I'm so old that...

[CapeCodder]

I remember

-When US 40/61 was still a divided, four lane expressway through St. Charles County (those traffic lights were a pain in the ass.)
-Boston before the Big Dig when the Central Artery dominated downtown.

[CoreySamson]

I am pretty young, so I haven't seen as much as y'all have, but I do remember I-10 being only two lanes in Baton Rouge directly east out of the I-10/12 split (plus diagrammatic signs and no Clearview at the time). I also remember a time when the Sam Houston Parkway was not completely limited-access yet.

[TheStranger]

I remember

-When US 40/61 was still a divided, four lane expressway through St. Charles County (those traffic lights were a pain in the ass.)
-Boston before the Big Dig when the Central Artery dominated downtown.

Went to Boston in 1998 so I was around for the interminable construction!

Actually haven't been back there at all since then to see how different the area is with the Big Dig fully in operation.

[bwana39]

I can remember when ALL of the 2-way traffic along US-59 (current I-69) crossed the San Jacinto River on the single truss bridge at Humble. https://maps.app.goo.gl/MD3EWmrFPZ9xcM9c9

[roadman65]

I remember when in Boston, the current I-93 and US 1 interchange was a three wye offering full movements.

In Virginia, US 301 between Port Royal and Port Conway crossed a two lane drawbridge across the Rappanhock River.

I remember when VA 31 went into Williamsburg concurrent with VA 5 and ending with VA 5 at VA 143. 

I remember when VA 162 was a much longer route and went through Williamsburg to end at US 60 along Richmond Road.

I remember the toll to cross the HRBT.

I remember the Brunswick Circle in North Brunswick, NJ at US 1 & 130.  It had a barricade across the northern part so traffic couldn't make a complete loop and go from US 1 NB to George's Road ( Route 171).

[brad2971]

I'm almost 60, so this boomer can still remember:

      - when many sections of interstate freeways weren't built yet, so you had to transition to regular roads in
        between. 

      - many of the now decommissioned US highways still existing & signed; most notably, US 99/99E/99W here
        in Oregon, but I also recall US 91 beyond its current extent, US 16 east of Rapid City, US 10 west of
        Fargo, etc. As a kid, I actually thought that interstates were required to have a US highway running
        with them, since so many we drove on did.

      - I-80N (both OR/ID/UT and IA's), I-80S (CO/NE) and I-15W. Also, the US 30N in OR/ID, and the 30N/30S split
        in ID/UT/WY

      - In Oregon, most Interstate & US shields had the state name, and Oregon State Route shields had the state
        name and the Eagle!

      - Portland's Harbor Drive still existed -- we used to take it through Portland on the way to visiting my
        grandparents.

      - when the rural interstate speed limit on I-5/I-80N once you left Portland was 70 mph. 

      - later, when the national 55 mph limit was in place. It made my western OR to eastern WA drives to/from
        college in agonizing!

      - gas stations gave out free maps, compressed air was free, and the attendants offered to check your oil &
        clean the windshield.

Even though I was only 5-6 years old in the mid 1970s, I still remember when Sioux Falls (SD) had US 16 on 12th street, and US 77 on Minnesota Ave. US 16 signs would be replaced with SD 42 and SD 262 by 1980, and US 77 signs would be gone by 1982.

I also remember when US 75 was cosigned with I-29 in Iowa up to I-480. At the same time, US 73 was still signed from Winnebago to I-480 in Omaha until around 1984.

[dlsterner]

I'll give this a shot.  For context I'm in my mid 60's and I have many concrete road memories from that era.  I also lived in both Pennsylvania and Florida during that time.  And some of these may have been echoes by previous posters.

•  The Interstate system was still in piecemeal form.  I remember family trips where we would take the Interstate for 20-30 miles, then have to shunt over to the parallel US highway until the Interstate resumed.

•  There was no World Wide Web for planning trips.  Every year before a family vacation my father would get a set of maps and TourBooks through his AAA membership, as well as last year's Holiday Inn directory.  We exclusively stayed there since "we knew what we were going to get".

•  Speaking of Holiday Inn, I remember the huge art-deco green signs that they used at their properties until the (I think) late 70s.

•  There were very few food options at the typical exit - the notable exception being Stuckey's.  We stopped there almost exclusively because of this.

•  The Exxon brand name was not in use yet; the stations affiliated with Standard Oil were branded as Esso in the north and as Enco in the south.

•  On entering turnpikes, you were given a card listing the fares to all of the other exits.  You turned in this card with your fare when exiting.

•  (Pennsylvania) I remember when the current PA 272 from Lancaster south to near Wakefield was designated as a southern extension of PA 72.  And the road had not been dualized; the current northbound carriage carried both directions.

