In the days when you were a roadgeek youngun, and you only got to see the towns or cities where your parents or other adults would take you, what was your favorite city to drive in -- as a young passenger?
For me, I lived in Northern Ohio, but when we would visit my aunt and uncle, we would drive the 3 hours to Metro Detroit.
They lived in Livonia, and at the time, I-275 was non existent. So we would have to take I-75 to US-24 in Taylor, then travel up Telegraph Road up to 5 Mile.
I was mesmerized by the wide 3-4 lane road in each direction, the Michigan Lefts, the lit hanging boxes amongst the traffic lights at most intersections, the white-on-black ground-level signage... and of course, the miles and miles of non-stop retail along the route. Very different than what we regularly drove around NEOH.
That was also around rhe time when the Ohio Turnpike felt like it's own destination and not just another average "interstate" highway and when I-280 was the total opposite of an interstate-standard freeway (at-grade intersections, traffic lights and a drawbridge).
Your turn!
Very early on, Springfield, MA.
Kansas City. Seeing all the 3dis for I-35 (which didn't exists without suffixes where I lived in the Twin Cities) was really cool for me. And it was very close to my first experience of toll roads.
Detroit felt alien as a kid given the industrial aesthetic. Still kind of feels that way as an adult. The Lodge Freeway around Cobo Hall was a particular favorite of mine as a kid. The walkways above the freeway didn't resemble anything else I had seen to that point.
For me, the north shore suburbs to Milwaukee was always that kind of place when we would drive through on 94/894/45 getting to Oshkosh where my grandparents lived. I knew the O'Hare exit, Great America exit (Grand Ave), Brat Stop exit (Wis 50), Mar's Cheese Castle exit (Wis 142/Hwy S), A&W exit (Hwy K), County Zoo exit (Blue Mound Rd), and finally Grandma and Grandaddy's exit (9th Ave).
Oshkosh itself was that way too. EAA, Shakey's, Field's Ice Cream, Hrnak's Flowers, Park Plaza Mall, Menominee Park, UW-Oshkosh, Titan Stadium.
The town I lived in, chiefly because it still had the only yellow Yield sign I'd ever seen, here (https://maps.app.goo.gl/u94tKqQ6wCEiVdt58).
Quote from: JayhawkCO on August 25, 2025, 04:17:28 PMKansas City. Seeing all the 3dis for I-35 (which didn't exists without suffixes where I lived in the Twin Cities) was really cool for me. And it was very close to my first experience of toll roads.
Same. I-635 had
eight lanes! Wow!
Outside of Baltimore and DC, gotta be Philly for the infrastructure (except the sports stadiums) and the street and place names that piqued my interests, and Richmond and Boston for some of the aesthetics as well.
I think it was a toss-up for me between Mobile, Jackson, MS, and Baton Rouge as a younger kid when I lived on the West Bank in Louisiana. Mobile had the really cool George Wallace Tunnel, which was probably my first road related memory. Jackson had an interstate concurrency, endless suburbs (or so I thought), and a Nissan factory on I-55 whenever I would pass through on family trips to Memphis. Baton Rouge was near where I lived as a kid, and it had highlights such as all the left exits and entrances on I-110, the near-constant construction on I-10, the chaos of the LA 1/I-10 interchange, and of course the two Mississippi River bridges. I even remember my dad driving me after church all the way to the LA 10 bridge that was brand new at the time and being mesmerized by it.
Probably Toronto because of the express/collector setup on 401 with the different-colored signs for each. I always thought the different colors were an excellent idea and made more sense than slavish adherence to using green in all cases.
(We had black signs over the I-395 reversible roadway, of course. But those were familiar. And Toronto's setup felt like it was on a much bigger scale.)
The only city I remember being driven around as a kid was Boston, and I don't remember thinking there was anything particularly cool about it because we just drove to the first subway stop and then took that into downtown. Besides, in the late fifties, cities smelled like bus exhaust outside, and cigarette smoke inside.
My fondest childhood road memories are of US-6 on Cape Cod. I remember the old sign at the very end, advertising the mileage to Long Beach CA. I have a vague memory of when we first drove through the Orleans rotary, when the new alignment of US-6 was finished, and you could see a bit of the old alignment (now called Old State Hwy) behind a wooden white rail fence. Right after highschool graduation, I recall riding in a friend's car, east along what's now the westbound side of US-6 just before route 134, and watching the new roadbed for the eastbound side being constructed. And once I had my own license and car, I loved the exciting three-lane stretches in Wellfleet with the suicide lane down the middle.
I was a road geek as a small child, partly because my grandparents would drive to Florida for a few months every winter, so my grandfather had a mess of gasoline company road maps that I used to pore over obsessively. I even remember when the red, white, and blue interstate shields first appeared.
For me, the San Diego area, where I grew up. I was impressed by some of the major interchanges, especially the long and tall I-805/I-8 interchange spanning Mission Valley, and the overbuilt I-805 "interchange to nowhere" (was going to connect to CA 252 -- an early victim of one of California's freeway revolts -- but got truncated to 43rd St.) Also fascinating was the complex I-5/I-8 interchange. While under construction, the prime contractor put up a snarky sign, "we don't know what it is either, we're only building it".
I also was around to see Temporary I-15 signs on then-US 395 north of Escondido, and the wig-wag railroad crossing signals on Hill St. (former US 101) in Oceanside for a spur line to Escondido.
I also always enjoyed driving through Texas, because of all the FM roads, and because they led the way with their higher speed limits in the late 90s.
