Youthful Misconceptions

[NE2]

I thought if a road had Turnpike in the name, it had to be a toll road.

Well, that wasn't a misconception. A turnpike by definition is a toll road; just maybe no longer at that moment. :-)

Though there are some misnamed cases (Providence Turnpike north of Foxboro was never a toll road, for example).

[vdeane]

I thought only toll roads could have tunnels. - The only tunnels I went through were those on the PA Turnpike (Mainline and NE Ext.)  Imagine my surprise when we visited Colorado in 1976!  Or was it the Wheeling tunnels on I-70 a little earlier?

Similar here.  I thought any bridge/tunnel of any importance had to be toll; NY doesn't have it any other way!

[NE2]

Similar here.  I thought any bridge/tunnel of any importance had to be toll; NY doesn't have it any other way!

Sure they do. Ever hear of the Brooklyn Bridge? Or the Queensboro?

[Duke87]

Years ago I wondered why all the Interstate 95 signs were missing from the New Jersey Turnpike 

My uncle was telling me a story recently about how the first time he drove to Delaware he went all the way down the NJ Turnpike and over the Del Mem Br, and didn't realize he wasn't still on I-95. He then noticed the exit for I-95 north and thought "wow, what kind of crazy state is Delaware? They have this huge exit just to make a U-Turn!"

[vtk]

It took me quite a while to realize there's something (expressways) between conventional surface roads and full freeways.  I had to see a few in person, and they confused me for a while before I figured out they were their own class of highway design.

[D-Dey65]

Speaking of freeways, around 1982, I got a copy of Hagstroms' Long Island Road Map, and I learned about the "Rockaway Freeway," and I thought, "Cool. We actually have a freeway in New York, and Downstate New York at that."

Around a year later I checked it out, and found out it was as much of a freeway as a dirt path cut through the woods by volunteer firemen is a boulevard.

[vdeane]

Similar here.  I thought any bridge/tunnel of any importance had to be toll; NY doesn't have it any other way!

Sure they do. Ever hear of the Brooklyn Bridge? Or the Queensboro?

I've never been downstate in my life; closest I've come is the Tappan Zee after the New Haven meet.  I'm surprised thy aren't toll.

[1995hoo]

Similar here.  I thought any bridge/tunnel of any importance had to be toll; NY doesn't have it any other way!

Sure they do. Ever hear of the Brooklyn Bridge? Or the Queensboro?

I've never been downstate in my life; closest I've come is the Tappan Zee after the New Haven meet.  I'm surprised thy aren't toll.

When all your relatives are from Brooklyn, as in my family, the Tappan Zee is Upstate. 

[empirestate]

Similar here.  I thought any bridge/tunnel of any importance had to be toll; NY doesn't have it any other way!

Sure they do. Ever hear of the Brooklyn Bridge? Or the Queensboro?

I've never been downstate in my life; closest I've come is the Tappan Zee after the New Haven meet.  I'm surprised thy aren't toll.

When all your relatives are from Brooklyn, as in my family, the Tappan Zee is Upstate. 

Heh, yes, being from Rochester but living in the Bronx it's a discussion I have quite often. To me, I-84 is the rough dividing line, though Poughkeepsie and other parts of Dutchess County are pretty well downstate by my reckoning. There really is a difference just in the way things are set up, even in the more rural downstate areas. It has a lot to do with commuter culture and railroad influence; in fact, another way I figure it is that anything on Metro North is downstate.

Note that I don't include Long Island necessarily, since it's different yet again. The eastern parts of it are much more New England than they are either Upstate or downstate.

And yes, all of the NYCDOT bridges are toll-free, by law I believe.

[Duke87]

Growing up in Connecticut I always thought of Putnam and Orange counties as being "upstate" but Westchester and Rockland as not... though this had to do mostly with the fact that we owned a Hagstrom map for Westchester county, but not Putnam - which gave it a "beyond here there be dragons" sort of feel in my mind.
Objectively speaking, I suppose the limit of Metro-North service is as good a definition as any. For state jobs Dutchess and Orange counties are eligible for a "downstate bonus" in pay, so I suppose there's also some legal weight there.

Though, it always seems to be a rule that the further south you live, the further south you place the line of demarcation for "upstate". A lot of people in the five boroughs consider Westchester county "upstate". I have a friend who lives in Manhattan who has been known to derisively refer to The Bronx as "upstate". Though I think he just does that to annoy me because he knows I'm originally from The Bronx.


As for NYCDOT bridges, yes, legal action from Albany would be required to put tolls on them. The idea has been proposed a few times in recent years as a funding mechanism for the MTA, and in the transit advocate community it's pretty much universally favored in some form or other, but politically the idea has proven quite controversial and hasn't gotten much traction.

[florida]

I thought concrete pavement was only used for urban areas and higher-class roadways (Interstates and US Routes)....that was until I drove on FL 228 way west of Jacksonville.

[vdeane]

Used to think that tenth mile markers were the norm; both NYSDOT region 4 and the Thruway Authority post them everywhere.  I must not have been paying attention on other roads.

[empirestate]

Used to think that tenth mile markers were the norm; both NYSDOT region 4 and the Thruway Authority post them everywhere.  I must not have been paying attention on other roads.

Used to think that tenth mile markers were the norm; both NYSDOT region 4 and the Thruway Authority post them everywhere.  I must not have been paying attention on other roads.

Region 4 succumbed to the craze in 96 or 97, as I recall. I remember every few weeks finding new TMM's (and they did overpass names around the same time).

