Quintessential roads (per state)

Started by Alps, September 18, 2013, 10:34:51 PM

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Alps

If you had to pick one road in your state that best represents everything about your state as you drive its length, what would it be? I have a few thoughts:

NJ: US 9. It starts at the shore, with tastes of the Pine Barrens as it winds north, then cuts inland to Freehold as it starts into mall country and the southern development. Finally, after crossing a tall bridge, it descends into the semi-urban madness of the north. It's 2 lanes, 4 lanes, 6 lanes, frontage roads, divided, undivided, city street, elevated, depressed, and takes both a ferry and a bridge. All that's missing is farmland, but my other choice, US 206, lacked too much of the east side of NJ.

NY: NY 22. No one route can really represent all of a three-pronged state. With its original routing, NY 22 started in Manhattan along Park Avenue, heading toward suburban Westchester County. Picking up the current route, it gets urban again on a small scale in White Plains, then heads on up through forests, mountains, and farms, before the big one, the Adirondacks. There's an impressive variety of urban, rural, flat, and mountainous for something that stays east of the Hudson the entire time.

RI: RI 2. It starts at the shore, goes inland through the uninhabited bits, and ends in the big city. That's the entire state in a nutshell.

MA: MA 140. It keeps going on, and on, and on, and you've seen more than half the state by accident once you're done with it.

VT: VT 100. There are really only three choices here. US 7 is overused, and US 5 stays too close to the river.

NH: US 3. The backbone of the state.


corco

ID: US 95 goes from the barren desert to the potato fields to the mountains/canyons/rivers that make Idaho magical to the wheat fields of the palouse to the forests of the panhandle. For a state with an odd shape, this route really hits it all.

DSS5

As you may have noticed by my avatar, I'm a fan of US 421 in NC. It starts near the coast in Wilmington and crosses into Tennessee high in the mountains. You pass through the small towns and tobacco fields of the coastal plain, two large cities in the Piedmont-Triad, and get to see some breathtaking mountain views while still making a very manageable climb in the Appalachians. It changes quality many times.

Alps

DE: I hate to say US 13, but there's no other route that hits up the cities in the north and the farms in the south.

Takumi

I'm nominating US 60 for Virginia, because it goes through all types of terrain and population levels. I could also make a case for US 58, but 60 is historically more important.
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NE2

Florida: US 27 gets into the Panhandle, passes Disney and the Everglades, and ends in Miami.
pre-1945 Florida route log

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xcellntbuy

US 27 is an excellent choice.  Only one part of US 27 is missing from the whole state and that would be best covered by US 1, the Overseas Highway through the Florida Keys.

kj3400

MD: US 40, since it goes through everything from mountains to rural areas to cities like Frederick and Baltimore, and still manages a nice jog beside the Bay.
Call me Kenny/Kenneth. No, seriously.

bugo

Oklahoma: Oddly enough, I-44.  It goes through Tulsa, OKC, and Lawton.  It also goes through some really boring rural areas.  The OK 66/US 277 combo would be a good alternate but isn't a single route number.  OK 3 is long but doesn't really go through enough scenic areas and doesn't go through enough urban areas other than OKC.

Arkansas: US 67, US 71, US 65, US 64, and US 62 are all good contenders.

wxfree

Texas: US 90.  It covers swamps, forests, big cities, the Hill Country, desert, and mountains.  One end sees hurricanes, and the other end sees snowstorms.  I-10 does all that, too, and goes a bit farther, but quintessential Texas is high speeds on very lonely two-lane roads, so I'd say US 90 wins.
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froggie

QuoteVT: VT 100. There are really only three choices here. US 7 is overused, and US 5 stays too close to the river.

There's more than 3 choices.  Arguments could also be made for VT 15, US 4, or US 2 (strongest IMO).

For Minnesota, I'd have to say US 169.  Farms, lakes, taconite mining, forest, and the Twin Cities.  Historically, US 61 would have been a better fit, but since it was truncated to Wyoming, MN 20 years ago...

