Toll road service area positioning

[roadman65]

Was Illinois the only state ever to have service areas above the highways or did some other state's used to have them as well?

I remember back as a youngster in 69, as I was only 4 years old on the way from New Jersey to California and on the return back we stopped at some service areas like the oasis in Chicagoland.  However, unlike the tollways of Illinois, that have the building supported on typical highway bridge girders and normal highway piers in the median, I do remember one a brown building that had no center piers and spanned across the highway and its girders underneath matched the building it supported.  Then I remember some that were blue and were in existence and another specific one that was a fancy building with a curved roof that required escalators to get you from the parking lot up to the level above the roadway?  I cannot find any information regarding where these would be.

I am guessing that maybe Texas or Oklahoma toll roads once had them although I did find this in my research for I-44 and this I believe answers the one with the curved roof http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollywoodplace/3060273922/, or it was the Illinois Tollways.  If it was the latter, than when I went there in 87 and saw them not remembering them like I did as a kid, it must of been rebuilt throughout the many years from 1969 to 1987.

[bugo]

There's a rest area over the highway on the Will Rogers Turnpike (I-44) near Vinita, OK.  It is in the shape of an arch, and is supposedly the "World's Largest McDonald's" even though that's probably not true.

[roadman65]

There's a rest area over the highway on the Will Rogers Turnpike (I-44) near Vinita, OK.  It is in the shape of an arch, and is supposedly the "World's Largest McDonald's" even though that's probably not true.

Is this it?    https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Vinita,+OK&hl=en&ll=36.622589,-95.14909&spn=0.00806,0.020792&sll=27.698638,-83.804601&sspn=9.097496,21.291504&oq=vinita&t=h&hnear=Vinita,+Craig,+Oklahoma&z=16&layer=c&cbll=36.62267,-95.148913&panoid=sZzZRwjeKzLQHdU6hpy8Lg&cbp=12,86.21,,0,0

[bugo]

There's a rest area over the highway on the Will Rogers Turnpike (I-44) near Vinita, OK.  It is in the shape of an arch, and is supposedly the "World's Largest McDonald's" even though that's probably not true.

Is this it?    https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Vinita,+OK&hl=en&ll=36.622589,-95.14909&spn=0.00806,0.020792&sll=27.698638,-83.804601&sspn=9.097496,21.291504&oq=vinita&t=h&hnear=Vinita,+Craig,+Oklahoma&z=16&layer=c&cbll=36.62267,-95.148913&panoid=sZzZRwjeKzLQHdU6hpy8Lg&cbp=12,86.21,,0,0

Yep!  It used to be called The Glass House but McDonald's eventually moved in.  I've been in it, and most of the interior space is unused.

[roadman65]

Funny how I can remember it as a four year old.  I even remember how disappointed I was when we could not drive beneath it as both driveways leading to the facility and leaving it are before and after it!  Now as an adult I would love to be in it more than drive under it.

I am curious, though, where I saw the brown and blue buildings that were rest areas over the highways?

[theline]

My nominee for weirdest toll road service plaza is the one in the middle of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge: http://goo.gl/maps/8Rjsi. Quibble if you wish that the lack of fueling options disqualifies it, but it's one weird McDonald's stuck in the middle of the Skyway. No concern about U-turns here--they are practically encouraged. Hoosiers can actually dine and return home without a toll, since Mickey D's is on the Indiana side of the toll plaza. The ambiance is lacking, even by McD's standards, though.

This reminds me of my favorite toll road U-turn story. I swear it's true, because it happened to me. A few years ago, my wife, Marti, and I are returning to Indiana on the Ohio Turnpike after seeing my beloved Cleveland Indians lose again. We stop for a bite at the Erie Islands service plaza, and then continue west. After passing Toledo, I asked Marti to check the toll I'd need to pay at the border. She claimed I had the ticket and I was sure she had it. A frantic search ensues, to no avail. We conclude that the only way the ticket could have escaped was at the service plaza, now an hour behind us.

We have a "difference of opinion" about what to do next. I argue with impeccible logic that we should just declare the ticket lost at Westgate and pay the maximum toll:

• The cost of extra fuel and wear-and-tear on the car exceeds the extra toll.
• We'll have to do two illegal U-turns. If we get caught, the fine will far exceed the extra toll.
• The emergency U-turn spots are inherently unsafe for non-emergency vehicles.
• It's 2 hours of our life we'll never get back.
• We'll never find the card at the service plaza. We may have thrown it out with the trash or dropped it anywhere in the plaza.