When I was a young kid (like age 4–5) in Grand Forks, ND, I noticed how the left turn stoplights had green and yellow arrows but the top light was always a full red circle. But whenever I'd visit family in Fargo, their stoplights had red arrows. So I used to get excited to go to Fargo because they had all three colors of stoplight arrow. Then one day I discovered a red arrow in Grand Forks at the intersection of 32nd Ave S and S 24th St which blew my mind. As far as I know, before I moved away in 2013, that was the only red arrow light in the city. I moved to the Twin Cities and red arrows have since lost their luster in my eyes.
Driving on I-94 through Minneapolis for the first time at age 8 also was cool because I had never driven through a tunnel before. But I still think tunnels are cool even now that I go through the Lowry Hill Tunnel quite frequently.
Honestly, I didn't get around to a wide area much growing up, so even Syracuse was exotic for a while, and for some reason I had an obsession with I-690.
Wellesley Island was also a highlight, on the occasion that I'd get up there, though that was less due to the island and more about the bridge to get there.
Chicago in the 70s was evolving, as I was just a toddler when the Sears Tower got topped off, and I-90 ran on the Eisenhower Expressway west of the Circle Interchange (which was my favorite interchange in the world even then), with its current routing being a mishmash of state routes. Also, the East-West Tollway was signed as IL 5 (it didn't become I-88 until 1989), and US 66 was mostly intact down to Joliet. I actually remember reading an article in the Tribune about the reroute of I-90 up the Kennedy Expressway (thus extending its concurrency with I-94 by several more miles) and towards O'Hare Airport in 1978, along with the creation of I-190 leading to the airport and I-290 on the Eisenhower. Even today, I still cherish memories of driving on iconic Windy City roads such as Lake Shore Drive and the Skyway.
For me it was Des Moines and Sioux City, Iowa. Des Moines had the first urban freeway I saw (I-235) while Sioux City has the Gordon Drive viaduct and the "volleyball" interchange of I-29, US 20, and US 77. They've both grown more interesting over the years, but I don't live in Iowa any more.
It might be a tie between Greensboro / Winston-Salem and Charleston, WV
Greensboro / Winston-Salem for I-40/85 through 'Death Valley' and Business 40 / US 421 & US 52 through downtown Winston-Salem.
Charleston, WV for all the bridges and skirting downtown.
Growing up in Rochester, NY there were several things about the Buffalo area road network that intrigued me.
The short ten-lane section of I-290 (https://maps.app.goo.gl/UqoY9jWzvzbPaim56) really impressed me back when I was too young to understand that it didn't really count because four of the lanes were auxiliary lanes. Nowadays, I've come to appreciate that double auxiliary lanes in both directions actually are somewhat rare.
The southern section of I-190 (between the Peace Bridge and free I-90) was another big one for me, since we don't have any elevated highways of that length in Rochester. I thought it was cool to be driving up higher where it was easier to see the city skyline, but the bigger amazement was driving for miles and miles with the constant bridge joints and associated bridge sounds and the hum of the concrete pavement that made it feel like driving on a continuous bridge.
And I went through several phases with free I-90 in Buffalo. When I was really young, I was just confused by how it was part of I-90, but it didn't seem anything like the Thruway, and traffic could get on and off at many exits on just that one part with no tolls. I later became intrigued by the mixture of long-distance and local traffic and the congestion during busy travel periods, since we don't have anything like that in Rochester. Then I went through a phase of being annoyed by the toll booths at either end and I began wishing it was four carriageways with the inner ones being tolled (for trucks and thru traffic) and the outer ones being toll-free (for local traffic), because then it would be less congested and it would look like a longer version of I-90/NY 49 in Utica in my road atlas. The switch to AET has since eliminated the toll booths, but I still think it would be pretty cool for the existing free section to have a 3+2 // 2+3 configuration similar to I-271 in Ohio, but with tolls on the inside carriageways.
Then of course there was Grand Island, especially the narrow bridges, and of course the mere concept of traveling across an island (that was so huge you wouldn't know it) was fascinating as a young kid.
As a kid, driving through Chicago (either via I-90 or I-294) was a blast to drive through (especially at night)!
I-90: Chicago skyline with the drive over the Skyway as well as no interchange with IL 23
I-294: a drive with four lanes on each side (post-2009 reconstruction) with lighting and ORT
Lake Shore Drive (LSD) is always an impressive drive with the northern stretch featuring apartment blocks on side of the highway with Lake Michigan on the other side.
The three interchanges that I hate driving through as a kid in Chicago: the Circle, the Hillside Strangler, and the I-90/IL 53 cloverleaf interchange.
When I drove to NC for Victory Junction, I was awake to see some tunnels on I-77 as well as on I-40 in western NC! That's why I have a fascination for cities or states with tunnels (Boston, NYC, Pennsylvania Turnpike, Pittsburgh, etc.).
Albuquerque. The horizontal signals fascinated me, as did the street signs that left the suffixes off.
Quote from: US 89 on August 28, 2025, 10:07:13 AMAlbuquerque. The horizontal signals fascinated me, as did the street signs that left the suffixes off.
I remember being shocked by horizontal traffic signals as a kid going through Tallahassee and the first time I visited Houston.
As a kid in rural Louisiana, both Jackson Mississippi but more so New Orleans were mind blowing to me. Interstates with 3 lanes on either side! Another interstate! Big interchanges.
New Orleans was the biggest though. The long bridge, then the 310 interchange. Then all the ramps and flyovers by the airport. Then 5 lanes each way! Then the entire stretch from airline highway to Elysian Fields.
Then when I went to Houston for the first time at 18, that was something totally new to me. HOV lanes. Flyovers everywhere. The pierce elevated.
As a kid in the suburbs of St. Paul, MN, I always liked going to Wisconsin because their signs were different and they had horizontal traffic signals. I upset my Mom and Dad once by asking if horizontal traffic signals were legal.