Impossible to Follow the Highway in One or Both Directions

[ethanhopkin14]

Can there be a subcategory:  highways that cannot be driven through due to vehicle restrictions?  I am not talking about a person carrying an oversize load, but more a tall vehicle where there are one or more abnormally low clearances on the route.  I think about this as a motorhome driver.   We are just under 12 feet high, so that's pretty low for a tall vehicle, but high enough that a 10 foot clearance post a problem.

We have never had an issue with low clearances, save one, but we weren't following the highway through there anyway, but we have run into quite a few situations of mountain highways that have a number of switchbacks that make vehicles over a certain length restricted (one time it was 26', another it s 28', and both are shorter than our 33').  I know that's what I get for driving a motorhome, but again, I think these are extreme circumstances that keep big vehicles that are still reasonable out. 

[roadman65]

US 60 in Willoughby Spit, Norfolk, VA has the issue of not being able to turn left into 4th View Street heading WB.  Despite signs there navigating around it, still AASHTO did not approve the circumvent route.

Heck AASHTO doesn’t know about US 58 in VA Beach realigned to 30th Street EB and using 32nd Street westbound as VA Beach probably don’t know that Laskin Road is US 58 either.

So technically you can’t follow US 60 WB from Ocean View to 4th View in the aforementioned location.

[Jim]

Texas State Highway 87, once you get past High Island (Texas State Highway 124) the road has been washed out multiple times buy the Gulf of Mexico (mostly hurricanes) to the point the state threw in the towel and there are no immediate plans to repair it.  That section is still on the books as part of SH-87, and there is pavement there, but it is impassible by most practical vehicles.  Also, SH-87 is not listed as one highway with disjointed segments, so the only way to drive the whole route is to take other routes to get between the washout area. 

Not sure if this qualifies for what you are looking for.

I wasn't going for disconnected segments, but the fact that they were connected until a wash out makes it an interesting scenario. Thanks for sharing!

This kind of thing also occurs on US 87 in Wyoming, where it is more or less permanently washed out between Kearny and Banner. Despite what Google tells you, the road connecting those places through Story is not US 87 but rather WYO 193.

If it's not going to be fixed, what possible justification is there for leaving the US 87 designation on that part of the route?

[zzcarp]

Isn't there a spot on US 6 in Colorado where the route jumps from an overpass to an underpass with no exit?

I think that's US 85/87, not 6, unless I missed something.

In Colorado? US87 only exists on paper. US85 jumps off of I-25 a few times before exiting for good in northern Denver, but that goes to I-76 then directly off onto its own.

I think the segment of US 85 in question is the one through Fountain and Security/Widefield just south of Springs. North of Academy Blvd it curves back to I-25 and crosses without an interchange, where US 85 "rejoins".

And all of that bit of 85 is also unsigned US 87, as far as I am aware.

Incorrect. It is signed.

[JayhawkCO]

Isn't there a spot on US 6 in Colorado where the route jumps from an overpass to an underpass with no exit?

I think that's US 85/87, not 6, unless I missed something.

In Colorado? US87 only exists on paper. US85 jumps off of I-25 a few times before exiting for good in northern Denver, but that goes to I-76 then directly off onto its own.

I think the segment of US 85 in question is the one through Fountain and Security/Widefield just south of Springs. North of Academy Blvd it curves back to I-25 and crosses without an interchange, where US 85 "rejoins".

And all of that bit of 85 is also unsigned US 87, as far as I am aware.

Incorrect. It is signed.

He was referring to US87 being unsigned.

[zzcarp]

Isn't there a spot on US 6 in Colorado where the route jumps from an overpass to an underpass with no exit?

I think that's US 85/87, not 6, unless I missed something.

In Colorado? US87 only exists on paper. US85 jumps off of I-25 a few times before exiting for good in northern Denver, but that goes to I-76 then directly off onto its own.

I think the segment of US 85 in question is the one through Fountain and Security/Widefield just south of Springs. North of Academy Blvd it curves back to I-25 and crosses without an interchange, where US 85 "rejoins".

And all of that bit of 85 is also unsigned US 87, as far as I am aware.

Incorrect. It is signed.

He was referring to US87 being unsigned.

Ah, got it. Yes, there's no signed stretch of US 87 left in Colorado.

[zzcarp]

Texas State Highway 87, once you get past High Island (Texas State Highway 124) the road has been washed out multiple times buy the Gulf of Mexico (mostly hurricanes) to the point the state threw in the towel and there are no immediate plans to repair it.  That section is still on the books as part of SH-87, and there is pavement there, but it is impassible by most practical vehicles.  Also, SH-87 is not listed as one highway with disjointed segments, so the only way to drive the whole route is to take other routes to get between the washout area. 

