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Youthful Misconceptions

Started by vtk, November 22, 2011, 02:35:23 AM

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vtk

What are some of the odd ideas we had about roads when we were young?

When I was in grade school, I knew that Interstates had to be freeways, and that state routes could sometimes be freeways.  However, after studying (mostly the west side of) Columbus, I had concluded that it was a state route designation that enabled a non-Interstate road to be a freeway – a US route could not be a freeway unless it was overlapped by a state route.  I'm pretty sure some part of US 33 was the first counterexample I discovered.
Wait, it's all Ohio? Always has been.


NE2

I thought roads and cars were a good thing until high school. Now I'm an envirowacko.
pre-1945 Florida route log

I accept and respect your identity as long as it's not dumb shit like "identifying as a vaccinated attack helicopter".

Quillz

I thought Interstates had to actually cross state borders and they were the only type of roadway that could be freeways.

vdeane

I thought NYSDOT would do such things as extend NY 531, finish NY 204, and complete the NY 590/NY 104 interchange.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

huskeroadgeek

I used to think that there was an inherent difference between state and US routes in terms of maintenance. I thought that in order to be a US route they had to be a higher standard of maintenance, and I thought that they were federally-maintained.

OracleUsr

Wow....let's see

1.  I thought HuffINE Mill Road in Greensboro ran into HuffMAN Mill Road in Burlington (understand, these are two different counties)
2.  I thought a diamond (this is NC) designated a road, the US shield a highway and the Interstate an Interstate
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J N Winkler

Like huskeroadgeek, I used to think that US routes were held to more stringent standards for construction and maintenance.  I also thought they were still funded 50% federal, 50% state (I am not sure when that funding ratio lapsed).
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

andrewkbrown

#7
As a kid on family road trips, I used to think that cars ahead of were going faster than us, and those behind were slower. If we were cruising at 65, the traffic I could see 1/2 to 1 mile off in the distance must have been going 70-80mph.

Took a little growing older to understand that our car and the ones I could see in the distance might both be going 65, but they simply got on the highway ahead of us.
Firefighter/Paramedic
Washington DC Fire & EMS

corco

I used to think old signs were stupid and should be replaced

kphoger

There was a brief period when I thought state patrol cars were only allowed to patrol state highways, not local roads.

JN Winkler:  I thought there were more stringent specs for US routes.  When the roundabout near Skaggs Hospital in Branson was constructed, I recall they had to remove the designation of Business US 65 because, according to US highway standards, the hill was too steep of a grade to construct a roundabout.  The city therefore took over the road as a local street and built the roundabout anyway.  ((I think it's funny that something was called 'too steep' for Branson drivers))
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Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

hbelkins

I thought that US and Interstate highways were federal routes.

Unlike a certain "viatologist," I became disabused of my erroneous belief.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

relaxok

Interesting to look back on..

-- I also thought interstates had to cross state lines
-- I thought U.S. highways HAD to be north/south only for odd numbers and so on.. so I freaked out at the US-101 east/west signs in CA
-- I thought that when when there was a concurrency, it meant that the newer highway (e.g. interstate) was built EXACTLY in the same spot as the older one it was signed with
-- I thought all the state route numbers in CT were highways that went through the whole country with that number
-- I thought shoulders were just for really slow trucks
-- I thought 100% of road signage was made in prisons
-- I thought exit ramp speed signs were enforceable limits

1995hoo

#12
Quote from: andrewkbrown on November 22, 2011, 01:28:07 PM
As a kid on family road trips, I used to think that cars ahead of were going faster than us, and those behind were slower. If we were cruising at 65, the traffic I could see 1/2 to 1 mile off in the distance must have been going 70-80mph.

Took a little growing older to understand that our car and the ones I could see in the distance might both be going 65, but they simply got on the highway ahead of us.

When I was a little kid when we got stuck in traffic I thought there was a "first car" that was going too slowly and holding up the traffic. Who knows, at various times during my youth that might have been true as to Maryland's rolling roadblocks that they ran for NMSL compliance.

I also thought the state welcome sign marked the actual state line and that when you passed that sign, that was the point at which you were crossing into another state. I'm not sure why it never occurred to me that the two states' welcome signs are almost never directly across the highway from each other.
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commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

Ian

Here are a few of mine (most of these are from when I was really, really young)...

