High-Volume Cloverleafs

[webny99]

What are some of the most outdated cloverleaf interchanges out there?

It doesn't have to be a full cloverleaf, any loop ramp that carries high volumes can qualify.

Rochester has been blessed with very few cloverleafs at freeway junctions.The five highest-volume interchanges have a combined total of only one loop ramp. Suffice to say loop ramps carrying high volumes are rare.
Buffalo, on the other hand...
Minneapolis has some bad ones, too...

[Aaron Camp]

The I-74 cloverleaf with US-150/IL-1 in the Danville, Illinois area is quite tight, with the loop ramp from I-74 WB to US-150 EB/IL-1 SB having an AADT of 3,050. Replacing the entire cloverleaf with an SPUI would probably be better than replacing the northwestern loop ramp with a flyover, although there aren't any actual plans that I know of to modify the I-74 exit to US-150/IL-1 in any way. The short stretch of I-74 in the Danville area between US-150/IL-1 and the Bowman Avenue exit is used quite a bit by Danville Area Community College students who live south of Danville, as US-136 has an at-grade railroad crossing near a grain mill in downtown Danville, and trains often cross US-136 there at very low speed.

The I-74/I-57 cloverleaf in the northwestern outskirts of Champaign, Illinois is far worse...the only one of the four loop ramps with an AADT of less than 1,000 is the southern loop ramp (I-74 EB to I-57 NB), and the northern loop ramp (I-74 WB to I-57 SB) has an AADT of 5,700, which is very high for a single-lane tight loop. There is a proposal to completely overhaul the I-74/I-57 interchange, and a proposed design (artist rendering here, due north is towards the top-left corner of the rendering) would turn the interchange into a cloverstack by replacing the southern and northern loop ramps with flyovers.

A bizarre fact about the I-74 cloverleafs in east-central Illinois is that the Danville cloverleaf with US-150/IL-1 has collector/distributor lanes on I-74, but the I-74/I-57 cloverleaf in the Champaign area doesn't have collector/distributor lanes on either I-74 or I-57!

[hotdogPi]

How are busy cloverleaves "outdated"?

I-495 (MA) has cloverleaves with I-93, MA 2, I-290 (almost), I-95 (southern crossing), and MA 24.
I-95/MA 128 has cloverleaves with MA 2 and I-93 (northern crossing).

[tradephoric]

I-75/M-59 cloverleaf outside Detroit:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6414421,-83.2388169,910m/data=!3m1!1e3

There is currently an I-75 widening project taking place through Oakland County but the limits end just south of the cloverleaf (meaning the current cloverleaf interchange will likely remain for some time).

[hbelkins]

I-265's cloverleaf with I-64.

[MNHighwayMan]

How are busy cloverleaves "outdated"?

Because some of them are over-capacity and a nightmare to use. See: the I-35W/494 one in the OP.

[silverback1065]

How are busy cloverleaves "outdated"?

Because some of them are over-capacity and a nightmare to use. See: the I-35W/494 one in the OP.

Exactly.  Cloverleaves are only useful in rural areas anymore.

[bzakharin]

NJ 70/I-295 interchange stands out right away. It's particularly bad where the movement from I-295 North to NJ 70 East merges with the NJ 70's right lane. The resulting merged lane then becomes the exit ramp from NJ 70 to I-295 South. It can be hell when there is congestion in the area (which is often), but most regular drivers on NJ 70 have learned to let traffic entering 70 from 295 merge by only using the left lane there.

[theline]

As has been mentioned on other threads, the cloverleaf loop ramp that carries mainline EB I-80 from the Borman Expressway to the Indiana Toll Road is high volume, low speed, and obsolete. In addition, after completing the loop the traffic must weave with WB traffic proceeding from the Borman to the ITR.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5882926,-87.231369,16.25z?hl=en&authuser=0

[RobbieL2415]

The CT 2/I-395 partial cloverleaf.

[Jmiles32]

The Baltimore-Washington Parkway's cloverleaf interchanges with the Capital Beltway and Baltimore Beltway are wayyy overdue for an upgrade.

[1995hoo]

I-395 and Duke Street (VA-236) in Alexandria. It's a partial cloverleaf because eastbound 236 to northbound 395 uses a flyover, but the southbound side of 395 has the cloverleaf weave area adjacent to the right lane (no C/D roadway) and it's badly overburdened, and not helped by a lane drop just north of the weave area.

https://goo.gl/maps/ANXjmfrpK3Q2

[DrSmith]

There are plenty more cloverleafs on Route 128 besides Routes 2 and 93, which can help slow traffic significantly. A few have been modified or removed, such as the one at Route 9 which was modified. There are plans to replace the 93/128 cloverleaf (which is sometimes just referred to as the cloverleaf). Mass has plenty of cloverleafs all over the place.

[wanderer2575]

Eastbound M-14 to northbound I-275 in Plymouth MI almost always has a line of vehicles.

[ilpt4u]

A few more from IL...

I-290/IL 53 & I-90/Jane Addams Tollway in Schaumburg

I-55 & I-80 in Joliet

I-74/I-280 and I-80 in the Quad Cities, where Thru Traffic on 74 and 80 use Cloverleaves

And not full Cloverleafs, but busy Loops

I-294/Tri-State North to I-55 South

I-294/Tri-State North to I-290 West - ISTHA does have a plan to fix this one

[jakeroot]

In Washington, the highest volume cloverleaf would almost certainly be the 167/405 cloverleaf. There's an overpass for one of the movements, but the movement is still a loop, and the interchange is still very recognisable as a cloverleaf. At all times of day (even at 2 am), the southbound to southbound cloverleaf (the one with the overpass) backs up well before the interchange. Some directional ramps for the HOV lanes should help improve things next year:

https://goo.gl/VZy5bL

[LM117]

US-15/501 and NC-147 in Durham NC.

https://goo.gl/maps/V3xcTP4d43z

[Eth]

There aren't many cloverleaf interchanges left in Georgia anymore. I can only think of four in the whole state that have three or more loop ramps: I-285/GA 166, I-185/US 80, I-185/US 27/280, and I-16/I-95. I wouldn't really call any of those particularly high-volume.

