Which Non-Interstate Corridors are in worst need of upgrades?

[webny99]

NY is extremely lacking in rural four-lane non-freeways. Most states take them for granted, but they are glaringly absent here.
NY 14 between the Thruway and Watkins Glen comes to mind as a corridor that at least 40 other states would have widened or at least added passing lanes.

[MikeTheActuary]

I think experience this week is showing that the US61/64/70/79 corridor between Memphis and West Memphis is in need of an upgrade. 

[Roadgeekteen]

I think experience this week is showing that the US61/64/70/79 corridor between Memphis and West Memphis is in need of an upgrade. 

And that we need more bridges across the Mississippi.

[sparker]

CA-37 should be full freeway but it's not going to happen due to environmental concerns. Close the CA-84 gap by making Vasco Road signed as CA-84.Make CA-51 meet interstate standards.

Alameda County is reluctant to improve their section of Vasco, and D4 really doesn't want to multiplex CA 84 over I-580 from Isabel to Vasco Road (about 6 miles); there are long-range plans to cobble up a connector between the present Isabel/CA 84/I-580 interchange diagonally to just about where Vasco crosses the county line -- but no foreseeable funding for such -- and it would be strictly an Alameda County project (albeit with quite a bit of state funding aid as per usual practice these days).  But getting Caltrans (via the State Transportation Commission) to approve the assumption of maintenance on a county facility in order to sign it as CA 84 just might be a bridge too far; the chances are that it'll remain with the two counties.  Just a thought:  it could conceivably be signed with a county pentagon as "J84" or the like (similar to the J59 effective extension of CA 59 north of Merced). 

[Max Rockatansky]

CA-37 should be full freeway but it's not going to happen due to environmental concerns. Close the CA-84 gap by making Vasco Road signed as CA-84.Make CA-51 meet interstate standards.

Alameda County is reluctant to improve their section of Vasco, and D4 really doesn't want to multiplex CA 84 over I-580 from Isabel to Vasco Road (about 6 miles); there are long-range plans to cobble up a connector between the present Isabel/CA 84/I-580 interchange diagonally to just about where Vasco crosses the county line -- but no foreseeable funding for such -- and it would be strictly an Alameda County project (albeit with quite a bit of state funding aid as per usual practice these days).  But getting Caltrans (via the State Transportation Commission) to approve the assumption of maintenance on a county facility in order to sign it as CA 84 just might be a bridge too far; the chances are that it'll remain with the two counties.  Just a thought:  it could conceivably be signed with a county pentagon as "J84" or the like (similar to the J59 effective extension of CA 59 north of Merced).

Some others that need help in the area:

-  Byron Highway/J4
-  Corral Hollow Pass Road
-  Patterson Pass Road

[fillup420]

in North Carolina:

US 52 between Mt Airy and Winston Salem. Narrow, bumpy and everyone drives too fast.

The 2-lane portion of US 17 between the Tar river and Neuse river. Its hard to believe any portion of US 17 is still 2 lanes.

US 158 between NC 168 Barco and Elizabeth City. Too much beach traffic to leave it as 2 lanes.


A previous answer would've been US 19/19E between the US 23 split in Mars Hill and NC 226 in Burnsville, but that has been upgraded recently

[kkt]

CA 99 from I-5 to US 50.  It should be an interstate, but failing that it needs to be upgraded to interstate standard.

[sprjus4]

US 52 between Mt Airy and Winston Salem. Narrow, bumpy and everyone drives too fast.

I'd mention the I-74 upgrade would do some work, but I'm honestly not sure on much that needs to be done. It's a full freeway with full size lane widths and a full paved outside shoulder.... 65 mph speed limit (ought to be 70 mph, but different story). Resurfacing maybe?

The 2-lane portion of US 17 between the Tar river and Neuse river. Its hard to believe any portion of US 17 is still 2 lanes.

I believe they're currently working from the bottom up. IMO, they should focus on the area between the end of 4 lanes south of Washington to Vanceboro, then the bypass connector to US-70.

US 158 between NC 168 Barco and Elizabeth City. Too much beach traffic to leave it as 2 lanes.

It's coming... well, starting in 2025.

https://www.ncdot.gov/news/public-meetings/Pages/R-2574-2018-06-05.aspx

To be honest, that project could be delayed 10 years, and not finished until 2038, and it'll still be done before the Mid-Currituck Bridge ever turns dirt.

[MCRoads]

I think that there is a strong case to widen CO-83 from Northgate to where it becomes a 6-lane road just east of castle rock. With the Powers extension not a pipe dream, more traffic might begin to use it as a bypass of the Palmer Divide. When I-25 is closed, 83 usually stays open (as it gets much less snow) causing the road to become a cluster. It doesn't need to be a freeway, just a divided 4 lane.