-All road signs were hand painted.
-Connecticut was the largest state (it would always take what feels like an eternity to pass through the state on my way up north)
-Every long freeway was I-95.
-Asphalt roads were made of rubber.
UMaine graduate, former PennDOT employee, new SoCal resident.
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vdeane

Another one: I thought that if a 3di had an even number it had to be east-west and if it had an odd number it had to be north-south.  This is because it holds true for all the x90s in NY except I-790, and I had never been I-790 or any 3dis for a 2di other than I-90.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

Duke87

I used to think that all interstates had six lanes.

I used to think that all exits everywhere in the country were numbered sequentially, and when I looked at maps of states that used milepost numbering I always figured that they were only showing the major exits and omitting a lot of minor ones due to lack of space.

Similarly, I used to think that it was normal everywhere for exits to be spaced a mile or so apart. Unless that highway happened to be the New Jersey Turnpike, which I thought was poorly designed because it didn't have enough exits.

I used to think that all major roads had solid double yellow lines down the middle - I was in middle school by the time I knew what a passing zone was.

I used to think shoulders were a waste of space and wondered why more highways weren't built without them.
If you always take the same road, you will never see anything new.

J N Winkler

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 22, 2011, 04:07:08 PMI also thought the state welcome sign marked the actual state line and that when you passed that sign, that was the point at which you were crossing into another state. I'm not sure why it never occurred to me that the two states' welcome signs are almost never directly across the highway from each other.

I used to think this too but later learned that it is not uncommon for boundary signs (and other roadway features at state lines in general) to be placed extraterritorially.  I am not aware, however, of any welcome signs (as opposed to boundary signs) which are placed outside the state to which they refer.

A related delusion is that monumentation is always placed precisely at the boundary.  Sometimes this is the case, but I have found instances where the monument is offset a specified amount from the boundary.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

Takumi

I used to think state routes should always go through at least two counties.
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exit322

I used to think that single-state 2DIs were called "Intrastates" because they're Intrastate Interstates (e.g. I-16, I-27, so on and so forth)

empirestate

I used to think Rochester's Inner Loop was just this one ramp here:
http://g.co/maps/gcvhn

When my parents pointed at the Castleton-on-Hudson Bridge (NY Thruway Berkshire Spur over the Hudson) and said we would be going over it, I thought they meant *over* it; i.e., driving atop the superstructure!

Speaking of the Berkshire Spur, I though the Berkshire Spur was the driveway leading to the Berkshire Spur Motel. (It's a steep driveway that branches off NY 22 similar to an exit ramp, and is right by a sign that said "Berkshire Spur".

I thought the guard gate structures at Erie Canal locks along the Mohawk River were bridges to nowhere. They sure look like it!

corco

#20
I used to think that "freeway" just meant that the road wasn't tolled- freeways couldn't be tollways and tollways couldn't be freeways.

In a similar vein, "expressways" were freeways through a city.

Ohio was the only state with unique state highway markers. (the first 8 years of my life were spent pretty much without leaving IL/IN/OH/WV/KY- very occasional forays to VA/NC/TN/MD, so you can see where that came about)

You can tell I spent my young years in suburban Chicago.

When I first moved to Boise, I thought all the freeways (I-84 and I-184) were I-84 and were "The Connector" (local parlance for I-184). When I first heard about McCall, where we would later end up settling, I assumed it must be an island because there was only one road in and one road out, and my midwestern brain totally could not grasp mountains as terrain obstacles.

OCGuy81

I remember I used to think Orange County/John Wayne Airport was such a huge, major airport when I'd go with my parents to pick up company.

Compared to the airports I've flown to in my travels now....wow....it's small time.

kurumi

There were only two classes of roadway: undivided surface roads (almost always 2 lanes), and freeways (the only things I considered "highways").

The first trip down the Berlin Turnpike (what most of us would call an expressway) was an eye-opener: a highway with shops along it.

My early interchange designs, scribbled on paper, must have featured a lot of 50-foot weaves and 20-degree inclines. No sense of horizontal scale.
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bassoon1986

I used to wonder why Arkansas needed 2 posts for their signs when Louisiana only used one. I figured we did it better and cheaper!

I remember crossing into Texas and thinking the FM highways were the major highways because on their sign, it carried the Texas shield on it. The State highways were just a box

huskeroadgeek

Quote from: bassoon1986 on November 23, 2011, 11:50:45 AM
I used to wonder why Arkansas needed 2 posts for their signs when Louisiana only used one. I figured we did it better and cheaper!

I remember crossing into Texas and thinking the FM highways were the major highways because on their sign, it carried the Texas shield on it. The State highways were just a box
I thought the same thing when I made my first foray into Texas. I still find it strange that they put the state outline on a lower class of road than the state highways.



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