[ftballfan]

I-94/US-23 near Ann Arbor (both directions of US-23 and EB I-94 have C/D roads, but some of the ramps still back up)
I-96/US-31 near Muskegon (doesn't help that one of the busiest movements uses a loop ramp with extremely short merges on both ends)

[PHLBOS]

How are busy cloverleaves "outdated"?

I-495 (MA) has cloverleaves with I-93, MA 2, I-290 (almost), I-95 (southern crossing), and MA 24.
I-95/MA 128 has cloverleaves with MA 2 and I-93 (northern crossing).

One report I read stated that the I-93-I-95/MA 128 cloverleaf in Woburn/Reading handles as much as 200,000 vehicles per day.  It's probably the busiest of the Massachusetts cloverleaf interchanges.

One reason why MA went with cloverleaf interchange designs for many of its highway-to-highway crossings when they were initially built was due to construction cost & space (flyover ramps require more real estate).  Not to mention the fact that nobody back then anticipated the traffic volumes these interchanges are encountering today.

[cl94]

First true cloverleaf that came to mind was LIE (I-495) and the Grand Central Parkway in Queens. Two of the busiest roads in the state and it's a standard cloverleaf. SOB (NY 135)/Southern State is another.

Both places where I-270 and OH SR 161 cross were cloverleafs originally. Those were a mess. Thankfully, both have flyovers now and the east one is braided with the interchange to the east. I-270 and US 23 on the north side was a cloverleaf, backups in that area were horrendous when I lived in Columbus.

[sparker]

In Northern CA, the most obvious outdated/underpowered cloverleaf is San Jose's own US 101/I-880, which still features a surface-street jaunt from SB 880 to NB (compass WNW at that point) 101.  But there are others:  I-80/I-780 in Vallejo, despite C/D roadways along I-80, still backs up into the main lanes.  Originally that was the north end of I-680; that route was detoured onto the then-CA 21 freeway (Benicia-Cordelia) back in 1974, and the renumbered I-780 didn't see a lot of traffic until dense suburban development occurred along its length starting in the late '80's; now, it's a typical Bay Area mess, and that spills over onto I-80.  Actually, I-680 hosts a number of now-packed cloverleaves; the I-580/I-680 Dublin interchange -- albeit improved some time ago with a direct SB 680-EB 580 ramp -- still has 3 remaining 25 mph loops, including the very heavily used WB 580-SB 680 one (part of the Central Valley-Silicon Valley commute corridor) -- major modification is long overdue.  And I-680/CA 4 remains, with minor changes, as it was when opened circa 1963-64, although IIRC there was a local bond issue in Contra Costa County a few years back specifically addressing funding for revamping of that interchange.  Finally -- I-5/I-80 (with silent CA 99 overlapping I-5) in the Natomas area north of central Sacramento -- a cloverleaf with CD lanes and a single direct (WB 80>SB 5) ramp deployed in "turbine" fashion.  It was adequate until about a decade ago, when suburban development north of town overwhelmed the design capacity -- again, overdue for reconfiguration. 

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

How are busy cloverleaves "outdated"?

Because some of them are over-capacity and a nightmare to use. See: the I-35W/494 one in the OP.

Exactly.  Cloverleaves are only useful in rural areas anymore.

That's why ArDOT needs to phase the ones that are a part of the Big Rock Interchange out.


iPhone

[silverback1065]

In Northern CA, the most obvious outdated/underpowered cloverleaf is San Jose's own US 101/I-880, which still features a surface-street jaunt from SB 880 to NB (compass WNW at that point) 101.  But there are others:  I-80/I-780 in Vallejo, despite C/D roadways along I-80, still backs up into the main lanes.  Originally that was the north end of I-680; that route was detoured onto the then-CA 21 freeway (Benicia-Cordelia) back in 1974, and the renumbered I-780 didn't see a lot of traffic until dense suburban development occurred along its length starting in the late '80's; now, it's a typical Bay Area mess, and that spills over onto I-80.  Actually, I-680 hosts a number of now-packed cloverleaves; the I-580/I-680 Dublin interchange -- albeit improved some time ago with a direct SB 680-EB 580 ramp -- still has 3 remaining 25 mph loops, including the very heavily used WB 580-SB 680 one (part of the Central Valley-Silicon Valley commute corridor) -- major modification is long overdue.  And I-680/CA 4 remains, with minor changes, as it was when opened circa 1963-64, although IIRC there was a local bond issue in Contra Costa County a few years back specifically addressing funding for revamping of that interchange.  Finally -- I-5/I-80 (with silent CA 99 overlapping I-5) in the Natomas area north of central Sacramento -- a cloverleaf with CD lanes and a single direct (WB 80>SB 5) ramp deployed in "turbine" fashion.  It was adequate until about a decade ago, when suburban development north of town overwhelmed the design capacity -- again, overdue for reconfiguration.

Why didn't they complete the us 101/i-808 movement? because it would have made sense ?

[fillup420]

I-55 in Memphis requires going through a cloverleaf to stay on the mainline.