You are too old if you remember.......

[agentsteel53]

I'm not going to keep a mobile phone in my pocket 24/7.

why not?  I do.

(Examples of places I do not take a mobile phone include movie theatres or churches.)

if I go to a similar event, then I'm just going to ignore my phone.  but I still have it.

I don't particularly care for this idea some people have that they're entitled to reach you 24/7 wherever you may be.

I pick up maybe 25% of my phone calls.  I've taken to making appointments with people.  "we'll talk at 1pm on Tuesday."

One other reason we like having regular phones is that it enables us both to be on the phone at the same time with our relatives without having to use a speakerphone or initiate a conference call.

that's actually a very valid point. 

[hm insulators]

I-215 signed as Temp 15
The 7 and 11 freeways
The 5/91 interchange having left exits and entrances
The 126 east of Santa Paula being a two-lane road
101 having stoplights in downtown Santa Barbara
The unfinished ramps at the 118/23 interchange
17 being signed all the way to San Rafael
480's existence
Macy Street and Brooklyn Avenue in Los Angeles
Santa Barbara Avenue instead of MLK Blvd
Parkway Calabasas being signed as "Craftsman Road" on the 101
Johnson Drive in Ventura being signed as "Sherwin Avenue" on the 101
Getty Center Drive being signed as "Chalon Road" on the 405
The Waterford Street off and onramps on the 405 in Brentwood
125 in La Mesa being a glorified transition road.
905 signed as 117

And my favorite:

The NB 170 ramp to NB 5 was a left entrance.

California 118 not ending at I-210 in Pacoima but continuing through Sunland, Tujunga, La Crescenta and La Canada (which at the time was not the incorporated city of La Canada Flintridge) and into Pasadena, ending at Route 66. This included a little stretch of four-lane freeway between Pasadena and La Canada, a piece of which still exists and is now an extension of Woodbury Road.

US 101 west of Las Virgenes Road a little-bitty four-lane freeway and there was no Lindero Canyon Road at all.

California 39 open to traffic between Crystal Lake and California 2 in the San Gabriel Mountains (winter storms in 1969 and 1978 messed up that stretch).

The very first carpool lane experiment sometime in the 1970s on the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) where instead of building an additional lane and making it a carpool lane, they took away a regular lane and made it the carpool lane. You can imagine how popular that was with the commuters! Within a year, it was gone.

[agentsteel53]

California 118 not ending at I-210 in Pacoima but continuing through Sunland, Tujunga, La Crescenta and La Canada (which at the time was not the incorporated city of La Canada Flintridge) and into Pasadena, ending at Route 66. This included a little stretch of four-lane freeway between Pasadena and La Canada, a piece of which still exists and is now an extension of Woodbury Road.

there was a 118 sign from 1962 on Sunland Blvd which survived until ~2007.  there was, on that four-lane freeway, a white 1955 Division of Highways guide sign, with the distance to Ventura, which survived until ~2002. 

I have no idea what happened to the 118 on a green sign, but as for the white guide sign, I could tell you exactly where it is right now.

[jeffandnicole]

I have not had a land line since 2003.  I wonder what portion of the population is landline-free, and how that's changed in the last ~15 years.

I think the number is somewhat skewed due to the 'Triple-Play' packages that include TV, Internet and Phone.  Many people take the triple play without ever using the phone part of the package.

Overall though, surveys shows the obvious: Younger generations tend not to have landlines; older generations still have them. 

[1995hoo]

I'm not going to keep a mobile phone in my pocket 24/7.

why not?  I do.

....

Because I have absolutely no desire to do so!

[jwolfer]

All throughout our lives many of us have seen road come and go, sign and route changes, freeway additions, and old practices put to rest by the FHWA and MUTCD, lets have a thread where we can all recall something from many years ago that no longer exists.  Of course many of us are different ages here that makes the fun as to the younger road enthusiasts will recall ancient stuff to them that are going to be recent to us who are over 40, so it will sound most interesting this way.

