Roads/highways you feel unsafe driving on

[F350]

Not in the sense of road condition, but in the sense of personal safety. Inspired by that other thread of course.

Driving through Kansas City on eastbound I-70, I missed the slip to continue on I-70. I wound up going on US-24 eastbound little past 2AM, on some mixed-use boulevard that was full of people engaged in illicit activities. Needlessly to say I scrambled to find the way back to I-70 with my heart pounding out the chest.

[wytout]

US 44 in Hartford, CT (Albany Ave, North End) can be a bit disconcerting as it is a fairly "rough" area, esp late at night.

[mcdonaat]

US 61/190 Bypass in Baton Rouge passes through a shady area... US 190 splits off towards Hammond and it gets shadier, but US 61 is a perfectly fine highway. Also can add US 80 through Monroe, La and US 167 Business through Alexandria, La, both pass through the not-so-nice areas. Although, since US 80 is a 0 highway, you're guaranteed a parallel Interstate, being I-20.

[blawp]

FM 1093 between Chimney Rock and Highway 99.

[kphoger]

I can think of a few places I've felt unsafe travelling by foot (I've had rocks thrown at me on Chicago's west side, and come within an inch of being mugged on a bus platform in the south suburbs), but I'm coming up empty trying to think of places I've felt unsafe driving through.

[Sanctimoniously]

Also can add US 80 through Monroe, La 

What part of 80 specifically in Monroe? I wouldn't count Louisville Avenue or Desiard Street as the shadiest of places. Maybe the part between 165 and University Avenue would count.

[huskeroadgeek]

Not in the sense of road condition, but in the sense of personal safety. Inspired by that other thread of course.

Driving through Kansas City on eastbound I-70, I missed the slip to continue on I-70. I wound up going on US-24 eastbound little past 2AM, on some mixed-use boulevard that was full of people engaged in illicit activities. Needlessly to say I scrambled to find the way back to I-70 with my heart pounding out the chest.

That's a problem with that interchange. The same thing can happen with people heading south on I-35 and accidently getting on The Paseo. The area really went downhill in the span of about 20 years-I remember staying at a motel in that area with my family back around 1977. One time in the late 90s, two of my brothers and I were in KC for a weekend and we planned to stay at the same motel(at the intersection of The Paseo and Independence Ave.(US 24). All it took was one drive through the area to make us change our plans and stay somewhere else. I wouldn't want to be spending too much time driving through that area at night.

[Brandon]

Also can add US 80 through Monroe, La 

What part of 80 specifically in Monroe? I wouldn't count Louisville Avenue or Desiard Street as the shadiest of places. Maybe the part between 165 and University Avenue would count.

I drove through Monroe during the day.  I didn't find it all that bad, IMHO.  Now, parts of Englewood, Lawndale, and a few other parts of Chicago are definitely unsafe, IMHO.  Take a wrong turn, and have the wrong color car, and you might be in a bit of trouble.  Exiting the Ryan near the Robert Taylor Homes when they were there could be dicey as well.  I would also stay out of certain parts of Aurora (in particular between IL-25 and Farnsworth, north of New York) for much the same reason.  I did some surveying there over a decade ago, and we heard gunshots going off nearby.

I also avoided Collinsville Avenue in East St Louis at 9pm as it was the most desolate street I had ever seen.  Even in the Chicago ghettos, there is activity (granted it may not be what you want to be involved in, but it is activity).  This was dead.

[Sanctimoniously]

I drove through Monroe during the day.  I didn't find it all that bad, IMHO. 

That's what I'm saying. I would honestly find parts of LA 15 along Winnsboro Road and LA 594 along Texas Avenue to be much more shady than anywhere along US 80 in Monroe or West Monroe, day or night.

[roadman65]

I-4 around Kaley Street and FL 408.  Heck, most of I-4 at peak times.

Pennsylvania when lanes are narrowed to 10 feet with two jersey barriers with one on each side during major freeway construction.

[hbelkins]

Given the bad reputation of Louisville's west end, I felt a bit uneasy driving in that area to get clinches of US 150, US 60 and US 31W in Kentucky.

My wife was trying to find Edgar Allen Poe's home in Baltimore a few years ago and was shooting video. She ended up in a not-so-friendly part of town with the locals warning her to quit shooting video. Don't know what kind of illegal activities she was capturing. I was on the road at the time, returning from the last North Carolina meet (the one that toured a new section of US 70, and featured the "Speed Limit 55" sign right beside a guardrail barricade closing a cut-off section of road). I had to pull off and talk to her awhile to calm her down, she was genuinely shaken up over it.

[Morriswa]

Years ago, while traveling to Minnesota (where my mom is from), my parents and I went through Gary, Indiana.  My parents were using the AAA Triptik service (back then, they gave you a "flip book" with maps that they highlighted for you).  When we got to Gary, we made a wrong turn, and got lost.  Now, if you know anything about Gary, it is a poor city.  My mom was freaking out.  I got nervous (partially because I was a kid/teen).  Even my dad, who normally doesn't let anything bother him, got nervous.  We saw so many "shady characters".  We took the same exit 3 times because every road we tried led back to it.  Eventually (I don't remember how now), we got out of there and ended up in the bigger mess:  Chicago.

[triplemultiplex]

I don't want to sound like I'm calling anyone a pussy, but dear lord, are you kidding me?  "Oh no, I'm so es-cared to dwive thwoo the ghetto!!"
You all watch too much local news.
It's Chicago and East St. Louis and Compton; it's not Mogadishu.  You're just driving through; you're not opening a lemonade stand.

