Best metro areas for roadgeeks

[Occidental Tourist]

I'm wondering which US metro area would be the best place to live if you're a roadgeek.  I'm assuming number one would have to be New York, with lots of tunnels and bridges connecting to a fairly well-developed highway system care of Robert Moses, with some interesting highway features including a cantilevered section of interstate and a whole bunch of parkways.

What comes after New York? Seattle? Portland? Pittsburgh? San Francisco? Boston? Assume for a moment we're talking about a weekend drive where traffic is minimal.

[bing101]

All of the ones you listed are good.

[Bruce]

Definitely not Seattle, due to several factors: relative isolation (thus requiring a lot of backtracking to road trip out), expensive gas (thanks to that isolation and few refineries), and traffic that never really ends.

The few months of clear weather are also burdened with long construction closures. For example, this weekend an entire 5-mile stretch of I-405 is shut down.

[Max Rockatansky]

Los Angeles has a lot or Roadgeek items to offer and isn't super inconvenient to get around.  Parking in the downtown area is surprisingly easy for such a large city.  The city and metro area pretty much has a couple good examples of every item that tends to be popular in the hobby.

[formulanone]

Inevitably, I suppose the best city / metro area which you feel the greatest attachment towards.

It would also depend on what your specific interests are in the hobby. Transit? Bridges? Freeways? History? Sheer number of roads/routes? All-round variety?

Weather and the desire to be outdoors is another factor.

[NWI_Irish96]

For weekend trips Chicago is actually pretty good. From where I live, I can be in four different states within 90 minutes and two more states within 2.5 hours, with a very dense network of highways that can keep you busy for a long time.

Of course during the week it's awful.

[TheRhodeGeek]

I think anywhere in the northeast is good because of population and interesting roads (personally I live in the providence area which has some interstates, but it isn't a maze, but the nearby Boston area has many other roads, but too many tunnels so it might be hard to navigate). To be fair I grew up with RI/MA having mostly non-mileage exits until my early teen years so that might be a factor (I think NYC still has some sequential exits)

[mgk920]

In the upper Great Lakes region, the MSP area is pretty good from a roadgeeking standpoint.

Mike

[vdeane]

NY's Capital District is pretty good.  It's got a decent amount of history and interesting stuff in its own right, and is within easy driving range of NYC, Boston, and Montéal.  Plus much less traffic than any of those places, at least outside of track season (in which case, avoid the Northway in the afternoon even if you aren't crossing the twin bridges).  It's very central for somewhere not actually on the Northeast Corridor; about the only place where I have to take a substantial amount of non-freeway mileage to get to that's not just off the freeway system entirely is Vermont.

Assume for a moment we're talking about a weekend drive where traffic is minimal.

I don't think NYC qualifies as having "minimal traffic" even on the weekends.  Many spots are pretty much congested every day, at least in afternoon/evening hours.  And while many areas can at least escape it on a weekend morning, some, like the BQE, can't even manage that (the BQE used to be fine on a weekend morning back when it was six lanes, but now that it's only four it's stop and go even Sunday at 9:00 AM).

(I think NYC still has some sequential exits)

Some?  Try nearly all of them.  Only I-95 (and even then, only the NYSDOT portion; both the Thruway and Port Authority sections are sequential) and the Hutch are mile-based.

[CoreySamson]

I would think the best metros for roadgeeks would be in the middle of the country, meaning that you can reach more places by roadtrip in a few days than you would in a relative corner of the country like Seattle or Miami. I feel like KC and St. Louis offer a nice overall location, as well as having a lot of interesting local highways and not too much traffic.

But I feel that a lot of this depends on your roadgeeking priorities. Do you want to clinch a lot of counties? Virginia and Georgia have lots of small ones and equivalents nearby. Do you want a ton of interstate mileage? Then maybe somewhere in the Midwest or Northeast is the best spot. Do you want to clinch a lot of routes? Then maybe something like NE Texas is an option, considering all the short FM routes, AR state routes, and LA state routes nearby. Do you want to be relatively close to a lot of active construction? The Texas Triangle or North Carolina are building tons of new infrastructure. Do you like button copy? California is the best place for it. Do you just like looking at bad signs? Oklahoma has you covered. I guess this variety is part of the beauty of being a roadgeek.

