For me it would be NC 80. Someone I know passed away in a motorcycle accident today while on that road. It is the 7th fatal motorcycle/car collision this year.
By design...or lack of....Blackrock Road by far with Mineral King Road coming in second:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskUFdcXy
https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/Jzs128
In terms of traffic and bad driving, California 99 pretty much has everything beat in the country. :rolleyes:
In Harford County, Maryland, it's probably Route 24 through Rocks State Park. It's curvy through there, with rocky hillsides surrounding it, and it parallels Deer Creek through the park too.
Hands down -- CA 17 over the Coast Range between Santa Cruz & Los Gatos. 4 winding lanes w/K-rail, tight curvature, RIRO's, and heavy commute traffic during the week and beach traffic on weekends -- plus a constant barrage of morons who think of it as a NASCAR road course!
In WV I would have two nominees:
- The 14 mile gap in US 35's 4 lane section. In the 90s, Ohio four laned 35, as well as OH 32 and US 23 all of which funnel traffic heading for the coastal south via I-77 onto 35 in WV. 35 is now heavy with trucks and flatland tourists with little experience of 2 lane thruway driving, with the added bonus of the area being as close to farm country as WV has, with plenty of tractors using the road. WV knew this was coming, but did nothing, making the entire 40 miles bad, before building half about 10 years ago. The death strip will finally be finished in fall of 19.
- The northern third of the WV Turnpike. The turnpike was built as a two lane road in the 1950s and thus not nearly as much earth was moved as more modern construction. Then when it was finally (decades after other roads with far lower traffic counts) upgraded, they made the decison to just follow the original course, rather than close the road for a year and do more blasting. This means that, although the terrain is really not much different from other roads in Appalachia, the road is far too twisty, and has no grass median (just Jersey barriers) which causes weekly road closing truck wrecks.
I can't think of a notoriously bad road in Mississippi, although there were plenty a couple decades ago or more. Mississippi has no true mountains and only a few hills high enough to be properly called foothills, so we don't have that danger, plus most of the US highways that do not parallel the interstates have at least four lanes and a median. Most of these were built since 1987. So I think Mississippi is probably one of the less likely states to have a lot of roads that are dangerous by design. I have not looked at accident statistics, but if we're talking about the danger of high-speed crashes, I think the worst is probably somewhere in Northeast Mississippi, where the highest hills are and thus the most blind curves and such.
Before US 78 was rebuilt I think it was the worst in the state. The old road had a lot of dangerous features.
Today, Ms Hwy 27 between Vicksburg and Crystal Springs is the most dangerous road I travel with any frequency. There are a few spots where visibility is quite poor, but mostly it's a relatively well-constructed two-lane road that gets more traffic than a two-lane should. By the standards we used to show in Mississippi with our highway construction budgets, Rte 27 should have been under reconstruction by 2010. But I think it's still a mid-range planned upgrade, and that MDOT considers the widening of I-20 through Vicksburg to be a higher priority project.
In the Phila area; has to be the Roosevelt Blvd (US 1): 12 lanes in a 3-3-3-3 configuration as an at-grade roadway: dozens of intersections with traffic lights, inner lanes allow left turns but not right turns; outer lanes allow right turns but not left turns; with crossovers back and forth between the inner and outer lanes. Bus stops? Yes. Houses and businesses along the outer lanes? Yes. Widely ignored 45MPH speed limit.
I-4 in Orlando as every day it seems some vehicles collide along it. Over on the Faribanks Curve north of Downtown you used to hear of tractor trailers jackniving all the time, but the ultimate construction did some geometric changes to the road grading there to make it somewhat better until 2021 when the road is completed.
I-295 in the NJ 42/I-76 interchange area, and Southbound extending all the way to exit 32 (6+ miles).
In both directions:
- Sudden left lane exit for I-76 causes a lot of last minute weaving causing frequent accidents (better now that only left lane, not the center lane exits. Then again, people are still getting used to the new traffic pattern), not to mention the unexpected loss of a left lane in a congested area
- The Al-Jo curve causes accidents for those not reducing speed sufficiently. This is only a problem when the road is not already congested, so off-peak hours only
- Ongoing construction with frequently changing traffic patterns and lane/shoulder closures
Northbound:
- The loss of the left lane to I-76 is followed by the loss of the right two lanes (one of which enters from NJ 42) just as the road straightens out and the speed increases, causing dangerous mass merging at high speeds
- The only thru lane (that doesn't exit or end) has a hard to see split where going straight ends up taking you to I-76 (why do we need two exits to the same road in a row again?) while I-295 curves right causes more accidents as drivers try to process which way to go
Southbound:
- Frequent stop and go traffic, as in highway speed to completely stopped and back to highway speed several times along a 6-mile stretch causes less attentive drivers to plow into congested traffic
A lot of this will go away once construction is complete, but probably not the last one. And I'm not eve counting the problems on NJ 42 and I-76 rthemselves
A colleague has a saying. "There are no dangerous roads, only dangerous drivers."