"Urban" neighborhoods are not the death zones you seem to think they are.  Sure some bad stuff happens but there's not roving gangs hunting for lost white folks to rob, rape and murder.  White people don't instantly die the instant you enter a majority minority area.  Unless your bumper is covered in racist anti-Obama stickers or you're shouting slurs out your windows, nothing's going to happen to you.  Millions and millions of cars drive through 'sketchy' neighborhoods every single day without incident.  So being "afraid" to drive through one is completely irrational.  You are so much more likely to get f-d up in a car wreck on your way to the ghetto.  The overwhelming majority of crime in those areas is committed against other people who live there, not random passers-through on major thoroughfares.

I have no qualms about driving through the rough neighborhoods in my highly segregated rust belt city.  And I do so on a fairly regular basis.

You're just another piece of traffic; if you're not looking for trouble, odds are you won't get any, especially if you're not doing something weird like holding a camera or staring at a bunch of dudes hanging out like an ignorant honky.  (How would you like it if some fool rolls through your 'hood staring at you like you're the polar bear exhibit at the zoo?  It's insulting.)  Like anything else, just use some common goddamn sense and you'll be fine.

[Brandon]

3MX, with the number of shootings in Chicago, it might as well be Baghdad.  I'm sure that you've read the stories and seen the reports on TV as you are in Milwaukee.  Tell me how you feel about the snipers the gangs used to use in the Cabrini-Green complex?  There is a reason it is gone.

[Scott5114]

Shootings happen for a reason. "This dude drove through in his car" isn't a good enough reason to start shooting. Killing someone has this nasty habit of attracting police officers...

[Brandon]

Shootings happen for a reason. "This dude drove through in his car" isn't a good enough reason to start shooting. Killing someone has this nasty habit of attracting police officers...

Very true.  However, mistakes do happen, and there have been a few recently.  One involved a gang member thinking another car was full of rival gang members.  He rammed the car and killed one of the occupants that way.  He was recently found guilty.  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-02-09/news/chi-jury-gets-murder-case-of-man-accused-of-ramming-carload-of-teens-20120209_1_jury-convicts-man-gang-member-stephanie-herrera

Thus, it does happen.  The snipers at Cabrini-Green would fire on kids walking to school.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantrell_Davis

[Scott5114]

I think you would probably agree, though, that Cabrini-Green is a extreme special case. Various factors and people dropping the ball led to a situation there that was far worse than anywhere else in Chicago or the US as a whole. You're not going to run into that sort of situation just driving down a street in a bad part of Kansas City. The way Cabrini-Green was set up was basically the perfect crucible for gang violence to occur. The Wikipedia article states that Dantrell Davis was killed in gang crossfire, not that someone was sniping him on a whim.

Gang "mistakes" do occur, but the probability is fairly low that you're going to get involved in one just minding your own business driving through in daylight hours. After all, gangs don't want the extra attention that these sorts of mistakes bring–they tend to cause the public to demand more police enforcement against gang violence which makes life tougher for the gangs.

[Beltway]

The Surekill Expressway.

[realjd]

As a rule, if drug dealers and prostitutes are operating on a road, it's safe to drive down. It's bad for business to scare off the customers.

And no, even the worst of Chicago is no Baghdad. When was the last time someone was beheaded in Chicago? Or IEDs placed on the roads?

[hbelkins]

It's ... East St. Louis...

Need to find it, but my dad had a bit of a fascination with US 66, so for Christmas one year I got him several books about the road. One of them was a travel guide to old 66 and it cautioned about travel in East St. Louis, and venturing into the wrong parts of town, with the same sense of urgency and foreboding as a PDS tornado watch or a tornado emergency warning, vs. a regular tornado watch or tornado warning.

There had to be a reason for that.

[jdb1234]

South Blvd in Montgomery.  The stretch between I-65 and US 231 goes through a rough area of town.  East Blvd isn't a whole lot better either.  Which is why I use Taylor Road (AL 271) to get to US 231 south of Montgomery when travel to/from Florida.

In Birmingham, US 11 inside I-459 goes through bad areas of town.  I drove this once and plan on never driving it again.

[kphoger]

It's ... East St. Louis...

Need to find it, but my dad had a bit of a fascination with US 66, so for Christmas one year I got him several books about the road. One of them was a travel guide to old 66 and it cautioned about travel in East St. Louis, and venturing into the wrong parts of town, with the same sense of urgency and foreboding as a PDS tornado watch or a tornado emergency warning, vs. a regular tornado watch or tornado warning.

There had to be a reason for that.

East Saint Louis used to be quite a bit worse than it is now.  Much of the middle of the 20th Centure saw riots and such.  For a while, around 1980, it simply abandoned basic services like sewer maintenance, garbage removal, and police equipment maintenance.  I'm guessing your book is from back in those days.

[OCGuy81]

Any freeway when it's raining.  Semis kick up a huge amount of mist as do SUVs, compromising visibility.

[NE2]

like oh my god have you heard of this road in south america like every other car falls off it's insane

[1995hoo]

Any freeway when it's raining.  Semis kick up a huge amount of mist as do SUVs, compromising visibility.

Not to mention the prevalence of what I call "invisible cars," i.e., vehicles being driven by people who think the "headlights on in the rain" law doesn't apply to them.