[bassoon1986]

In Louisiana...

US 190 between Opelousas and Baton Rouge could use some upgrades. It's 4 lanes but the four laned section with homemade jersey barrier east of the Atchafalaya River is kind of awful. No way to have lanes for left turns. That's a very big corridor not just for trucks but anyone coming south on I-49 to cut the corner going to Baton Rouge and skip the I-10 swamp bridge east of Lafayette. It would be great to have bypasses around the towns, too, but Louisiana doesn't tend to do that like other states.

LA 28 east of Pineville or US 84 from Archie towards Mississippi. 28 would be a difficult upgrade.

LA 28 north or south bypass of Alexandria/Pineville. 28 through Pineville is very narrow and congested. This is also considered a possible future idea for I-14 (probably never going to happen) but a southern "loop"  would be great to better connect all the southern legs of highways. For example, on the southwest side of town, anywhere around Woodworth, it's very zig-zaggy to get anywhere along Hwy 1 or to an area like Marksville. Also to get to Mississippi there's only one way which is LA 28 through town.


iPhone

[chaparral]

Metro Detroit might need a Pontiac-to-Farmington highway, but there's no obvious place to put it and the 75/696 upgrades will help handle demand even if the route's circuitous. It would be nice to have a Van Dyke Freeway all the way to 696. The only road that REALLY needs an upgrade is M59 through Utica - always jammed, frequent wrecks, and neither 75/696/94 nor going WAY up to 69 is a fast alternative.

Those are all nice-to-haves. Michiganders mostly want better pavement rather than more.

What is needed is a good way NW-SE through Columbus. Both 23 and 315 clog up rapidly and really slow down a trip to the South. It's only 20 minutes slower to go all the way to Akron than to risk getting broadsided at every traffic light plunking through Delaware County.  Any traffic anywhere in Columbus and you'll wish you'd decided to add a stop in Pittsburgh.

[SkyPesos]

Metro Detroit might need a Pontiac-to-Farmington highway, but there's no obvious place to put it and the 75/696 upgrades will help handle demand even if the route's circuitous. It would be nice to have a Van Dyke Freeway all the way to 696. The only road that REALLY needs an upgrade is M59 through Utica - always jammed, frequent wrecks, and neither 75/696/94 nor going WAY up to 69 is a fast alternative.

I-275 was supposed to sort of be the Pontiac-Farmington link, except it got cancelled due to opposition. Would've helped the northern suburbs get to DTW airport too.

[In_Correct]

U.S. 81, U.S. 87, U.S. 82, U.S. 281, U.S. 287, U.S. 77, U.S. 177, U.S. 277, U.S. 377, U.S. 380, ... and many others ...

Some of these must be upgraded for connectivity purposes. But most of these are to provide badly needed upgrades for The Metroplex as well as alternate routes for Interstate 35 which itself needs expanded Interchanges and continuous Frontage Roads. However, add all the lanes and even Interchanges and even Bridges for The Frontage Roads it will still need to have other nearby Interstates to use. These U.S. Highways such as U.S. 281 and U.S. 377 have immense traffic them selves. Others such as U.S. 380 have many Construction Cranes building lots of Things nearby which is going to increase the amounts of traffic.

[Roadgeekteen]

Dalton Highway
US 6 in Nevada
US 50 in Nevada

[sprjus4]

US 190 between Opelousas and Baton Rouge could use some upgrades. It's 4 lanes but the four laned section with homemade jersey barrier east of the Atchafalaya River is kind of awful. No way to have lanes for left turns. That's a very big corridor not just for trucks but anyone coming south on I-49 to cut the corner going to Baton Rouge and skip the I-10 swamp bridge east of Lafayette. It would be great to have bypasses around the towns, too, but Louisiana doesn't tend to do that like other states.

It also effectively becomes I-10 whenever the bridge shuts down which happens frequently.

I'll add though that I'd rather see them spend money towards replacing the I-10 bridges completely with 6 lanes with full left and right shoulders, and finally increase the speed limit back up to 70 mph.

That might help in drawing traffic towards it, plus have extra room to not always shut down the bridge during a crash or even prevent many crashes that are caused by its narrow alignment.

[Revive 755]

I think Illinois's would have to be US 20 between the Mississippi River and Rockford. Maybe.

I could go for that, but IL 47 between I-55 and I-80 is up there, given how often there is construction making I-55 pretty much unusable between I-80 and IL 47.

[sparker]

CA-37 should be full freeway but it's not going to happen due to environmental concerns. Close the CA-84 gap by making Vasco Road signed as CA-84.Make CA-51 meet interstate standards.