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on July 11, 2017, 10:10:59 PM
In terms of traffic and bad driving, California 99 pretty much has everything beat in the country. :rolleyes:
Can't argue with that! The stretch between 198 and Selma has seen almost continuous construction for the past decade; and I've never witnessed more egregious construction-zone driving in my life than on that highway: absolute refusal to slow down, last-minute dodges of equipment pulling into lanes, playing "chicken" with plastic bollards -- you name it, I've seen it on 99 (hell, I'm starting to sound like J. K. Simmons doing those
Farmers' ads!).
Quote from: hbelkins on July 13, 2017, 10:56:47 AM
A colleague has a saying. "There are no dangerous roads, only dangerous drivers."
I'd do a slight modification: "......there are roads that by their design or circumstance have the potential to, when combined with idiot or miscreant drivers, produce a situation that could best be described as dangerous!"
Quote from: sparker on July 13, 2017, 12:12:35 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on July 11, 2017, 10:10:59 PM
In terms of traffic and bad driving, California 99 pretty much has everything beat in the country. :rolleyes:
Can't argue with that! The stretch between 198 and Selma has seen almost continuous construction for the past decade; and I've never witnessed more egregious construction-zone driving in my life than on that highway: absolute refusal to slow down, last-minute dodges of equipment pulling into lanes, playing "chicken" with plastic bollards -- you name it, I've seen it on 99 (hell, I'm starting to sound like J. K. Simmons doing those Farmers' ads!).
Quote from: hbelkins on July 13, 2017, 10:56:47 AM
A colleague has a saying. "There are no dangerous roads, only dangerous drivers."
I'd do a slight modification: "......there are roads that by their design or circumstance have the potential to, when combined with idiot or miscreant drivers, produce a situation that could best be described as dangerous!"
Really you get that special little combination on 99, especially when the highway drops to four lanes north of Bakersfield. Basically the high traffic count of truckers coupled with the suburban drivers who probably have should have used I-5 makes for an interesting combination. You'll almost always have the left lane conga line about 30-60 cars deep if one of those truckers dares to pass anyone in the left lane. Throw in problems like Tule Fog in the winter and old right on/right off ramps to spice up the hazards even more. Basically you need to go about 80 MPH at all times just to defend yourself from the onslaught.
The whole fuckin' city of Danville.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FiWKad22r.jpg&hash=50c326244eb323c4797066bd83fd9a0edb22bb69)
But if I had to pick one road, it would be Piney Forest Road (US-29 Business) between VA-41 (Franklin Turnpike) and Central Boulevard. Too much traffic and too much development allowed to just pop up any ol' where with really no way to improve the road. What makes it terrible is that Danville has the biggest collection of the worst drivers I've ever seen in my life. I've driven through Detroit, Raleigh, Richmond, Hampton Roads and I feel much safer driving through those areas than I do Danville. I realize that's a bold statement to make and I understand the skepticism that's probably crossing your mind, but you have to see it to believe it. For a small city, it's hell.
In Austin probably RR 2222, 4 lane with lots of curves.
We have two that have seen numerous fatalities in the years since I moved here:
1. US 395 four-lane expressway through Carson Valley between the south end of Carson City and Minden, which has a speed limit of 65 mph. There are several side roads which meet US 395 at T intersections. Two of these have signals and the others have stop signs on the side road.
At the ones with stop signs, the common cause of a fatality is that someone on US 395 is approaching from the left in a right turn only lane to make the turn on to the side road. For the driver on the side road, that obstructs the view of the main traffic lanes. The side-road driver, wanting to cross said traffic lanes to turn left, pulls out in spite of the obstructed view and gets T-boned.
The signalized intersections have fatalities too, as it just takes one inattentive driver flying along at 65 mph or higher to plow into the rear of a line of cars stopped for the signal.
AADT on the US 395 expressway is in the 28K-30K range. I'd like to see this upgraded to freeway, but it has to wait its turn in line for funding.
2. US 50 four-lane stretch along the east side of Lake Tahoe, which has a speed limit of 45 mph. There's just a double-yellow stripe down the middle and the pavement in most places is only wide enough for the four lanes, with virtually zero shoulder. We have a lot of head-on collisions, drivers either (a) enjoying the scenery or (b) DUI.
Nevada DOT is floating a plan to convert about 8 miles of this to a different configuration: one lane of travel each way, separated by a center turn lane (there are a lot of driveways), with the remaining width being used for shoulders/bike lanes on each side. This would obviously improve safety for both motorists and bicyclists, but there's a lot of local concern about the traffic consequences of reducing the four-lane road to two lanes.