I will start by saying that I must be old because I remember these:

New Jersey
The Garden State Parkway used to use exit tabs without the word "EXIT" and had the exit gore sign with its arrow within a circle.  In addition the NJDOT sections of the Parkway at Toms River and Northern Middlesex and most of Union County used LGSes for exit guides with the at exit sign in the gore of the ramp diverge.

NJ 17 had traffic signals north of US 46.
NJ roadways were concrete and used cable guard rails wired to white cement posts.
The NJ Turnpike used neon speed limit signs.
The Garden State Parkway allowed 60 mph north of Toms River and only 65 mph south of Toms River.
US 1 and US 130 originally had a traffic circle prior to the former intersection that was interchanged several years ago.
US 1 used US 1 Business into the Brunswick Circle to enter the Trenton Freeway from Strawberry Street.
US 22 only had two traffic signals between Somerville and Clinton: Country Club Road in Bridgewater and Cokesbury Road in Lebanon with flashing beacons in Whitehouse for CR 523.
Morristown, NJ had all double guy traffic signals and I-287 was incomplete north of Basking Ridge and South of NJ 10.  All traffic clogged US 202 in Morristown.  In addition there were no exit numbers on I-287 and LGSes were used instead of BGSes as guides between Montvale (the original North terminus) and NJ 10.
In Short Hills/ Summit both River Road/ JFK Parkway and NJ 24 met at grade and there was no freeway.
In Watchung, NJ I-78 terminated at Drift Road (Exit 41) with a barricade forcing all motorists off the freeway going eastbound.
NJDOT used white square shields for NJ Secondary 500 series routes.  Morris County was the first to use the present gold on blue shields and to actually sign their roadways as many counties did not!
In Woodbridge, NJ I remember when both US 9 and the Garden State Parkway were reversed in their alignments through the massive tangle.  US 9 was in the median of the Parkway instead of the GSP being in the middle of US 9 like it is now.
I remember when NJ 23 had only two stoplights between Stockholm, NJ and the NY State Line along the present two lane road: NJ 94 and Downtown Sussex where NJ 23 currently changes alignment.
NJ 94 had no stoplights from its southern terminus at Columbia to US 206 in Newton and furthermore only had one stoplight north of NJ 15 at NJ 23 in Hamburg.  NJ 94 and CR 515 in Vernon had a flashing beacon and northbound NJ 94 had to STOP while CR 515 was free flowing and flashed yellow.

Florida
I remember when county routes were shielded with State route shields and the prefix "S".
I remember when I-4 was 4 lanes completely through Orlando and there were no businesses as we know it now near Disney. 
I remember when US 192 and World Drive were the only way to enter the Magic Kingdom as the rest of Reedy Creek was not built.  World Drive was a rural freeway from 192 to the Parking Lot Toll booth and PARKING AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM WAS 50 CENTS!
I remember all Florida interstates having NO EXIT NUMBERS and State Routes were signed as "Fla XX" in text on guide signs.
I remember when I-75 terminated at malfunction junction in Tampa and I-275 was only signed south of I-4 because the current I-75 south of Exit 275 was not constructed.  I-275 was signed as such because it was indeed the defacto route until the early 80's.
I remember when US 41 south of Gibsonton was rural and Apollo Beach had no development and the current bayside hotel was a Holiday Inn.
I remember when SR 482 was FL 528 and the Beachline was under construction west of current Exit 8. Also the Airport mainline toll plaza was not there as FL 528 was an arterial from Boggy Creek Road (not built yet north of Taft) to FL 436.
I, of course, remember all US routes to have colored shields.
I remember when I-10 off of I-95 was a left exit going southbound and the St. Johns River Bridge was tolled.
I also remember when SR 472 in Orange City, FL and  SR 551 in Orlando were both SR 15A.
I even remember when SR 408 was shielded with a shield that had an orange on it with EAST WEST  Expressway stamped into it and it terminated at Pine Hills (that being a bedroom community then) just west of SR 435 at grade!
I also saw SR 435 having no stoplight at International Drive and Vineland Road despite those two intersections are heavily traveled through near the current Universal Resort.
I especially remembered SR 535 and US 192 intersecting at a wye intersection just east of where the two meet now.
I remembered even in late 1989 when US 192 had no stoplights west of I-4 with its westermost signal being just east of I-4 where Celebration Place is now.