I knew I'd never win this without making the U-turns and going back to the service plaza. It would be worth it to be right. My wife was equally convinced it would be worth it for her to be right. So we went back.

All along the way, I kept repeating all the arguments. I later regretted that I emphasized argument no. 5. I was so sure we'd not find the card.

Two hours later, we return to Erie Islands. I pull into the lot, repeating again, "We'll never find that ticket." I open the door, look down, and see a ticket on the ground next to the car. I pick it up, confirm it's mine, and hand it to Marti. I wish I could say that there were no I-told-you-sos. I wish I had never insisted that we wouldn't find the ticket. It now seemed so weak when I claimed that other 4 points were valid, and that I really won the argument. 

[roadman65]

 I like the way the two service areas on I-476 in PA are on one side of the roadway.  If you exit from the NB side at the Plaza near I-78, then you encounter a "reverse carrigeway situation" where you drive on the left side of the center divider to cross the highway.   There is only one overpass over I-476 to carry motorists across to the area.  A situation similar to the SB Exit 105 ramps on the Garden State Parkway in Tinton Falls has, NJ where you cross on the same overpass over some of the NB lanes where you are driving like you would in the U.K. because of the positioning of the ramps there.  Here it is so there is no at grade type of situation before entering the plaza to create an easy in and a similar easy out.

[cpzilliacus]

I like the way the two service areas on I-476 in PA are on one side of the roadway.  If you exit from the NB side at the Plaza near I-78, then you encounter a "reverse carrigeway situation" where you drive on the left side of the center divider to cross the highway.   There is only one overpass over I-476 to carry motorists across to the area.  A situation similar to the SB Exit 105 ramps on the Garden State Parkway in Tinton Falls has, NJ where you cross on the same overpass over some of the NB lanes where you are driving like you would in the U.K. because of the positioning of the ramps there.  Here it is so there is no at grade type of situation before entering the plaza to create an easy in and a similar easy out.

The Sideling Hill service plaza (Google Maps here) on the E-W Mainline (I-76) part of the Turnpike has a similar arrangement - it's on the westbound (north) side of the Pike, but there are flyover ramps so eastbound traffic can stop there as well (though the parking lots and fuel islands were designed so that it is not possible to make a legal "U" turn).

[roadman65]

I like the way the two service areas on I-476 in PA are on one side of the roadway.  If you exit from the NB side at the Plaza near I-78, then you encounter a "reverse carrigeway situation" where you drive on the left side of the center divider to cross the highway.   There is only one overpass over I-476 to carry motorists across to the area.  A situation similar to the SB Exit 105 ramps on the Garden State Parkway in Tinton Falls has, NJ where you cross on the same overpass over some of the NB lanes where you are driving like you would in the U.K. because of the positioning of the ramps there.  Here it is so there is no at grade type of situation before entering the plaza to create an easy in and a similar easy out.

The Sideling Hill service plaza (Google Maps here) on the E-W Mainline (I-76) part of the Turnpike has a similar arrangement - it's on the westbound (north) side of the Pike, but there are flyover ramps so eastbound traffic can stop there as well (though the parking lots and fuel islands were designed so that it is not possible to make a legal "U" turn).

Yet you can from SB I-476 to NB I-476 via EB I-276 make a legal u turn there.

[Interstatefan78]

I like the way the two service areas on I-476 in PA are on one side of the roadway.  If you exit from the NB side at the Plaza near I-78, then you encounter a "reverse carrigeway situation" where you drive on the left side of the center divider to cross the highway.   There is only one overpass over I-476 to carry motorists across to the area.  A situation similar to the SB Exit 105 ramps on the Garden State Parkway in Tinton Falls has, NJ where you cross on the same overpass over some of the NB lanes where you are driving like you would in the U.K. because of the positioning of the ramps there.  Here it is so there is no at grade type of situation before entering the plaza to create an easy in and a similar easy out.

The Sideling Hill service plaza (Google Maps here) on the E-W Mainline (I-76) part of the Turnpike has a similar arrangement - it's on the westbound (north) side of the Pike, but there are flyover ramps so eastbound traffic can stop there as well (though the parking lots and fuel islands were designed so that it is not possible to make a legal "U" turn).

Yet you can from SB I-476 to NB I-476 via EB I-276 make a legal u turn there.

In the North East Extension (I-476) both the Leigh Valley and Hickory Run Service Area share the Same design as the Slideling Hill Service area and does serve both I-476 North and South