CentralCAroadgeek

CA 1: It goes through SoCal surf towns, rugged shoreline, strawberry and lettuce fields, more rugged shoreline, San Francisco, and redwoods. Very easily one of the most beautiful (yet potentially dangerous) drives in the Golden State.

tdindy88

Unless someone chimes in with a better route, I think Indiana's most quintessential highway has yet to be built, it'd be I-69. Starting with a crossing over the Ohio River over what I presume would be a nice-looking bridge the highway passes near the third largest city in Evansville and goes through the rolling plains of the southwestern part of the state before crossing into the hills of Greene and Monroe Counties, connecting with a major state university and continuing north to the state capital in Indianapolis. From there it passes through the till plains of the central part of the state and connects with the second largest city in Fort Wayne before traveling north into the natural lakes part of the state giving a preview of what lies ahead in Michigan. It will be the longest highway and is certainly the most talked about in the state. The only thing it doesn't do is touch NW Indiana (a region all its own) and Downtown Indianapolis.

NE2

Quote from: tdindy88 on September 19, 2013, 02:17:31 AM
Unless someone chimes in with a better route, I think Indiana's most quintessential highway has yet to be built, it'd be I-69. Starting with a crossing over the Ohio River over what I presume would be a nice-looking bridge the highway passes near the third largest city in Evansville and goes through the rolling plains of the southwestern part of the state before crossing into the hills of Greene and Monroe Counties, connecting with a major state university and continuing north to the state capital in Indianapolis. From there it passes through the till plains of the central part of the state and connects with the second largest city in Fort Wayne before traveling north into the natural lakes part of the state giving a preview of what lies ahead in Michigan. It will be the longest highway and is certainly the most talked about in the state. The only thing it doesn't do is touch NW Indiana (a region all its own) and Downtown Indianapolis.
Except for serving Evansville and maybe hitting the lakes, doesn't SR 37 do all that?
pre-1945 Florida route log

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huskeroadgeek

Although as most people know, it is a fairly boring way to travel across the state, for Nebraska it's probably I-80. I-80 is the state's Main Street as it goes through or near most of the state's largest cities. If not for the fact that it is discontinuous between Lincoln and Grand Island, NE 2 would probably be the best way to see the state from the SE to the NW, especially in terms of scenery.

bugo

It is arguable if NE 2 really has a gap in it.  Last time I was up there, there was a sign pointing NE 2 onto EB I-80.  I just consider it a single highway that is not signed in places.

Bruce

In all honesty, I-90 represents a lot of Washington: it begins at the home of Seattle sports, CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field, and then travels on floating bridges from Seattle to Mercer Island and onwards to Bellevue, featuring a lot of lid parks. From there, it travels into the mighty Cascade Range, which opens up to the semi-arid plains of Eastern Washington. I-90 crosses the mighty Columbia downstream from one of its many hydroelectric dams and has a rest stop near one of the largest wind farms in the state. I-90 then keeps heading east, passing through the small towns and larger cities of the NW Inland Empire until it crosses over into Idaho.

You have: Seattle in all its glory, feats of bridge engineering, natural beauty in the Cascades, Washington's sources of electricity, Washington's breadbasket, and the cities on the eastern fringe of it all.

tdindy88

Quote from: NE2 on September 19, 2013, 02:37:46 AM
Except for serving Evansville and maybe hitting the lakes, doesn't SR 37 do all that?

SR 37 wouldn't be a bad choice either.

mukade

Quote from: NE2 on September 19, 2013, 02:37:46 AM
Quote from: tdindy88 on September 19, 2013, 02:17:31 AM
Unless someone chimes in with a better route, I think Indiana's most quintessential highway has yet to be built, it'd be I-69. Starting with a crossing over the Ohio River over what I presume would be a nice-looking bridge the highway passes near the third largest city in Evansville and goes through the rolling plains of the southwestern part of the state before crossing into the hills of Greene and Monroe Counties, connecting with a major state university and continuing north to the state capital in Indianapolis. From there it passes through the till plains of the central part of the state and connects with the second largest city in Fort Wayne before traveling north into the natural lakes part of the state giving a preview of what lies ahead in Michigan. It will be the longest highway and is certainly the most talked about in the state. The only thing it doesn't do is touch NW Indiana (a region all its own) and Downtown Indianapolis.
Except for serving Evansville and maybe hitting the lakes, doesn't SR 37 do all that?