There is a lot I can remember that some of you all will not believe, but this is it for now.

I remember lots of the same things .  I don't remember the S-xxx signs but I remember the C-xxx signs. ( as an aside I hate when counties have the pentagon with C-xxx)... I spent my childhood traveling from NJ to Jax 2 or 3 times a year.  I think this is where my roadgeekery started.  Endless hours in the car making the overnight trip.

here are some more

Having to drive through Fayetteville and Savannah because I-95 was incomplete.  Southern Virginia had a section of 301 but it was pretty rural so not too much slower

White lines dividing traffic lanes on two-way roads in Jacksonville/ Duval County.

Jacksonville tolls ( not just the St Johns river bridge)

County Numbers on the Florida tags.. 2 was Duval.. 11 was Alachua... 1 was Dade and 3 was Hillsborough.  That changed when I was 5 but I remember liking the idea very much.  You can still see these on traffic citations in FL.  The cop will write the code for the county.  I just got a ticket last year and the county was listed as 48---Clay County... It shows how Florida has grown since 1937 when the nubmers were based on County Population.

[kkt]

The Nimitz Freeway when it was CA-17 and had 11 foot lanes, no shoulders, and exits and entrances every couple of hundred yards.

[agentsteel53]

The Nimitz Freeway when it was CA-17 and had 11 foot lanes, no shoulders, and exits and entrances every couple of hundred yards.

to enjoy something similar today, drive CA-17 south of 880.  the entrances and exits aren't all that frequent, but the lanes are narrow, and the road is intensely winding.  advisory speed is 45.  speed of traffic is 75.  enjoy.

[roadman65]

I remember when not only I-95 was incomplete around Savanah, but when the I-95/ US 17 concurrency near Ridgeland was an arteial and actually saw the upgrade take place with the new freeway lanes being built to the east of US 17.  That is why there is a frontage road on the west side as that was part of US 17 originally an through Coosawatachie you can see the frontage road pull away from I-95 and open up to a four lane highway as the original road was not touched in that small town.  The same for US 301 at Jarat, VA as where I-95 was constructed along side of it, US 301 lost its northbound lanes so that the new carriageway could be built for SB I-95.  Us 301 after leaving its alignment with I-95 becomes 4 lanes exactly at the diverge.

[amroad17]

Let's see...

Rotary dial phones.
Phone numbers that began with 2 letters and 5 numbers (e.g. OR2-2815) and, before that, full names (Orange2815).
When both New York and Pennsylvania used all text BGS's.
When I-81 was not finished in the Harrisburg area and you had to take I-83 and US 11 south to get back to I-81.
When the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel was two lanes with tolls and there was no Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel.
When going from Lexington, VA to Charleston, WV did not involve using I-64 the whole way.
When Thruway Exit 39 only allowed you to go on NY 48.
When there were Carrol's hamburger stands in the Syracuse area.
When there used to be Burger Chef's.
When Golden Corral used to serve steaks as a meal instead of on the buffet.

[cpzilliacus]

(1) Yellow STOP signs.

(2) Unconnected sections of the Capital Beltway (or as some called it back then, the Circumferential Highway).

(3) Having to drive through the District of Columbia to get from its Maryland suburbs to its Virginia suburbs.

(4) Two lane tunnels  on the E-W Mainline of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

(5) Big blue (not green) sign panels on the New York State Thruway.

(6) The U.S. Park Police driving green AMC Ambassador and later AMC Matator marked patrol cars.

(7) The federal and state-maintained sections of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway being marked with "TO I-95" signs.

(8) The Baltimore Beltway (I-695) not being a complete circumferential road because the "Outer Harbor Crossing" (later the Francis Scott Key Bridge) was not there.