Not sure if this qualifies for what you are looking for.

I wasn't going for disconnected segments, but the fact that they were connected until a wash out makes it an interesting scenario. Thanks for sharing!

This kind of thing also occurs on US 87 in Wyoming, where it is more or less permanently washed out between Kearny and Banner. Despite what Google tells you, the road connecting those places through Story is not US 87 but rather WYO 193.

If it's not going to be fixed, what possible justification is there for leaving the US 87 designation on that part of the route?

Wyoming asked AASHTO to relocate US 87 onto WYO 193 and was denied due to the state having no plan to correct whatever "deficiencies" were on the route. AASHTO suggested that Wyoming route US 87 along I-90 to WYO 340 and back to the historic alignment. Wyoming never decided to do that and instead just made US 87 to WYO 193 to US 87 the through route, leaving original US 87 as impassable, disconnected, and unsigned.

[vdeane]

I wonder why BC 99 wouldn't just be routed along 41st Ave instead of 70th. Or they could have each direction of BC 99 going on different streets, though it'd be unconventional for a pair of two-way streets to each carry one direction of a highway (a possible subtopic, are there any examples of this?).

US 11 and NY 12 through downtown Watertown
NY 52 through Ellenville

US 202 through Norristown and US 206 through Trenton come close; both have brief one-way sections but each direction of each route is mostly on two-way roads.

[Chris19001]

US222 in Lancaster going southbound from the co-signed US-30 West.  You go right over it and start getting a "to-222" on Lititz Pike
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lancaster,+PA/@40.0683591,-76.3016863,16.25z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c6248b917214b9:0xb46790d030dbd2d6!8m2!3d40.0378755!4d-76.3055144

[JayhawkCO]

Texas State Highway 87, once you get past High Island (Texas State Highway 124) the road has been washed out multiple times buy the Gulf of Mexico (mostly hurricanes) to the point the state threw in the towel and there are no immediate plans to repair it.  That section is still on the books as part of SH-87, and there is pavement there, but it is impassible by most practical vehicles.  Also, SH-87 is not listed as one highway with disjointed segments, so the only way to drive the whole route is to take other routes to get between the washout area. 

Not sure if this qualifies for what you are looking for.

I wasn't going for disconnected segments, but the fact that they were connected until a wash out makes it an interesting scenario. Thanks for sharing!

This kind of thing also occurs on US 87 in Wyoming, where it is more or less permanently washed out between Kearny and Banner. Despite what Google tells you, the road connecting those places through Story is not US 87 but rather WYO 193.

If it's not going to be fixed, what possible justification is there for leaving the US 87 designation on that part of the route?

Wyoming asked AASHTO to relocate US 87 onto WYO 193 and was denied due to the state having no plan to correct whatever "deficiencies" were on the route. AASHTO suggested that Wyoming route US 87 along I-90 to WYO 340 and back to the historic alignment. Wyoming never decided to do that and instead just made US 87 to WYO 193 to US 87 the through route, leaving original US 87 as impassable, disconnected, and unsigned.

Wyoming also designated the two US87 pigtails WYO344 and WYO346.

[7/8]

Can there be a subcategory:  highways that cannot be driven through due to vehicle restrictions?  I am not talking about a person carrying an oversize load, but more a tall vehicle where there are one or more abnormally low clearances on the route.  I think about this as a motorhome driver.   We are just under 12 feet high, so that's pretty low for a tall vehicle, but high enough that a 10 foot clearance post a problem.

We have never had an issue with low clearances, save one, but we weren't following the highway through there anyway, but we have run into quite a few situations of mountain highways that have a number of switchbacks that make vehicles over a certain length restricted (one time it was 26', another it s 28', and both are shorter than our 33').  I know that's what I get for driving a motorhome, but again, I think these are extreme circumstances that keep big vehicles that are still reasonable out.

Yeah sure, feel free to share.

I wonder why BC 99 wouldn't just be routed along 41st Ave instead of 70th. Or they could have each direction of BC 99 going on different streets, though it'd be unconventional for a pair of two-way streets to each carry one direction of a highway (a possible subtopic, are there any examples of this?).

US 11 and NY 12 through downtown Watertown
NY 52 through Ellenville

Cool! Interesting that Google Maps doesn't show these, but OSM does.

[webny99]

A partial example of one route number being on two two-way streets: PA 309 in Tamaqua. Southbound is one-way, but most of the northbound route is two-way with a pair of one-way connectors.