[pderocco]

Being originally from the Boston area, I have a lot of affection for it, and that includes its roads. But what's primarily interesting about them is how irregular they are. Look carefully at a Boston map, and there are very few areas with orderly gridded streets, basically the Back Bay which is eight blocks long, and South Boston which is about twenty. So learning your way around Boston is a real challenge, but very satisfying once you've mastered it.

On top of that, it has the Big Dig, but that's primarily of interest to people who remember what preceded it, and watched the transformation.

But if you're looking for major highway projects to drool over, forget Massachusetts--they have a toy road department.

[formulanone]

Miami

Pros: warm weather all year long, roads usually in great shape, something's always under construction, lots of different routes/streets

Cons: pretty much the second-to-last stop on the tour...takes 5-6 hours to leave the state, roads are flat/straight/dull (pick any three), something's always under construction, have to compete with other terrible drivers

Living in southern Florida really locks you into staying intrastate for day/weekend trips. I suppose that problem also exists if you live in a few other places (Austin/San Antonio, for example).

[AsphaltPlanet]

Los Angeles (I'd include San Diego in that as well) and Detroit are some of my favourites.

[Occidental Tourist]

Los Angeles has a lot or Roadgeek items to offer and isn't super inconvenient to get around.  Parking in the downtown area is surprisingly easy for such a large city.  The city and metro area pretty much has a couple good examples of every item that tends to be popular in the hobby.

I definitely have an affinity for driving the San Pedro area.  But having grown up in LA and watching road projects stagnate for 30-plus years, I have a hard time being enthusiastic about it these days.  Even with some of the great features like the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the 210 behind the Verdugo Mountains, PCH north of Santa Monica, Angeles Forest Highway, and Little Tujunga Cyn Road, the failure to build some of the great projects like the 710 tunnel or the San Gabriel Mountains tunnel dampens my enthusiasm for the area.

[Max Rockatansky]

Los Angeles has a lot or Roadgeek items to offer and isn't super inconvenient to get around.  Parking in the downtown area is surprisingly easy for such a large city.  The city and metro area pretty much has a couple good examples of every item that tends to be popular in the hobby.

I definitely have an affinity for driving the San Pedro area.  But having grown up in LA and watching road projects stagnate for 30-plus years, I have a hard time being enthusiastic about it these days.  Even with some of the great features like the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the 210 behind the Verdugo Mountains, PCH north of Santa Monica, Angeles Forest Highway, and Little Tujunga Cyn Road, the failure to build some of the great projects like the 710 tunnel or the San Gabriel Mountains tunnel dampens my enthusiasm for the area.

I had a little bit more in mind than just freeways.  I tend to like a good mix and Los Angeles delivers.  Some other items of note:

-  Classic old US Route alignments (Examples: US 99, US 66 and the National Old Trails Road)
-  Tunnels (Examples: Griffith Park, 2nd Street and 3rd Street)
-  Notable bridges (Examples: Vincent Thomas and Colorado Street)
-  Notable mountain highways (Examples: Mulholland Drive, CA 27 and CA 2)
-  Lots of button copy and even at least one white spade. 
-  Lots of legacy signage like CA 7 (II) and CA 42. 

[wriddle082]

If you like newer freeways, and don't mind if they all look exactly the same, with no scenery whatsoever, then come to North Carolina.  They're everywhere, and have tons of trees blocking everything.

Other than that, I feel like Cincinnati and Louisville are decent roadgeek cities.  My hometown of Nashville, not quite as much.

[Revive 755]

For weekend trips Chicago is actually pretty good. From where I live, I can be in four different states within 90 minutes and two more states within 2.5 hours, with a very dense network of highways that can keep you busy for a long time.