(9) Trips to Western Maryland being brutal because of the limitations of U.S. 40 (much of it was 2 lanes, and some of the crossings of the ridges involved very steep grades up, and a switchback at the crest - for an example of what it was like, consider old U.S. 40 crossing Sideling Hill in Washington County, Md. on GSV here) - or drive U.S. 50 from Winchester, Va. to Red House, Md. in either direction sometime.

(10) Having had the same personal cell phone number since 1985.

[kkt]

The Nimitz Freeway when it was CA-17 and had 11 foot lanes, no shoulders, and exits and entrances every couple of hundred yards.

to enjoy something similar today, drive CA-17 south of 880.  the entrances and exits aren't all that frequent, but the lanes are narrow, and the road is intensely winding.  advisory speed is 45.  speed of traffic is 75.  enjoy.

I've driven that road, though it's been a while.  (Pre Loma Prieta Earthquake.)  I hope I never have to drive that again.  CA-9 is longer and slower, but you're more likely to live to see the other side of the hill.

The Nimitz wasn't nearly as windy as 17 over the mountain, but for some perverse reason the Nimitz was the legal route for trucks from S.F./Oakland to the Central Valley and L.A., while I-580 had the wide lanes and better geometry generally.  So on the Nimitz you add hard to see around and merge with trucks to all its other problems.

[kkt]

(10) Having had the same personal cell phone number since 1985.

My grandparents had the same landline telephone number from 1952 to 2008, when the second of them passed away (aside from an area code change).

[thenetwork]

...When construction barrels were just that -- 50 gallon metal drums -- and some poor construction crew took hours, if not days, setting up and removing the hard-to-stack barrels...

...and barricades were made out of metal and wood -- not plastic!!!

[amroad17]

Yellow Yield signs.
When I-264 began at Military Highway in Bowers Hill in Chesapeake as well as the steep overpass at the RR tracks there.
When going to Nags Head, NC from the Hampton Roads area involved using only two lane roads.
When the Hampton Roads area used to be called "Tidewater".
When the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire.

[agentsteel53]

for some perverse reason the Nimitz was the legal route for trucks from S.F./Oakland to the Central Valley and L.A., while I-580 had the wide lanes and better geometry generally.  So on the Nimitz you add hard to see around and merge with trucks to all its other problems.

the corollary to this is that 580 is one incredibly fun road to drive... before all the trucks come back via 238.

[OracleUsr]

Or NC 12 terminated at Whalebone Junction, US 158 was divided into Bypass 158 (currently US 158) and Business 158 (now NC 12), and getting to Currituck Beach meant getting off-road onto a beach for part of the way.

[brownpelican]

I remember -

Louisiana
* No I-49. You either took US 71 to Alexandria/Shreveport from NOLA/BTR or went through Jackson via I-55/I-20.
* One span of the Crescent Connection with no tolls and severe backups.
* No I-510 in NOLA East. Paris Road was whole.
* Those flyovers at the west end of the Claiborne Expressway didn't exist.
* The overpass and ramp at Causeway and Jeff. Hwy had two-way traffic

Mississippi
* Four laned I-55 in north Jackson.
* An incomplete I-10 in Jackson County, from Miss. 57 to Franklin Creek Road. Had to take US 90 through Pascagoula and Gautier.
* US 49 and US 90 were the only four-lane highways in south Mississippi.
* No I-110 in Biloxi.
* Traveling on the old US 45, old MS 63 and old US 98.

[lepidopteran]

Yellow Yield signs.

And for that matter, any Yield sign with the words "RIGHT OF WAY"

Do Not Enter signs that were merely black letters on a white background

The sign "No U Turn" with no red circle and line through it; just the three words stacked on a rectangular sign

Any number ordinary yellow diamond of signs without pictograms, e.g. "MERGING TRAFFIC" without the thick lines, "SIGNAL AHEAD" without a R-Y-G signal depicted, STOP AHEAD without a red octagon and an arrow, "SCHOOL" and "SCHOOL CROSSING" without those two block figures walking, etc.