I-435 near the stadiums. Woeful capacity, obsolete interchange design, and bad sightlines in places make it a hotbed of wrecks between Eastwood Trafficway and 24 Highway.
Honorable mention goes to the part of 71 Highway/Bruce Watkins Drive where those stupid stoplights still persist. You have freeway on either side (and an interchange between a couple of the lights!) and even with a 45 mph speed limit, people drive it like it's part of I-49.
I'd say Pine Bluff / Lorenzo Rd. between I-55 and IL 47.
The traffic has gotten terrible over the last couple years since the intermodal facility was built at Lorenzo and 55, then you have the nuclear plant traffic, especially during "turnover" (I think it's called,) then you have the hunting and fishing crowds at Heidecke Lake and Goose Lake Prairie crowding the roads. Coupled with the fact that many people use it as an alternate route into Morris.
Oh, and don't try riding a bicycle on it. I did a couple weeks ago, because I had to get home in a hurry (Normally I eschew this road,) and I almost got hit five times.
In terms of design, Valley Farms Rd. in Bolton, Connecticut, you go down a curve, in a 11% incline.
By traffic: the I-84/I-91 interchange in downtown Hartford.
A few in Western Washington that come to mind are US 2 for the most part from Everett to Stevens Pass, SR 522 from Woodinville to Monroe (which is in the process of being widened), and SR 18 pretty much in its entirety.
Idaho 55. All of it. From south to north, you have narrow 2 lane rural road with lots of cross streets and farm driveways, poor pavement quality, and a fair amount of traffic between Marsing and Nampa (parts of it in progress of being upgraded). Then multiplexed on I-84, you have the awful 4 lane section of freeway in Nampa (to be widened next year I believe; it was repaved this year which has helped). In Meridian, Boise, and Eagle, you have a once rural expressway now clogged with suburban traffic and strip malls. Retains its 50-55 MPH speed limit but 4-6 lanes, lights every half mile, and side streets/driveways in between. It actually moves pretty well a lot of the time due to generous signal timing and a recent lane addition northbound between Franklin and Fairview, but it's not what I'd call safe. Then, north of there, you have windy, narrow mountain/canyon roads from Eagle to McCall and New Meadows, with lots of summer traffic on the weekends, and lots of snow/ice in the winter.
That said, it's definitely not a boring route. Probably the widest variety of any highway in Idaho. At least ITD is working on some of the bad parts of it (mostly in Canyon County).
I grew up near Goldsboro, NC and it used to be a tie between US-70 (especially near the US-70/Grantham Street interchange) and Berkeley Boulevard. I was in Goldsboro last September visiting and the new US-70 Bypass (Future I-42) has done wonders for pulling traffic off of US-70.
Berkeley Boulevard, on the other hand, has become a total parking lot due to new businesses that have popped up since I last lived there in 2009. It has always been congested at least as far back as 1995 when we first moved to Wayne County, but I did not expect to encounter the kind of traffic that I did last year. Thankfully NCDOT plans to make improvements to the corridor.
Maine has a lot of very highly traveled undivided two-lane roads that are definitely worth mentioning for how dangerous they are. Most of US 1 along the coast is busy with tourist traffic, for example. Further inland, ME 9 east of the Bangor/Brewer area is very busy with both car and truck traffic since it's the quickest way to the area from the Canadian border in Calais. An honorable mention for the same reasons goes to ME 3 between I-95 in Augusta to US 1 in Belfast, virtually all of ME 196, almost all of US 302 in Maine and toward Conway, NH, and US 2 west of Newport.
Once upon a time, I-95 north of Old Town up to Houlton was an undivided super-2 freeway for the most part (it widened to a divided 2-2 set-up at every interchange). It was finally completely twinned in the early 80's, but it was a mess prior to that. It was and still is the fastest link between Aroostook County and the rest of the state, and the addition of the extra truck traffic from both Canada and the northern Maine logging areas made for a deadly combo. Head-on collisions used to be very common along that stretch of road, though nowadays it's the moose you have to worry about (https://bangordailynews.com/2017/07/10/news/aroostook/fort-kent-woman-seriously-hurt-after-crashing-into-moose-on-i-95/).
Not in my area, but I have to mention the West Virginia Turnpike. I drove from Wytheville, VA, to Huntington, WV, in the pouring rain, with an old minivan and 5 of my friends as passengers. We had just gotten out of 4 days of hiking in the Appalachians, so I was a little tired as well. I was so locked in and focused because I essentially had the well-being of 5 of my best friends in my hands.
The trip went by without incident, but I don't want to be doing that too often.
