Roads going the exact opposite direction that they're nominally signed for?

[Finrod]

Everyone knows about wrong-way concurrencies.  How about an east-west road that's going west-east, or a north-south road going south-north?

The main example I've found is US 6, about 3 miles from its eastern terminus.  West US 6 starts off going east-northeast, then starts to curve until about 3 miles in, West US 6 is pointing due east and East US 6 is pointing due west.

Unfortunately the US 6 reassurance sign is missing, but the West above it is there:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.0658766,-70.1624561,3a,75y,82.66h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjsvSLkuVjMxVVL4iQhmwEg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Once I-49 is completed to New Orleans, there will be two places where North I-49 will be going due south and South I-49 is going due north; one just south of the Mississippi River on the lead-up to the Huey Long bridge, and another about halfway between Paradis and Des Allemands.

For the purposes of this thread, I'm not counting situations where one side of the highway goes opposite to its named direction and the other side doesn't, because this happens nearly every time a highway takes a 270-degree cloverleaf ramp.  For example, I-74 and I-80 in Illinois outside the Quad Cities: I-74 West is briefly pointing east, and I-80 East is briefly pointing west, but the same does not happen for I-74 East and I-80 West.

A secondary version can happen where an east-west highway gets signed north-south at one end, or vise-versa.  US 62 is signed east-west for most of its distance, but the eastern end is signed north-south, and actually runs west-east in the city of Niagara Falls.  A double example is US 101 in Washington state, which is signed north-south for most of its distance, but east-west and then south-north near Olympic National Park.

I'm sure there are other examples; which ones do you know about?

[Finrod]

One that I had thought of but forgot to mention: I-70 in Breezewood, PA.

[US 89]

US 52 in Kingstree, SC was the first that came to mind. Although it doesn't quite make it to 180 degrees, I-25 near Santa Fe is another pretty good example, and it has a wrong way concurrency with US 285 for good measure.

[GenExpwy]

A list of 2-digit Interstates I posted a while back:

I've found 4½ examples among 2-digit Interstates, not counting TOTSO cloverleafs and such:

• I-95 Northbound, approaching the George Washington Bridge, is briefly due south (& vice versa) in Fort Lee NJ.
• I-40 in the Great Smoky Mountains of NC goes in the opposite direction in a couple of places.
• I-64 ends up going in the opposite direction where it curves around at its end in Chesapeake VA.
• I-15 northeast of Butte MT, has a tiny opposite-direction section between Basin and Boulder.
• I-84 Eastbound only, east of Pendelton OR, in the section where the carriageways take completely different paths, goes due west within an S-curve. I-84 Westbound does not have a matching curve.

I-89 at Royalton VT and I-25 just outside Santa Fe NM (Arroyo Hondo Rd bridge) come close, but don't quite meet this stricter definition.

[DJ Particle]

The main example I've found is US 6, about 3 miles from its eastern terminus.  West US 6 starts off going east-northeast, then starts to curve until about 3 miles in, West US 6 is pointing due east and East US 6 is pointing due west.

MA-6A fits this also now, since they changed the directionals in Truro and Provincetown to read "East" and "West" like its Canal-to-Orleans section a few years back (Google Maps doesn't show it yet since their views of that road are 7 years old).

And another Cape Cod example:  MA-28 from Orleans to Chatham.  "North" 28 heads south, and vice-versa.

I don't know any MN examples.  MN tends to accurately sign directions for the most part.  They even sign US-52 "North" and "South" (against US highway numbering guidelines) simply because it mostly tends like that in the state.  And I-494...you start on it heading south, MARKED "South" (regardless of terminus), and at both the US-10/61 and US-212 exits, there's a transition from the road being marked N/S to it being marked E/W.  I-694 is similar in that there's a transition from N/S to E/W at MN-36.  Even MN-95 has such a transition in Taylors Falls at the intersection with Chisago-16, where turning left from 16 puts you on "South" 95, and turning right puts you on "West" 95.

[jakeroot]

When the WA-167 extension is complete, the entire route will continue to use the current N/S scheme. Which is fine, because most of the route is oriented N/S, but the route will do this fish-hook turn thing when it's totally done.

Here's a hideously-bad MS-Paint drawing I've done to illustrate the finished freeway. The green color is the unbuilt roadway, and the black is the current freeway and directional signage:



More than a few people have suggested a new route number for this stretch, but WSDOT isn't budging for whatever reason.

[hotdogPi]

MA 139
MA 145
MA 127

[thspfc]

WI-23 actually is signed N/S for half its length and E/W for the other half.

