitic interchange 0 grafted immediately west of it and the missing ramps grafted on in 2 nearby 'corrective/partial' interchanges, Ave. G and 35th Street in Council Bluffs.

IaDOT is planning a replacement for all that and I have a feeling it won't be liked much either as adding stop lights to West Broadway as a palliative to include all the movements in one interchange is not going to be seen as the right answer for an interchange that is widely viewed as critically flawed since it was built in the 60s.

[Ned Weasel]

I'd have to say that for I-470 (MO), it'd have to be the interchange with US 40 near the north end. It's a diamond, nothing so wrong with it by itself, and on the south side of the interchange, it's fairly decent.

However, on the northern side of the interchange, there's EXTREMELY short auxiliary lanes that default to interchange with I-70, and the interstate itself usually has a fair bit of traffic there. This makes for nightmare weaving if you're trying to get onto 470 to either take I-70 West or MO 291 North. The same is true southbound - with the added caveat that traffic is coming off of I-70 East, and usually moving faster, so it's even tougher to get to 40's offramp. Then factor in all the shopping centers nearby, and you end up with an absolute mess of traffic all around.

The ideal solution would have been to have rerouted US 40 slightly and moved the interchange itself down about a quarter of a mile, but that's impossible now with as built up as it is. The same buildup also makes changing the configuration to a folded diamond impossible.

Braided ramps along I-470 between US 40 and I-70 would help.  Flyovers at the I-70/I-470 interchange would help, too.  But I doubt there's enough room to do all this without tearing some buildings down.  I agree that that whole mess was designed way too tightly, and they should have at least allowed more weaving room between the I-70 and US 40 ramps.

[Terry Shea]

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9664055,-85.6759485,806a,35y,39.19t/data=!3m1!1e3
I-196 at US-131

[dvferyance]

I-94 at Mitchell Blvd by Miller Park. Very short left hand ramps. I don;t know what they were thinking. it is proposed to be removed if the I-94 project ever happens. Should have happened many years ago.

[Jardine]

Worst on I-680 (Ne/Ia incarnation) is the interchange with I-29.  It's an archaic cloverleaf and immediately east of it (if you continue east from I-680 to Crescent is an at grade railroad crossing for CN/IC.  Granted, that line isn't used much, but since no one is accustomed to seeing actual trains on that segment, collisions happen rather more often than maybe they should.

LOL, the cloverleaf (except for the adjacent RR crossing) never bothered me till I started coming here and I realized how deficient it is in this era.

[Henry]

The rapid-fire ramps on I-90/I-94 north of the Loop. Why have left exits and entrances every block or two?