(That section of PA 309 also has some of the worst pavement quality I've ever seen, so between that, the confusing one way sections, and the heavy truck traffic, the entire town of Tamaqua is basically an exaggerated/cartoon version of PA roads  )

[ethanhopkin14]

Can there be a subcategory:  highways that cannot be driven through due to vehicle restrictions?  I am not talking about a person carrying an oversize load, but more a tall vehicle where there are one or more abnormally low clearances on the route.  I think about this as a motorhome driver.   We are just under 12 feet high, so that's pretty low for a tall vehicle, but high enough that a 10 foot clearance post a problem.

We have never had an issue with low clearances, save one, but we weren't following the highway through there anyway, but we have run into quite a few situations of mountain highways that have a number of switchbacks that make vehicles over a certain length restricted (one time it was 26', another it s 28', and both are shorter than our 33').  I know that's what I get for driving a motorhome, but again, I think these are extreme circumstances that keep big vehicles that are still reasonable out.

Yeah sure, feel free to share.

This was the overpass I was talking about. .  Even though it is a business route, I still can't complete it due to 11'8" taking off the top of my air conditioners and pissing off my wife as well.  It's an abnormally low crossing that a rig should be normally able to cross if it were constructed with biger vehicles in mind, but due to the creek being on the other side, they really couldn't make the underpass any lower.  back in the 50's this was the main route, so 18 wheelers would have to divert around the railroad crossing.  Then again, maybe years of repaving has caused the clearance to become much shorter?

Again, I didn't have to go through (or around) it because the RV park I was getting to to stay the weekend is the last turn before the bridge. 

[hbelkins]

This almost happened at the Tennessee-North Carolina line with US 23.

For years, US 23 was a four-lane freeway in Tennessee but transitioned to a two-lane route at Sams Gap at the state line. When North Carolina built its portion of I-26, it originally said it was not going to move US 23 off the old alignment between Sams Gap and Mars Hill and was going to sign the new freeway only as I-26. And Tennessee wasn't going to move US 23 back to the old road. So under this scenario, US 23 would have jumped from the freeway to the old route at the new overpass near the state line with no access between the two.

North Carolina finally relented and moved 23 to the new freeway, but created another problem. They designated the old route as US 23A, all the way from the state line down to US 19. The Tennessee portion remained a local road without a number. The Wolf Laurel exit was originally signed as "To US 23A," meaning that the road accessed 23A running in both directions. This situation, if left the way it was, would have made US 23A a spur route to the state line at Sams Gap. North Carolina finally wised up and routed US 23A onto the Wolf Laurel exit and access road and now the remainder of the old road up the mountain to Sams Gap has no designation (unless it got one of NC's four-digit route numbers).

[NE2]

(Aside: WTF happened to the SF bike routes? They don't seem to be signed anymore.)

[NE2]

Heck AASHTO doesn't know about US 58 in VA Beach realigned to 30th Street EB and using 32nd Street westbound as VA Beach probably don't know that Laskin Road is US 58 either.

Why would anyone know about a change that doesn't exist?

[oscar]

Even though it is a business route, I still can't complete it due to 11'8" taking off the top of my air conditioners and pissing off my wife as well.  It's an abnormally low crossing that a rig should be normally able to cross if it were constructed with biger vehicles in mind, but due to the creek being on the other side, they really couldn't make the underpass any lower.  back in the 50's this was the main route, so 18 wheelers would have to divert around the railroad crossing.  Then again, maybe years of repaving has caused the clearance to become much shorter?

Again, I didn't have to go through (or around) it because the RV park I was getting to to stay the weekend is the last turn before the bridge. 

Sounds like where you were staying was pretty close to the low-clearance bridge. Could you have walked under the bridge, then on your way back home driven your RV around the bridge, to complete your coverage of the route?

I've done something like that, to clinch a route interrupted by a short construction zone, or with a fallen tree blocking the road (but not enough that I couldn't step over the tree trunk).

[dvferyance]

Many state routes in Indiana. Now that there are gaps in many you would need an old map before the gap existed to be able to follow them.

[thenetwork]

Isn't there a spot on US 6 in Colorado where the route jumps from an overpass to an underpass with no exit?

Not exactly an impossible vertical jump from one roadway to another but at the West Glenwood exit (I-70 exit 114) at the roundabout for the westbound ramps, there is multiple signage for US-6 West traffic to follow the dead end frontage road -- an impossible horizontal transition....unless you find a way to bust through the I-70 ROW fencing!