•  (Pennsylvania) I remember the old Engelside bridge which carried both directions of US 222 into Lancaster prior to the one-way split.  Called the "Singing Bridge" as it made a hum as you drove across it.  Destroyed by Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

•  (Florida) The colorized shields for US highways.

•  (Florida) Riding across the old and narrow Seven Mile Bridge (since replaced by a parallel bridge).

•  (Florida) FL 20 had a discontinuity between FL 79 at Ebro and US 231 north of Panama City.  "The Missing Link".

•  (Florida) I-75 had its southern terminus in Tampa.

I'm sure I can come up with more.

[roadman65]

I remember FL SR 528 in its split freeway form. One segment ran from I-4 to Boggy Creek Road with a four lane McCoy Road carrying the state route from there to SR 436. Then the freeway resumed eastward to Port Canaveral.

The current toll east of SR 417 didn't exist but instead another plaza was located directly east of Narcoosee Road ( SR 15).  When the former OOCEA existed and upgraded McCoy Road to the tolled freeway to complete the Beeline Expressway, it caused motorists to pay two tolls in the vicinity of the airport less than 3 miles apart. Those who drove McCoy for free for years were then paying tolls that they never paid once the arterial turned freeway.

I remember when I-4 was four lanes most of its length. 
I remember the Kirkman Road / International Drive intersection near Universal Orlando had no signals. I Drive ended at Kirkman and even the major intersections of Kirkman and Vineland & Kirkman and Major at Universal were also unsignalized which are now some of the busiest intersections around. Universal was a wide open field.  The Twin Towers across the street from Universal weren't there.  The Sheraton Four Points on I Drive I remember when it was being built as the Hi Q ( Quality Inn).

Disney had one theme park and was set back five miles from US 192  along a rural World Drive. Lake Buena Vista only had four hotels on Hotel Plaza Blvd and on SR 535, a lone Stuckeys was there.  SR 535 was SR S-535 and two lanes and north of LBV was the unincorporated Vineland now absorbed by the modern sprawl.

Busch Gardens in Tampa was a small bird garden and animal safari and wasn't a theme park yet with the rides it's has now. A brewery stood in the middle with a free tour of the production of Anheiser Busch beers as part of the park admission.  A super long escalator up to the roof started the tour.

[Rothman]

I remember helping my parents pay tolls on the Mountain Parkway in KY and the shock we had when the tolls ended.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm so old that I remember when "Crash_It" wasn't several aliases deep on Facebook road groups.

[NE2]

...I remember the Key Bridge.

[DandyDan]

I remember when we used to take the Hennepin County 62 freeway to go to my uncle's apartment and how Hennepin County 18 was also a freeway.

I also remember that the bridge that used to cross the Mississippi River at Inver Grove Heights, MN was a free bridge.

I also remember when Illinois's I-88 was Illinois Route 5.

I also remember when Nebraska Highway 38 went on West Center Road and Center Street in Omaha.

[jeffandnicole]

•  On entering turnpikes, you were given a card listing the fares to all of the other exits.  You turned in this card with your fare when exiting.

You will still get one on the NJ Turnpike when going thru the ticket/cash lanes. The only difference is the tickets list the price for all vehicle classifications, rather than the amounts for your specific vehicle class.

[1995hoo]

I remember a time when westbound I-66 had big green signs (mounted roadside, not overhead) advising that the road had been completed all the way to I-81. The segment between Haymarket and Gainesville opened in December 1980 and that was the main reason for the signs.

I also remember the day the portion inside the Beltway opened three days before Christmas in 1982—that was a Big Deal in the DC area—although I don't really remember very well (other than from looking at pictures) what eastbound I-66 looked like approaching the Beltway before the road was extended. I remember the first time I rode on that new part of I-66 was a few days later to go see the Christmas tree at the Ellipse. We thought it was really fast compared to I-395 (to be fair, we lived very close to Fairfax Hospital then, so I-66 was considerably more direct and was not yet carrying much traffic).

[Mapmikey]

I remember a time when westbound I-66 had big green signs (mounted roadside, not overhead) advising that the road had been completed all the way to I-81. The segment between Haymarket and Gainesville opened in December 1980 and that was the main reason for the signs.

I also remember the day the portion inside the Beltway opened three days before Christmas in 1982—that was a Big Deal in the DC area—although I don't really remember very well (other than from looking at pictures) what eastbound I-66 looked like approaching the Beltway before the road was extended. I remember the first time I rode on that new part of I-66 was a few days later to go see the Christmas tree at the Ellipse. We thought it was really fast compared to I-395 (to be fair, we lived very close to Fairfax Hospital then, so I-66 was considerably more direct and was not yet carrying much traffic).