Alameda County is reluctant to improve their section of Vasco, and D4 really doesn't want to multiplex CA 84 over I-580 from Isabel to Vasco Road (about 6 miles); there are long-range plans to cobble up a connector between the present Isabel/CA 84/I-580 interchange diagonally to just about where Vasco crosses the county line -- but no foreseeable funding for such -- and it would be strictly an Alameda County project (albeit with quite a bit of state funding aid as per usual practice these days).  But getting Caltrans (via the State Transportation Commission) to approve the assumption of maintenance on a county facility in order to sign it as CA 84 just might be a bridge too far; the chances are that it'll remain with the two counties.  Just a thought:  it could conceivably be signed with a county pentagon as "J84" or the like (similar to the J59 effective extension of CA 59 north of Merced).

Some others that need help in the area:

-  Byron Highway/J4
-  Corral Hollow Pass Road
-  Patterson Pass Road

Chances are that there won't be an actual upgrade to Byron Highway/J4; it's just too close to the UP Tracy-Benicia rail line; in the middle is also a grade crossing of said tracks on a S-curve.  Although an actual alignment has yet to be adopted (after 62 years!), the parallel CA 239, which will likely depart Vasco Road just south of where CA 4 departs that corridor at Marsh Creek Road and skirt the foothills south to the I-205/580 junction, will probably be built first as a continuation of the CA 4 freeway alignment.  Since there's quite a bit of housing development in the Mountain House area between Byron and Tracy, D4 (the corridor is within Contra Costa and Alameda counties) is likely waiting to see just where the developments are being planned in order to avoid any conflict. 

CA 99 from I-5 to US 50.  It should be an interstate, but failing that it needs to be upgraded to interstate standard.

Caltrans is way ahead of you; the "master plan" for CA 99, which calls for a minimum of 6 lanes overall (8 near Bakersfield, Fresno, and Modesto-Stockton) has been in place since 2006.  Improvements in the Madera area and the completion of the "missing link" freeway between Chowchilla and Merced were among the first batch of projects aimed toward fulfilling that goal; the stretch between CA 198 and Selma, including the Kings River bridge, has been under almost constant construction for over a decade now (it's arguably the highest AADT section aside from Modesto north).  All improvements since the Turlock bypass of 1973 have been done to Interstate standards -- but there's still a lot of very old freeway, at least 55 years old and featuring poor lines of sight, underheight overcrossings, and gravel medians to deal with; most of that lies between Delano and CA 198.  A lot of work has been done; but even though the last at-grade separation is gone, there remains a lot yet to do just to eliminate obsolescent segments; any notion of Interstate designation would necessarily follow that -- but that's not being prioritized right now. 

[Flint1979]

Metro Detroit might need a Pontiac-to-Farmington highway, but there's no obvious place to put it and the 75/696 upgrades will help handle demand even if the route's circuitous. It would be nice to have a Van Dyke Freeway all the way to 696. The only road that REALLY needs an upgrade is M59 through Utica - always jammed, frequent wrecks, and neither 75/696/94 nor going WAY up to 69 is a fast alternative.

I-275 was supposed to sort of be the Pontiac-Farmington link, except it got cancelled due to opposition. Would've helped the northern suburbs get to DTW airport too.

I-275 would have still missed Pontiac but I don't see the need for a Pontiac-Farmington freeway though. Telegraph makes that connection and is a pretty free flowing highway. Development and lakes in the area stopped I-275 and development would stop this too.

[3467]

It depends upgrade to what? Freeway?Expressway ? Or various 2 and 3 lane alternative?
Illinois really has no freeway upgrades planned so that would be fictional.
Expressways it's just parts of 67 and IL 127. Not a lot . Some suburban arterials.
On the other hand a bunch of shoulder paving was just added and it looks like a whole of of engineering onUS 20. Also 67 north of Monmouth is getting a full 2 lane with pace shoulder reconstruction including new alignment.
As to what should . They should look at all the old freeway corridors for this and passing lanes.

[Elm]

"Please help Powers Boulevard," he cried, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief.
A freeway upgrade for Powers Blvd (aka Highway 21) in Colorado Springs was studied together north of Proby Pkwy (the COS airport access road), but the funding situation puts most of it solidly in the theoretical realm. As eastern developments make it continually more "central spine road" than "east side bypass," the pressure mounts. Something similar might be said for US 24, but it hasn't been swallowed up quite yet.

I agree with other posters' Colorado US 85 and CO 83 ideas. With US 85, I might extend my wish list range down to Castle Rock. While not necessarily a full freeway, the arterial/expressway style posted 55mph  that comes with past/planned upgrades is awkward, where (congested times aside) you're the slow one if you're driving 70mph.