Of course during the week it's awful.

Chicago expressway traffic is still bad on the weekends.  Congestion on I-290 and near the loop should be expected every day.

[Rothman]

A better question is which ones are not.

[Dough4872]

Philadelphia isn't too bad, lot of interesting roads in the area and within a few hours of here.

[NWI_Irish96]

For weekend trips Chicago is actually pretty good. From where I live, I can be in four different states within 90 minutes and two more states within 2.5 hours, with a very dense network of highways that can keep you busy for a long time.

Of course during the week it's awful.

Chicago expressway traffic is still bad on the weekends.  Congestion on I-290 and near the loop should be expected every day.

That's just one area though. You can still get a lot of places on the weekends without a ton of traffic.

[Ted$8roadFan]

Hartford, CT (and all of CT's metro areas) are good choices. Great locations, gobs of traffic (esp. Northeast Corridor), lots of history, and enough intrigue regarding roadbuilding past, present, and future.

[SEWIGuy]

For weekend trips Chicago is actually pretty good. From where I live, I can be in four different states within 90 minutes and two more states within 2.5 hours, with a very dense network of highways that can keep you busy for a long time.

Of course during the week it's awful.

Chicago expressway traffic is still bad on the weekends.  Congestion on I-290 and near the loop should be expected every day.

That's just one area though. You can still get a lot of places on the weekends without a ton of traffic.

Even during the week, there are windows when it's not all that bad. Unless there is construction or an accident, I-294 is usually just fine outside of weekday rush hours. The Edens is rarely all that busy as well.

[Max Rockatansky]

A better question is which ones are not.

There is a couple I think of that wouldn't be beginner friendly.  The Bay Area comes to mind off the top of my head, especially around San Francisco where parking options are limited.

[formulanone]

A better question is which ones are not.

I'm surprised we haven't tried a ranking or poll of this by now.

Personally, I think some place I haven't been (or only caught a prior glimpse) is automatically a little more interesting (even if just in headspace and imagination) than somewhere I've been several times before.

[webny99]

Assume for a moment we're talking about a weekend drive where traffic is minimal.

Actually, those two things don't square very well. Weekend drives don't tend to have minimal traffic and often have very heavy traffic, especially traveling from a city to whatever weekend destinations are nearby. In general, outside of rush hour, I would say Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are peak travel days to avoid, but it does vary. Some cities have notably lighter traffic on weekends while in others, the increased weekend travel/tourism more than makes up for it.

Take the Toronto area just as one example.. the 400 north of Toronto, 401 east of Toronto, and the QEW from Oakville to Niagara are usually not too bad from Monday to Thursday: they have their trouble spots and fair share of issues at rush hour, which is to be expected, but Friday through Sunday are another level of terrible. You'll see backups heading out of Toronto for miles on Friday afternoons and again on Saturday and Sunday, sometimes starting as early as 9-10AM and lasting to 4-5PM. And then slow traffic returning to Toronto on Sunday afternoons sometimes persists as late as 9-10PM. In fact, as I type this (9:40 ET), there's about 20 km of slow traffic on the 400 SB near Kettleby, and about 25 km slow traffic on the QEW from Grimsby to Burlington. It's becoming almost NYC-like and seems to be getting worse every year.




Also, a lot of responses have been in the form of "[metro area x] is good because it's in close proximity to [x, y, and z]", but isn't this thread specific to roadgeeking in the city itself and within day trip range, as opposed to driving hours away to other cities? If a city's main attraction is drivability to other cities, that doesn't speak very well for the roadgeeking opportunities in that city itself.

That being said, if you are looking for a central location for weekend road trips to other cities, Rochester NY has you covered. It's within 6 hours/400 miles of all of NY state save Long Island, plus Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, Hartford, NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, and Detroit, just to name a few. Suffice to say that nowhere else in the US has the same breadth of coverage within a 6 hour/400 mile range.