Overhead BGS's illuminated by fluorescent lights, the assembly of which tended to underscore the width of the sign

When streets were lit almost exclusively by mercury vapor lamps, or if you're older, incandescent lights. In either case, the orange-ish glow of sodium vapor was a rarity or novelty.

Swinging wig-wag signals at railroad grade crossings, or vertically-stacked lights reading S-T-O-P.

Ohio
Cloverleaf with tight ramps at the "Crossroads of America"  I-70/I-75 interchange

No indoor plumbing at Interstate rest areas

New York
The railroad grade crossing on the NY-17 Quickway near Middletown, or on the I-87 Adirondack Northway near the Mohawk River.
When wooden street lights were commonplace on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn

New Jersey
When NJ-33 was two lanes between the Turnpike and Freehold Circle, with no jughandles.  And 33 entered and left the US-130 multiplex by a directional interchange on one end, and a sort of at-grade interchange on the other.

The traffic signal on the approach to NJTP Interchange 9 (it was always on flash-mode when I went through there)

"Bridge may be slippery"

Florida
You had to slide over to Florida's Turnpike for about 45 miles between Fort Pierce and Palm Beach Gardens because I-95 didn't exist between those two points.  Or maybe you remember when I-95 SB continued for one exit past the "breezewood"  in (what was then) the middle of nowhere, so the SB thru lanes at the Ft. Pierce exit were signed "Local Traffic Only" .

FL Turnpike exits numbered in multiples of four, and the ticket system was used all through the mainline

When the Seven Mile Bridge and the other bridges connecting The Florida Keys were very narrow, white-knuckle 2-lane roads with no shoulders.

When Alligator Alley was only two forlorn lanes, as was US-27 between South Bay (Lake Okeechobee) and Alligator Alley.  And when the two roads met at an at-grade intersection.

When most of what was west of the FL Turnpike in Palm Beach and Broward counties was swampland.  And how the Turnpike in that area used to "undulate"  to allow for intermittent culverts, apparently to let swamp waters flow through (I think that's what it was for).  Indeed, someone once commented how, because of all the development there, the Turnpike "doesn't seem as far west"  as it used to be.

[agentsteel53]

And for that matter, any Yield sign with the words "RIGHT OF WAY"
Do Not Enter signs that were merely black letters on a white background
The sign "No U Turn" with no red circle and line through it; just the three words stacked on a rectangular sign

of these three, the third is what is still the most common.  lots of small towns have the No U Turn in text form - sometimes even embossed or porcelain! - all down the main drag.

yellow yields are getting more and more rare, but every so often you run across a town (McLean, TX, or Frankfort, SD come to mind immediately) where nearly all of the back roads have them.

as for the text DO NOT ENTER - I know of one surviving in California which is white on black; and I do recall seeing black on white elsewhere, but I do not recall offhand exactly where.

[roadman65]

How about the phone booths like on Get Smart except without the elevator LOL!

I remember cut out state route shields in Delaware and when US 301 had two different alignments for both NB and SB.  First between Middletown and State Road and then moved between the Summit Bridge and State Road.   Yes, NE2 and some others were right about the suffixed US 301 designations as being the directional alignments from each direction in another thread.

I also remember when text route signing in both NY and PA were the norm on interstate guides.  I believe that some still exist on parts of I-80, but NY they maybe all gone. 

Then the CT Turnpike and NYS Thruway all used blue guides with CT using its old state abreviation (CONN) on state routes. In New York Route was used instead of NY or US on some guides.

Pennsylvania Turnpike used  ROUTE XX for all state roads and US XX for the US designations.  I remember back in 1984 when the Willow Hill exit used ROUTE 75 and even Hagerstown, MD for a control city.  When I returned later that year, it was replaced with new button copy signs that have the current name in upper case on top and the designation with control cities below that are now reflective.  Clarks Summit was Scranton, Cranberry was Perry Highway, and US 611 was still kept on the Willow Grove exit guides even in 1980, years after it was decommissioned to PA 611.