SR 37 is also discontinuous with a big gap between the north side of Fort Wayne and the south side of Marion, and does not end at an Ohio River bridge. Furthermore, more of it could be decommissioned. I would say SR 37 was the US 66 of the state at one point, but no more. Finally, the part north of Indy was not part of the historic SR 37 route.

I would say that the Borman/I-94 is the most infamous, but a case could be made for I-65 being the most iconic as much as I-69. I-65 hits the two largest metro areas going near the main icons of the state (IMS, downtown Indy, steel mills, the Lake Michigan dunes, tons of corn fields, architecture of Columbus, and of course scenes of John Mellencamp's small town video), and is currently the longest Interstate.

Kacie Jane

Quote from: Bruce on September 19, 2013, 03:43:55 AM
In all honesty, I-90 represents a lot of Washington.

I can't disagree, but since none of the examples in the original post were freeways, I'll nominate US 2. Has more or less everything you'll find on I-90 with the exception of Lake Washington, and of the good noon-freeway candidates, it's the only one to serve the Puget Sound metro area. (If this were pre-1969, US 410 might have been a good candidate.)

oscar

For Alaska, AK 1 is the obvious choice.  The state's longest numbered route, starts off in the Alaska interior, heading through mountains and past a large glacier, then through the heart of the Anchorage metro area, around scenic Turnagain Arm, then ending in the Kenai Peninsula.  The road itself varies from twisty two-lane to six-lane freeway.

Hawaii is harder, since no highway serves more than one of the state's major islands.  My pick would be the Kamehameha Highway (part or all of HI 83, HI 80, and HI 99) on Oahu, looping around the east coast starting at Kaneohe, past the surf spots on the North Shore, then cutting through the old red-dirt pineapple fields in the center of the island, before passing a lot of military bases at its end near Pearl Harbor.  Interstate H-1 would not be a bad pick either, linking downtown Honolulu to the rapidly-growing "second city" of Kapolei in the southwest corner of Oahu, with a shrinking rural area between Kapolei and Pearl Harbor.  In the other islands, HI 360 on Maui (the most interesting part of the Hana Highway) seems the most distinctively Hawaiian, with over 600 hairpin curves and four dozen one-lane bridges through the lush tropical foliage and past many waterfalls of Maui's north shore, evoking the old days when east Maui was heavily agricultural (an irrigation canal runs along part of the highway) and the road was traveled mainly by ox carts. 
my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
http://www.alaskaroads.com/home.html

hotdogPi

Quote from: Steve on September 18, 2013, 10:34:51 PM

MA: MA 140. It keeps going on, and on, and on, and you've seen more than half the state by accident once you're done with it.


That seems good:

Urban area of Worcester
Rural areas in other spots
Long route
Partial freeway near Rhode Island

Although MA 2 is also good:

Long route
Sometimes a freeway, sometimes not
Goes into Boston
Goes into Lexington and Concord, so it has the historical part of Massachusetts
Rural on the west side, urban on the east side
Clinched, minus I-93 (I'm missing a few miles and my file is incorrect)

Traveled, plus US 13, 44, and 50, and several state routes

I will be in Burlington VT for the eclipse.

Mapmikey

Another good choice for Virginia is US 460 which does what US 60 does plus reaches into the southwest corner.

Two other good choices for NC would be US 70 and US 74.  Of these I'd say US 70 is better because it still goes through a number of towns/cities while US 74 is almost done doing that...

Current SC routes that might be good are I-26, US 76, and SC 9.  The best route though was current SC 2 before it was heavily truncated in 1947...ran from Charleston to Orangeburg, Columbia, Greenville, then west via Clemson and Walhalla to Georgia at SC's northwest corner...

Mapmikey

Brandon

Illinois: I-57.  It's the only road that goes from urban Chicago through rural Illinois, across the outwash plains, the Shawnee Hills, and on down to Cairo.

Michigan: I-75 comes the closest as no other route is in both the LP and the UP.  Even then, it misses the western UP.
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NE2

Michigan: Roosevelt International Highway. Mostly followed US 2 across the UP and US 23-10 to Detroit.
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".



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