[index]

SC 9 is signed as north-south despite traveling east-west across the northern area of the state. A number of other routes in South Carolina do this, (though none, to my knowledge, as major as SC 9) even if they aren't anywhere near going the cardinal direction they're signed.

[jp the roadgeek]

CT 113, CT 154, CT 213, and CT 349: all are signed North-South, and have/are coastal loops that start their "northerly"  trek by heading south. 

There is a short stretch on I-84 in CT near Exit 30 where you are on more of a northwest trajectory as you head eastbound. 

At I-95 Exit 42, CT 162 has you heading cardinal East on 162 West and vice versa.

[hotdogPi]

exact opposite

[Max Rockatansky]

CA 49 is mostly an North/South route but has to take a bit East/West swing to get over the hump of the Sierras via Yuba Pass. 

[sturmde]

I-95 in Maine "south" (actually west) of Bangor, from Newport to Hampden travels NW<>SE but is signed S<>N.
.
Why doesn't it head more directly from Waterville to Bangor?  Politics of the late 1950's.  US 202 from Augusta to Bangor is 10 miles shorter, although a lot of hills and small towns.  It's signed W<>E in Maine at least.

[tdindy88]

Indiana 156 runs west to east along the Ohio River in Switzerland County. Due to the curvature of the river there is a section of the highway where Indiana 156 east goes west and vice versa.

[1995hoo]

VA-123 is signed north/south. I'm not certain if it runs "exactly"  the opposite of that at its "northern"  terminus at Chain Bridge, but it's pretty damn close–northbound 123 is essentially heading southbound there and southbound 123 is essentially heading northbound.


US-211 is signed east/west and reverses direction for very short segments in the mountains on either side of Thornton Gap due to hairpins. I assume that sort of thing is pretty common for mountain routes, though, so I'm not sure it should count for this thread.

[Mapmikey]

US 258 in Hampton VA is running opposite by the time it reaches its northern end.

SC 703 comes pretty close to doing this on the parts not on the islands.

The US 278 Toll Road and US 278 Bus on Hilton Head Island are opposite, though not 180 degrees.

[jeffandnicole]

I-95 in PA near PHL.

Nearly all of I-295 in Delaware

I-295 in several places in NJ, mostly between Exits 23 & 30, then again between Exit 67 and 75.

[GaryV]

US 1 near Calais, ME and again near Frenchville, ME

[jakeroot]

exact opposite

Thanks mod

[Mr. Matté]

Ohio 211 is completely rotated with its signed "southern" terminus actually its northernmost point. At least this one may be because it used to be a candy cane-shaped route with the long stem since truncated.

Ohio 807 is still a candy cane but its "northern" terminus is on the Hi Carpenter Bridge south of its starting point.

NC 710 I can't make heads nor tails out of with its "eastern" terminus (of a north-south road) being its westernmost point and then constantly heading east along westbound 710.

[webny99]

exact opposite

Thanks mod

I was going to say, we'll likely get a few legitimate examples, and then start talking about the instances of a NB route going SE, or an EB road going NW, and so on, since those are so much more common. But, I have no objections to that happening. It seems like the logical course of the thread.

[TEG24601]

Washington's SR 20 has about 8 miles from the northern terminus of SR-525, through the town of Coupeville, to Libby Rd runs opposite of the signed directions.  Same is true around the north side of NAS Whidbey Island.  Of course this route was from 1963-1973 part of SR 525, and before that SSH 1-D, so this routing is logical, and another reason why SR 20 need not be routed all the way to US 101, but instead end in Anacortes.

[vdeane]

NY 28 is signed north-south except for its southern end but is actually C shaped.  This leads to the odd situation where NY 28 "north" is heading south in Warren County.  Last I checked, directional banners were omitted from that stretch.

Up north, QC 134 doesn't actually follow its assigned directions anywhere due to how Québec signs directions (est-ouest follows the St. Lawrence, so there are a lot of diagonal routes signed accordingly).  Near Montréal, the river curves for a bit, leading to most of the route going nord-sud... except at the "est" (nord) end, where QC 134 "est" is actually going due ouest over the river.

[Buck87]

The east end of OH 163 wraps around Lake Erie's Marblehead Peninsula and ends up going due west for a while, before the state route designation ends and the road continues further west as Bay Shore Rd along the southern edge of the peninsula.

[jakeroot]

exact opposite

Thanks mod

I was going to say, we'll likely get a few legitimate examples, and then start talking about the instances of a NB route going SE, or an EB road going NW, and so on, since those are so much more common. But, I have no objections to that happening. It seems like the logical course of the thread.

Agreed. Unless we're breaking out the protractor, I don't see any reason to be so damn picky. That said, I'm not the OP, so..yeah.