Nicknames and local terms

[hobsini2]

Citi Field

Obviously you are not a Met fan.

No, it's more obvious that you're not from the NYC area.

what do people call the new stadium? Shea?

Yeah, pretty much. It's like referring to the RFK Bridge or the Korean War Whatever Something Parkway.

My issue is when a new stadium is built in the same place (or across the lot or street) as the old one and gets a corporate name later when that company did not pay for any of the building of the ballpark except in the name. For instance, I still refuse to refer to New Comiskey Park under it's new name (or nickname) which I will still refuse to use in this post.  I don't have any issue if the company owns the team or the ballpark itself and certainly if the company name is a person's last name like with Miller Park and New Busch Stadium. 

I kind of feel the same way with highways that change their names to honor people. I still call I-88 as the East-West Tollway, not the Reagan Tollway.

[1995hoo]

New Yorkers I know often pronounce "Citi Field" the same way City Wok Guy on South Park pronounces "City."

[Brandon]

I kind of feel the same way with highways that change their names to honor people. I still call I-88 as the East-West Tollway, not the Reagan Tollway.

You have to wonder how many people do likewise.  I do the same for the East-West, North-South, and Northwest Tollways instead of using their other names (Reagan, Addams, and Veterans Memorial), and for the Calumet Expressway.  I just can't really bring myself to use the Bishop Ford name, it conflicts with two other Ford Freeways I know: Detroit and Grand Rapids - named for entirely different people (Edsel Ford and Gerald Ford).

[kphoger]

When I lived in the West Suburbs (1999—2006), I never once heard 88 called anything but the East-West Tollway or 355 called anything but the North-South Tollway.

By the way...

[hobsini2]

The name changes to 88, 90 and 355 didn't take place until about 3 or 4 years ago. BTW, I would buy that hoodie even though I am not a Sox fan.

[kphoger]

The name changes to 88, 90 and 355 didn't take place until about 3 or 4 years ago. BTW, I would buy that hoodie even though I am not a Sox fan.

Good to know, although 88 gained its new name in 2004.  All the same, considering I was living in DuPage County at that time and didn't hear a single word about it, I'd say the new name didn't really catch on.

[hobsini2]

If you listen to the traffic reports on WBBM, the will use the new names consistantly or refer to them by number now.

[mrsman]

Sorry to reply to an old thread, but in the LA area there are a lot of freeway features that are nicknamed:

Four Level Interchange, East LA Interchange, Malfunction Jucntion, Conejo Grade, etc.

What is noteworthy is that the Auto Club of So. California (ACSC) has made a map of all of these features.  I believe that it's called "Guide to the Los Angeles Area Freeway system" (or something similar) and in red italics any popular nickname for a stretch of road is indicated.  On the back of the map, they had a big listing of exit lists of all the major freeways.

ACSC had also made a card version of the map that was very handy to have around in the car.  My wife wishes that the local AAA made similar maps in this area (Greater Washington).  Alas, can't get maps as good as ACSC out here.

[Buck87]

In Bellevue, OH everyone calls the US 20 railroad underpass is the "subway." I now see that's an actual term for it in some places, but I'm not sure how it came to be used in this northern Ohio town. Typically people from this general area think it's a weird term when they find out that's what we call it. 

In and around downtown Cleveland I-90 and OH 2 have names that the traffic reports use instead of the route numbers. I-90 from I-71 to OH 2 is known as the "innerbelt" even though the freeway that would have made it part of a true innerbelt was never built. OH 2 west of I-90 is know as the "west shoreway" and the I-90/OH 2 multiplex east of there is known as the "east shoreway." This in mainly because the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway was built prior to the interstate system. The sharp curve that transfers I-90 from the innerbelt to the east shoreway is known as "dead man's curve" and has a suggested speed of 35.

[mapman1071]

Now, here's a way to get this back on topic without duplicating other threads:

NYC: The entirety of the Queens-Midtown Expressway is referred to as the "L.I.E."
The "West Side Highway" goes all the way down to the (Brooklyn) "Battery Tunnel", or maybe people will call the surface part "West St.," ignoring the other names it carries.
The Harlem River Driveway (north of the I-95 connection) is lumped in with Harlem River Drive.
The I-95 Trans Manhattan Expressway is referred to as "under the apartments."
The NJ approach to the Lincoln Tunnel is called "the helix."
NJ Route 139 is the "1 and 9 approach" to the Holland Tunnel.
Not sure how prevalent it is elsewhere, but traffic reports here use "loaded up" to refer to stop and go traffic.

And of course, I-95 from Teaneck to Fort Lee gets periodically called "80-95," even though 80 never coexists with 95 (though I have seen this section labeled "Bergen-Passaic Expressway" like 80 west of here, a name no one uses anyway).

The two halves of the NJ Turnpike in the Meadowlands are called the "eastern and western spurs," even though I wouldn't say either is a spur per se.

The entire complex in the Bronx where the Cross Bronx Expressway meets the Whitestone Expressway, Hutchinson River Parkway, and Bruckner Expressway (I'm sure I'm forgetting one) is called "the Bruckner Interchange."  Going north, the names New England Thruway and Connecticut Turnpike (both I-95) are still far more common in traffic reports than in common parlance (I sense a thread of names few people use anymore...).

Buckner Interchange
Cross Bronx Expressway    I-95 SB (WB) < > I-295 SB (SE)
Bruckner Expressway/Blvd  I-278 WB (SW) < > I-95 NB (NE)
I-678 SB Hutchinson River Expressway < > Hutchinson River Parkway NB

[txstateends]

DFW-area traffic terms:

Ferguson curve = long S-curve on I-30 east of downtown Dallas at and near the Ferguson Road exit
Fair Park curve = long S-curve on I-30 east of downtown Dallas near the Fair Park area
Dead-man's curve = The (hopefully not much longer) transition on US 175 south of downtown Dallas between C.F. Hawn Freeway and S.M. Wright Freeway

DFW-area construction project terms (that hopefully won't be etched in stone after the projects are done):

LBJ Express = the redo of I-635 between US 75 and I-35E
North Tarrant Express = the redo of I-820 on the north side of Fort Worth and TX 121-TX 183 between NE Fort Worth and Euless
DFW Connector = the redo of TX 121, TX 114, TX 26, and their connections to TX 360, I-635, and FM 2499
I-35E Express = the upcoming redo of I-35E between I-635 and Denton

One other:

The E-way = locals in Amarillo use this term for the freeway carrying I-27/US 60/US 87 south of downtown and I-40, even though officially it carries the wonderful misnomer of 'Canyon Drive' (why the city hasn't updated it, I don't really understand), which pre-dates the interstate part of the corridor's existence

[Desert Man]

Here's a good one from Queens, New York:

"The boulevard of death." Also known as Queens Blvd.

CA route 86 (Harrison Street) was dubbed the "Killer Highway" from a history of car crashes and a 100-some fatalities from the late 1970s to the early 2000s when it was fully replaced by a new 4-lane highway.

CA route 111 is known as the "Desert Cities Highway" connecting all the 9 cities in the Palm Springs area.

And I-10 is simply known as "the 10" a common dialectial term for southern Californians to refer to freeways with "the" followed by the number.