[roadman65]

I used to always wonder why within a major city why there would be a directional sign for the city that you are in someplace within the city limits! 

Example: Jacksonville on the NB ramps to I-95 south of Downtown  that are in Jacksonville proper have "Jacksonville" as control cities on the guides.

Now I know, that a name of a city is actually referring to its Downtown or Central Business District.  However, nowadays grownups do not know this and some signage is considered confusing and had to be changed.  In Orlando, at FL 528;s western terminus, "Downtown Orlando" is  now used as control city for I-4 Eastbound because the previous "Orlando" that was signed in accordance with signing practices was confusing tourists there!

[vdeane]

Used to think that tenth mile markers were the norm; both NYSDOT region 4 and the Thruway Authority post them everywhere.  I must not have been paying attention on other roads.

Used to think that tenth mile markers were the norm; both NYSDOT region 4 and the Thruway Authority post them everywhere.  I must not have been paying attention on other roads.

Region 4 succumbed to the craze in 96 or 97, as I recall. I remember every few weeks finding new TMM's (and they did overpass names around the same time).

Yes, I do remember traveling on the western end of the parkway once and wondering where the TMMs were.  I thought it was because we were on an incredibly rural section of parkway.

[D-Dey65]

When all your relatives are from Brooklyn, as in my family, the Tappan Zee is Upstate. 

The same goes for us Long Islanders; Everything north of The Bronx is Upstate.

[mhallack]

This comment will show my old age, and I had a lot of misconceptions as a kid but the one I remember the most. I grew up in Simi Valley, Ca and the big highway was the 118 freeway. Back when I was quite young the freeway only went from First St. in Simi to DeSoto Ave. in the San Fernando Valley. Where it stopped at DeSoto was a hillside, and I thought they had stopped there was a hillside. I thought they quit construction of the freeway because the hill was in the way. I never caught on with road cuts on other parts of the 118, I thought they were already there in the first place and they built through them!!

[Darkchylde]

The first time I went to Florida (back when they still used sequential exit numbering), I was floored. Up until then I had only been to states where mileage-based numbering was in use.

There was also a time I thought only Interstates were supposed to have concrete surfaces (this was when I-12's concrete surface in the majority of St. Tammany Parish was on its last legs, shortly before being resurfaced in the 80's.)

[Kacie Jane]

When all your relatives are from Brooklyn, as in my family, the Tappan Zee is Upstate. 

The same goes for us Long Islanders; Everything north of The Bronx is Upstate.

I've typically heard approximately three different boundaries between downstate and upstate.
1. Downstate = NYC + Long Island
2. Downstate = #1 + Westchester and maybe Rockland
3. Downstate = #2 + Orange, Putnam, Dutchess and maybe Sullivan and Ulster.

---------------------------------

To answer the question... although this is neither my misconception, nor was it youthful, but it did happen during my youth...

I was in elementary school in New Jersey, and I overheard two of the teachers talking about highways.  (How it came up, I'll never know.)  One of them was under the misconception that the north/south = odd, east/west = even rule applied universally.  I pointed out that NJ 18 runs north/south, and the teacher pointed out that it used to be east/west.  (This is actually true, but it fails to acknowledge the numerous other counterexamples that show New Jersey doesn't follow this rule.)

I suppose I was then briefly under the misconception that any highway that was signed "wrong" must have originally been signed the opposite direction, but once I was cured of that, I was also cured of the misconception that teachers/parents are always right.

[jwolfer]

I thought concrete pavement was only used for urban areas and higher-class roadways (Interstates and US Routes)....that was until I drove on FL 228 way west of Jacksonville.

That is one of my favorite roads to drive.  The concrete pavement is in the process of being rehabed.  I am glad it wasnt paved over with asphalt.    This along with the reflector thread reminds me of when I was about 5 or 6 ridign back from Gainesville to Jacksonville seeing the highway reflectors in my uncles vans headlight and thinking that there were tiny lightbulbs in each reflector that turned on when a car was coming

[Takumi]

For some reason I originally thought that NC 3 (now NC 136) instead of turning north at the Currituck Sound, turned south and followed the sound to Point Harbor where it met back up with US 158. I even inexpilicably have a memory of an NC 3 shield just before the bridge. I later found out that this was never the case.

[formulanone]

I used to believe:

That all two-digit US Routes were coast-to-coast, or spanned the entire north-south corridor of the US.

That all US Routes would eventually disappear.

That other states (besides Florida and Georgia) had an outline of their state in their state road shields.

[ap70621]

Growing up in New Jersey, I thought the black backgrounds on BGS shields was the standard, and wondered why other states always "forgot" them.

[OracleUsr]

Signs that say "TRUCKS FOLLOW US-NC routes" I thought meant if a US route isn't paired with an NC shield, trucks can't go on it.

[brianreynolds]

OK, I'm going to date myself here.  I grew up in Dearborn MI in the 1950s-60s.  Michigan Avenue, now US-12, was US-112 then.  My aunt and uncle and cousins lived in Ypsilanti, about 20 miles west, also on Michigan Avenue,  Just east of Ypsi, (westbound) there is a fork in the road.  To the right is the old road, to the left is the bypass around Ypsi.

US-112 followed the bypass.  Michigan Avenue carried the Business Route US-112 designation, but on the BGS, "Business" was abbreviated to "BUS" above the shield.

I took that sign very literally, quite sure that busses must follow the old road, and were not allowed on the bypass.  My older brother tried to set me straight, but I wouldn't be swayed.

--
Brian Reynolds
Hastings Michigan