[ilpt4u]

I am not saying it is impossible, but I have yet to figure out how to follow NB IL 3 thru East St Louis. It is signed along I-55/64 from where NB IL 3 enters from the south at Exit 1, but how it routes to get to St Clair Ave from I-64 EB to continue north, that I haven't figured out

NB IL 3 is signed with I-64 at the 55/64/70 interchange, so follow I-64, but the 1st exit on stand-alone I-64 is "To IL 3"  St Clair Ave/Exit 3, which kinda implies it isn't exactly IL 3, but gets you back to it? Almost like St Clair Ave south of the 55/64 Entrance ramp is NOT actually part of IL 3, but is required to be used to follow NB IL 3

St Clair Ave is signed "To IL 3"  heading north from the exit off of I-64, also

SB, it is straight forward: Follow IL 3 along St Clair Ave and take the Freeway Entrance to join the combined I-55/I-64 Freeway with IL 3 multiplexed until it breaks south at Exit 1 before 55/64 hits the PSB

[roadman65]

This almost happened at the Tennessee-North Carolina line with US 23.

For years, US 23 was a four-lane freeway in Tennessee but transitioned to a two-lane route at Sams Gap at the state line. When North Carolina built its portion of I-26, it originally said it was not going to move US 23 off the old alignment between Sams Gap and Mars Hill and was going to sign the new freeway only as I-26. And Tennessee wasn't going to move US 23 back to the old road. So under this scenario, US 23 would have jumped from the freeway to the old route at the new overpass near the state line with no access between the two.

North Carolina finally relented and moved 23 to the new freeway, but created another problem. They designated the old route as US 23A, all the way from the state line down to US 19. The Tennessee portion remained a local road without a number. The Wolf Laurel exit was originally signed as "To US 23A," meaning that the road accessed 23A running in both directions. This situation, if left the way it was, would have made US 23A a spur route to the state line at Sams Gap. North Carolina finally wised up and routed US 23A onto the Wolf Laurel exit and access road and now the remainder of the old road up the mountain to Sams Gap has no designation (unless it got one of NC's four-digit route numbers).

Well for years US 22 had an Alternate Spur in Phillipsburg, NJ. Though the Route dangled a few blocks south of US 22 at its west end, you could easily hop back to it, but EB would not find it as no TO signage.

Finally it got the ax for NJ 122.

[ethanhopkin14]

Isn't there a spot on US 6 in Colorado where the route jumps from an overpass to an underpass with no exit?

Not exactly an impossible vertical jump from one roadway to another but at the West Glenwood exit (I-70 exit 114) at the roundabout for the westbound ramps, there is multiple signage for US-6 West traffic to follow the dead end frontage road -- an impossible horizontal transition....unless you find a way to bust through the I-70 ROW fencing!

Hmm...a US shield with an interstate cardinal direction to boot.  I see the dead end..  Curious.

[JayhawkCO]

Isn't there a spot on US 6 in Colorado where the route jumps from an overpass to an underpass with no exit?

Not exactly an impossible vertical jump from one roadway to another but at the West Glenwood exit (I-70 exit 114) at the roundabout for the westbound ramps, there is multiple signage for US-6 West traffic to follow the dead end frontage road -- an impossible horizontal transition....unless you find a way to bust through the I-70 ROW fencing!

Hmm...a US shield with an interstate cardinal direction to boot.  I see the dead end..  Curious.

I also like how Google Maps calls that road Highway 6 and 24, where US24 doesn't even begin until Minturn about 55 miles east.

[zzcarp]

Isn't there a spot on US 6 in Colorado where the route jumps from an overpass to an underpass with no exit?

Not exactly an impossible vertical jump from one roadway to another but at the West Glenwood exit (I-70 exit 114) at the roundabout for the westbound ramps, there is multiple signage for US-6 West traffic to follow the dead end frontage road -- an impossible horizontal transition....unless you find a way to bust through the I-70 ROW fencing!

Hmm...a US shield with an interstate cardinal direction to boot.  I see the dead end..  Curious.

I also like how Google Maps calls that road Highway 6 and 24, where US24 doesn't even begin until Minturn about 55 miles east.

It's probably a remnant of when US 24 was co-signed all the way to Grand Junction. Many of the properties still use Highway 6 & 24 as their official address with the Garfield County assessor.

Even worse, though, is the Garfield County GIS base map which not only calls it US 24 but shows a US 24 shield east of town on I-70.

[Mr_Northside]

The Boulevard of the Allies in Pittsburgh has this situation going westbound. 
Ignoring the PA-885 overlay (as I don't think it goes all the way to Commonwealth PL / Point State Park), and focusing just on the named road - heading WB from the Oakland area on the bluff, once it encounters I-579 / Crosstown Blvd, the right lane must exit to I-579 north and the left lane must exit to loop around to the Liberty Bridge.   The Blvd of the Allies exists west of there as a 2-way multi-lane road downtown past Grant St to Point State Park., but if you want to use both sections in that direction, you have to get into downtown and work your way back to it.

One can drive it EB continuously without this issue.

https://goo.gl/maps/pYPUgrJKdvdZT7ZC6