In my home state of New Jersey I remember when the original text guide signs were on the four lane section south of Exit 4 with dark green coloring and all ground signs.   It was 1983 when the NJTA erected the current reflective and overhead assemblies.  Next Exit X Miles was on the 2 mile guides but no control cities or routes were on them.  Just the approaching exit by number and 2 MI to it, and then the next exit mileage below it.  The NJ Turnpike had mileage signs NB to New York every 10 miles on the tenth mile, and to Trenton, Camden, and the Delaware Memorial Bridge SB every 10 miles on the tenth as well.  Some still exist today, but many have been removed.

[roadman]

Here's another from Massachusetts:  Interstate 95 route assemblies on the original elevated Central Artery through Downtown Boston, which appeared for a brief time in the mid to late 1960s.

Unlike the pull-thru signs for I-95 on the Tobin Bridge, one of which lasted into the late 1990s, the Central Artery assemblies had cardinal direction plates instead of "TO".

I vividly recall these I-95 assemblies from my childhood (we summered on the Cape, and my father always drove through Downtown Boston).  Twenty years later, by looking through old MassDPW records, I was finally able to verify that it wasn't my imagination.

[Mapmikey]

And for that matter, any Yield sign with the words "RIGHT OF WAY"
Do Not Enter signs that were merely black letters on a white background
The sign "No U Turn" with no red circle and line through it; just the three words stacked on a rectangular sign

of these three, the third is what is still the most common.  lots of small towns have the No U Turn in text form - sometimes even embossed or porcelain! - all down the main drag.

yellow yields are getting more and more rare, but every so often you run across a town (McLean, TX, or Frankfort, SD come to mind immediately) where nearly all of the back roads have them.

as for the text DO NOT ENTER - I know of one surviving in California which is white on black; and I do recall seeing black on white elsewhere, but I do not recall offhand exactly where.

Here is a black on white DO NOT ENTER plus a bonus NO LEFT TURN still up as of May 2012 in Rocky Mt, VA



This one in Richlands, VA was still up in Sept 2009



Mapmikey

[lepidopteran]

The NJ Turnpike had mileage signs NB to New York every 10 miles on the tenth mile, and to Trenton, Camden, and the Delaware Memorial Bridge SB every 10 miles on the tenth as well.  Some still exist today, but many have been removed.

I think there's still a "Trenton 30 Miles" sign still standing. 

However, I remember two different sets of "New York XX Miles" signs.  The older set was just like the Trenton one, namely, low to the ground and with button copy.  But I also remember a more recent set that only vanished maybe twelve years ago.  These signs were higher up with larger text, and they used an unfamiliar font.  I think they began at 100 miles.  Also, though my evidence for this is faint, I suspect that the older set of signs set New York at a point further north, like the GWB, while the newer set had a benchmark further south, like the Holland Tunnel perhaps.
(I remember reading on another board or m.t.r. that the mileage to NYC on I-95 south of the NJTP refers to the GWB)

[roadman65]

The NJ Turnpike had mileage signs NB to New York every 10 miles on the tenth mile, and to Trenton, Camden, and the Delaware Memorial Bridge SB every 10 miles on the tenth as well.  Some still exist today, but many have been removed.

I think there's still a "Trenton 30 Miles" sign still standing. 

However, I remember two different sets of "New York XX Miles" signs.  The older set was just like the Trenton one, namely, low to the ground and with button copy.  But I also remember a more recent set that only vanished maybe twelve years ago.  These signs were higher up with larger text, and they used an unfamiliar font.  I think they began at 100 miles.  Also, though my evidence for this is faint, I suspect that the older set of signs set New York at a point further north, like the GWB, while the newer set had a benchmark further south, like the Holland Tunnel perhaps.
(I remember reading on another board or m.t.r. that the mileage to NYC on I-95 south of the NJTP refers to the GWB)

There used to be a sign NB at the Raritan River near New Brunswick that had New York at 30 Miles.  That would be for the GWB as the Holland Tunnel (Downtown New York) is about 20 from there.  If you want to get technical it would be 10 Miles to the closest point any connecting road enters the city as it would be NJ 440 from Exit 10 into Staten Island.