US-60 through the Salt River Canyon would be a good candidate. Very narrow in that area, very, very windy.
My mom had to go through there a few times. She absolutely hated it.
Interstate 90 near the intersection of OH-2 in East Cleveland, also known as "Dead Man's Curve". The interstate slows to 35 MPH through this almost-90 degree turn. Just awful.
Picture of signs leading up to Dead Man's Curve: (https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.nyl0SCL4LgzV8DucOD2V7QEsDe&pid=Api)
Right now? I-75 & I-285 near the Cobb Cloverleaf. With the paucity of navigable signage along with the construction and lack of legible pavement striping tied to the Northwest Corridor project and the SunTrust Field build, it's just plain ugly.
The other one that's really bad is I-20 EB approaching 285 in Fulton Co. It was re-signed/striped almost a year ago to get another lane in for the 285 split, and it's done nothing but made that interchange even more dangerous to navigate in traffic (but don't tell GDOT that [rolling eyes]).
The whole bloody interchange desperately needs to be rebuilt from the ground up with a pair of flyovers, but that'll take boatloads of money that's being spent up on the Noooorthside of the Perimeter for the "pretty people in their expensive cars..." (sorry -- that's a real sore spot with me and a bunch of others)
In my area, it is definitely I-70 between Washington, PA and New Stanton, PA. With the exception of a short stretch just east of the I-79 south junction, it consists of 2 lanes in each direction with a barrier between the opposing lanes. The lanes are narrow, and the barrier abuts the left lane with very little (if any) space in between. Speed limit is typically 55 mph, though there is a short stretch over the Monongahela River bridge that is 45 mph. Put it this way, people must think the "70" signs are the speed limit instead of the road number. Combine the speeding with this road being a heavily used corridor for tractor-trailers, as well as increased traffic due to the Marcellus shale boom, and you get accidents everywhere.
I have the pleasure of taking this road as part of my daily commute. Traffic jams and road shutdowns due to accidents seem to be an almost regular occurrence on this stretch of I-70.
Quote from: JJBers on July 14, 2017, 05:22:12 PM
In terms of design, Valley Farms Rd. in Bolton, Connecticut, you go down a curve, in a 11% incline.
By traffic: the I-84/I-91 interchange in downtown Hartford.
I-84 in Hartford scares me. Waay too many curves, plus exit ramps that seem to go on forever.
Here on Cape Cod it's easily 132 and 28. 132 because of the shopping plazas and pedestrians trying to cross it. 28 because of how built up the road is. 28 is a two lane and it can't be widened.
Earlier in the thread I mentioned the single most dangerous road in the Bay Area: CA 17 between Scotts Valley and Los Gatos; I don't think I'd get much argument about that choice. But I'd like to nominate a road that's probably a minimum of 75% as dangerous -- Vasco Road between Livermore & Brentwood -- about 15 miles of hills that has, in Contra Costa County, been improved with passing lanes and K-rail medians -- but the southern portion in Alameda County (in the eastern outskirts of Livermore) remains 2-lane; there are no plans to alleviate this in the near term. The entire road is a commute-time mess; all lanes -- main & passing -- are completely packed southbound between 5:30 and 9:00 a.m. and northbound between 3:30 and about 7:30 p.m. Originally this was the basic corridor for the CA 84 freeway between Livermore and Antioch (just west of Brentwood); that concept never advanced beyond an unadopted line on the map; it fell to the counties to do what improvements have been implemented to date -- and while Contra Costa has made an effort to at least render the roadway safe, Alameda County has not followed suit. I've traveled it both in commute directions and contraflow; the average NB speed of the commute -- from where the 4-lane section north of I-580 shrinks to 2 lanes all the way over the hill to CA 4 -- is about 15-20 m.p.h.; it's a little worse SB in the morning, since traffic from the congested 2 lanes now must merge into one! So far, Alameda County hasn't been convinced to expand their approximately 4-mile unimproved segment; it will remain, IMO, the 2nd -- by a long stretch -- most dangerous road in the region.
For SLC area, it's probably US 6, especially between Spanish Fork and Price. They've done a lot of work to improve this road in the past several years, and it's now mostly four laned, but everyone still thinks of it as the most dangerous road.
A stretch of M-15 between Davison and Goodrich on those S-curves. One is between Lippincott and Atherton and the other is between Perry Road and Goodrich village limits.
Quote from: beau99 on July 20, 2017, 02:57:44 AM
US-60 through the Salt River Canyon would be a good candidate. Very narrow in that area, very, very windy.
My mom had to go through there a few times. She absolutely hated it.
I still remember when the state built an escape ramp, then beefed up the guarding on the 2nd to last hairpin turn. Wreckers got tired of fishing semi trucks out of the canyon I guess.