You likely also remember when the HOV lanes on I-395 had black BGS signs instead of green.

[GaryV]

I remember when portions of the US-131 freeway opened in Grand Rapids.

And from the top of the hill at John Ball Park we watched earthmovers and bulldozers building I-196.

[WillWeaverRVA]

...I remember the Key Bridge.

Well played.

Anyway...

...I remember that I-95 in Virginia had three different sets of exit 2's, exit 3's, and exit 4's.

[1995hoo]

You likely also remember when the HOV lanes on I-395 had black BGS signs instead of green.

Definitely, and I always liked those signs.

[bing101]

I was around to see the "480 CLOSED" signs right after Loma Prieta

I remember when traffic reaching 880 south was directed to take 580 to 980 from 80 west, and when the roadmaps of the era (mid-90s) mostly showed 880 just petering out at today's 7th Street ramp complex

I still strongly remember the button-copy internal exit tab at US 101 southbound for Millbrae Avenue, which was only replaced a few years ago.  For that matter, I definitely remember when button copy was everything and retrorflective barely existed in California, and also the early-2000s install of no-exit-number retroreflective signage in San Francisco.

I remember the button copy sign in San Bruno that had a covered-up Route 380 shield at 280 and Sneath Lane, removed in recent years.

I recall the Paul Avenue exit northbound on US 101 being more accurately labeled "Bayshore Boulevard"

I went to LA at least once before the Century Freeway/I-105 was completed

I recall seeing the Route 170 shields on Highland Avenue in Hollywood in person

I got to ride a car along the portion of I-280 in San Francisco that no longer exists (from 6th Street to an offramp at 3rd Street) and along the portion of the Central Freeway that was removed in 2005 (from Market Street to Fell/Laguna).  Before that, I also got to experience seeing the 280 extension marked as CLOSED due to Loma Prieta both on roadmaps and on signs prior to 1995.

There's also that bizarre era where 101 was signed from the Bayshore Freeway and I-80 (but not in the field) for 7th Street instead of the Central Freeway...

I was around for the construction of Skyway near the Makati/Manila border

If you look at Manila Skyway there are parts of it that resembles the former Cypress, Central, and Embarcadero freeways in the Bay Area before Loma Prieta showed that the double Decker freeways are a bad design. Then I was told that in Manila there is a West Valley Fault in the area and its basically the Philippines version of the Hayward Fault. 

[PColumbus73]

I remember when US 35 was two lanes between Washington Court House, OH and Xenia, OH.

and when Marbelites and double-red left turn signals were all over the place in North Carolina.

[TheStranger]

If you look at Manila Skyway there are parts of it that resembles the former Cypress, Central, and Embarcadero freeways in the Bay Area before Loma Prieta showed that the double Decker freeways are a bad design.

Being double-deck doesn't inherently mean immediate collapse at all: look no further than 280 in the Dogpatch area of SF, which did close for a few years for repairs, but has remained open now for almost 3 decades with no interruption.

I'm not stating of course that the Skyway will survive an earthquake by default, but that the construction of the portion through Paco and Padacan occurred in 2017, over 26 years after the damaged portions of the freeways you mentioned were removed.

[bing101]

If you look at Manila Skyway there are parts of it that resembles the former Cypress, Central, and Embarcadero freeways in the Bay Area before Loma Prieta showed that the double Decker freeways are a bad design.

Being double-deck doesn't inherently mean immediate collapse at all: look no further than 280 in the Dogpatch area of SF, which did close for a few years for repairs, but has remained open now for almost 3 decades with no interruption.

I'm not stating of course that the Skyway will survive an earthquake by default, but that the construction of the portion through Paco and Padacan occurred in 2017, over 26 years after the damaged portions of the freeways you mentioned were removed.

True too.

[bzakharin]

- gas stations gave out free maps, compressed air was free, and the attendants offered to check your oil &
        clean the windshield.

There may still be gas stations where air is free. I know of one that shut down less than 10 years ago. Also, here in New Jersey, where full service is mandatory, an attendant will still clean your windshield once in a blue moon.

[Big John]

- gas stations gave out free maps, compressed air was free, and the attendants offered to check your oil &
        clean the windshield.

There may still be gas stations where air is free. I know of one that shut down less than 10 years ago. Also, here in New Jersey, where full service is mandatory, an attendant will still clean your windshield once in a blue moon.

Kwip Trip still offers free air.

[JayhawkCO]

•  On entering turnpikes, you were given a card listing the fares to all of the other exits.  You turned in this card with your fare when exiting.

You will still get one on the NJ Turnpike when going thru the ticket/cash lanes. The only difference is the tickets list the price for all vehicle classifications, rather than the amounts for your specific vehicle class.

Kansas Turnpike too.