For Hwy 83, CDOT's gearing up for some further study. If their earlier safety eval is an indicator, they might be looking at a "Swedish 2+1 Road."

A couple others that have some studies behind them could be US 85 from the Denver metro to Greeley (2017 PEL) and US 34 from I-25 to US 85 (2019 PEL). I know US 85 is busy and full of trucks; I haven't been on US 34 there for many years, but I've heard bad things. Both PEL concepts are near-freeway for much of the corridors; neither make significant appearances on CDOT's 10-year plan.

[bassoon1986]

US 190 between Opelousas and Baton Rouge could use some upgrades. It's 4 lanes but the four laned section with homemade jersey barrier east of the Atchafalaya River is kind of awful. No way to have lanes for left turns. That's a very big corridor not just for trucks but anyone coming south on I-49 to cut the corner going to Baton Rouge and skip the I-10 swamp bridge east of Lafayette. It would be great to have bypasses around the towns, too, but Louisiana doesn't tend to do that like other states.

It also effectively becomes I-10 whenever the bridge shuts down which happens frequently.

I'll add though that I'd rather see them spend money towards replacing the I-10 bridges completely with 6 lanes with full left and right shoulders, and finally increase the speed limit back up to 70 mph.

That might help in drawing traffic towards it, plus have extra room to not always shut down the bridge during a crash or even prevent many crashes that are caused by its narrow alignment.

Oh for sure. Louisiana's most needed upgrades are definitely on the interstates (I-49 in Shreveport and I-49 South, I-10 bridges in BR and LC and expanding I-12) but I was sticking to the non-interstates from the thread title.


iPhone

[hobsini2]

US 19 from St. Petersburg north to Crystal River in Florida.  Some segments are now forced limited access but trying to commute on they highway is a total nightmare.

Wasn't that why the Veterans Pkwy was built (at least north of I-275)?

[hobsini2]

There aren't a ton of candidates in Colorado off the top of my brain.  It wouldn't hurt to upgrade CO83 between I-225 and the Springs to have an overflow route opposite I-25.  Also it suffers less in the winter as compared to Momument Hill.

I also wouldn't hate it if US285 could somehow become completely limited access between I-25 and Sheridan.

Chris

US 24 between Colorado Springs and Limon maybe to a 4 lane divided highway?

[Terry Shea]

The only road that REALLY needs an upgrade is M59 through Utica - always jammed, frequent wrecks, and neither 75/696/94 nor going WAY up to 69 is a fast alternative.

Those are all nice-to-haves. Michiganders mostly want better pavement rather than more. 

I could never understand why they dug that trench for the M-59 freeway and then ended it basically in the middle of town.  They should have at least extended the freeway to M-53, if not all the way to I-94.

[hobsini2]

California's "Captain Obvious" corridors:  CA 58 over the Tehachapis, CA 99 in Tulare County, and CA 152 in both the Los Banos and Gilroy areas.  Also: finishing CA 14 north as a freeway to CA 58 (a couple of miles), and US 395 from I-15 to CA 58; that composite corridor serves as an effective L.A. commercial bypass that could stand relief of the suburban slog through west Victorville and Adelanto. 

Up in OR, the OR 18 corridor from PDX metro out to the coast at Lincoln City has already been mentioned; I heartily concur there -- but I'd also suggest US 97 in it entirety -- add passing lanes for trucks, a few more divided expressway segments, and a number of other spot improvements such as finishing the RR grade separation at La Pine.  A real freeway through Bend from the Sunriver area north to past Madras (i.e., the populated area along the corridor) would be nice -- but this is OR, so the prospects for such aren't great. 

In NV, an expressway extension along US 395 south of Carson City through Gardnerville and Minden would likely be welcomed by the residents who have to deal with through commercial traffic on a facility that, while gradually improved over the last couple of decades, really needs to be bypassed for at least safety's sake. 

And there's a couple of things in WA, particularly east of the Cascades, that could stand some attention:  US 97 in the Yakima Valley would certainly benefit from a direct expressway connection through Toppenish to I-82, and US 2 from the Spokane area west to Wenatchee could use some expressway sections or at least a lot more passing lanes (I have friends in the Davenport area, and they dread having to use that facility). 

Given time, I could probably come up with a lot more -- but these stand out in particular. 

I thought about CA 58 west of Bakersfield and then thought that CA 46 between CA 99 and I-5 would be a better route for making a 4 lane divided highway. Higher pop (Wasco and Paso Robles) served and straighter.
And while we are at it, can we finish a 4 lane divided highway with CA 14? There's about 15 miles left to do between Mojave and Inyokern. That would make US 395 and CA 14 a faster, more direct route between LA and Tahoe.