Interstate 11 alignment, though Vegas and points north

[Plutonic Panda]

I refer to state and US road in their respective name, but not interstates. SO YOU REFER TO THE FIVE as I-5? I'll still call CA—99 exactly that. It's just like how when Vincent shot Marvin in the head. He doesn't know why the gun went off. It just went off. Maybe he hit a bump.

[gonealookin]

Nevada has the same north-south division as California.  Nobody up here refers to "the 80" or "the 580", but as Scott alludes to that's the norm in Vegas.

[Scott5114]

Nevada has the same north-south division as California.  Nobody up here refers to "the 80" or "the 580", but as Scott alludes to that's the norm in Vegas.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily the norm, since a lot of transplants hang on to whatever the style was in their hometown. So it's not like nobody says "I-15" (and I think I've even heard a Kansas City-style "95 Highway" a couple of times). But there are a number of things working in favor of the "the" convention—the number of SoCal transplants, the fact that "I-11" has two consecutive vowel sounds which is kind of awkward, and the split nature of I/CC-215 that makes it sort of impossible to refer to the whole thing in any other way. So it's probably at least a plurality using the "the" convention.

I'm from Michigan and the villainous minions of a particular college to the south phrase things with "the" before the name.  It has forever killed my perspective usage of the slang.

THE Ohio State Route 763

[kphoger]

(and I think I've even heard a Kansas City-style "95 Highway" a couple of times)

That's not just a Kansas City thing.  It's ubiquitous down in the Ozarks.  Official addresses might refer to the road through Bull Creek as "State Highway F", for example, but you'll never hear a local refer to it as anything other than "F Highway".  Likewise, the road from Branson to Forsyth is commonly called "76 Highway".  There might be a limit of two digits (or letters), though, because I've never heard anyone refer to a three-digit route number that way.

the fact that "I-11" has two consecutive vowel sounds which is kind of awkward

Of course, I-80 says hello.

[DenverBrian]

Well, I wouldn't expect them to call the highway "the 11" just yet.

Good lord, the interstate's not in California...It's I-11.

I've got bad news...

Blasphemy. CA can have their "the 405," and Austin, Texas can even have "IH-35," but that is where I draw the line.    

[US 395]

Probably after they get everyone to stop calling it "the 95".

That's never going to happen. My lady and my two best friends (all three raised in Vegas) said Vegas people are stubborn. They'll never call the road anything else but the 95.

[US 395]

Nevada has the same north-south division as California.  Nobody up here refers to "the 80" or "the 580", but as Scott alludes to that's the norm in Vegas.

That is correct. Reno follows NorCal namings for freeways and Vegas follows SoCal namings.
What's a 580? Up in these parts, we call it 395. 🤣

[vdeane]

the split nature of I/CC-215 that makes it sort of impossible to refer to the whole thing in any other way

Route 215?  Highway 215?  215 (no other qualifiers)?  Just calling all of it I-215 even though it's not quite right?

[Scott5114]

Probably after they get everyone to stop calling it "the 95".

That's never going to happen. My lady and my two best friends (all three raised in Vegas) said Vegas people are stubborn. They'll never call the road anything else but the 95.

I've run into a couple of those. Funnily enough when you ask them if they still call it San Francisco Avenue instead of Sahara Avenue or Bond Road instead of Tropicana Avenue they change the subject.

Vegas is transient enough that in 5 years there will probably have been enough new people moving in and out of the valley that there will be a decent population who has never known it as anything but I-11.

the split nature of I/CC-215 that makes it sort of impossible to refer to the whole thing in any other way

Route 215?  Highway 215?  215 (no other qualifiers)?  Just calling all of it I-215 even though it's not quite right?

I mean, yeah, you could. But "Route" definitely marks you as a transplant (I don't think that's in common use anywhere west of the Mississippi for anything not numbered 66).

I'm sort of trying to hang onto calling things with their prefixes, but it's hard since my wife is from San Diego and fell straight back into the "the" hole the moment we got the keys to the apartment.

[The Ghostbuster]

We could call the freeways by their road names (Las Vegas Freeway-Interstate 15, Bruce Woodbury Beltway-Interstate/CC-215, etc.). However, the freeway names are likely not known by enough people to make this work, nor is it likely people care what the freeway names are outside of their route designations.

[mgk920]

Well, I wouldn't expect them to call the highway "the 11" just yet.

Good lord, the interstate's not in California...It's I-11.

I've got bad news...

People have been saying "The" before the highway number in Phoenix and Las Vegas for some time.  It isn't 100% saturation but it isn't insignificant either.

Refugees from California . . .

Here in Wisconsin, we often normally just say the number (ie. "Ten", "Forty One" or "Four Forty One").

Mike

[kphoger]

But there are a number of things working in favor of the "the" convention ... the split nature of I/CC-215 that makes it sort of impossible to refer to the whole thing in any other way.

215 (no other qualifiers)?

This is the correct answer.

Especially with three-digit route numbers, a lot of people just omit any sort of prefix.  For example, directions in Kansas City might include something like "take I-35 to 635".

People in metro Saint Louis don't find it impossible to to refer to "255", even though part of it is an Interstate and part of it is a state route.  They aren't forced to resort to calling it "the 255" instead.

[Max Rockatansky]

Well, I wouldn't expect them to call the highway "the 11" just yet.

Good lord, the interstate's not in California...It's I-11.

I've got bad news...

People have been saying "The" before the highway number in Phoenix and Las Vegas for some time.  It isn't 100% saturation but it isn't insignificant either.

Refugees from California . . .

Here in Wisconsin, we often normally just say the number (ie. "Ten", "Forty One" or "Four Forty One").

Mike

All the way back to the late 1990s?  Most "refugees" back then in Phoenix were from the Midwest.

[roadfro]

Nevada has the same north-south division as California.  Nobody up here refers to "the 80" or "the 580", but as Scott alludes to that's the norm in Vegas.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily the norm, since a lot of transplants hang on to whatever the style was in their hometown. So it's not like nobody says "I-15" (and I think I've even heard a Kansas City-style "95 Highway" a couple of times). But there are a number of things working in favor of the "the" convention—the number of SoCal transplants, the fact that "I-11" has two consecutive vowel sounds which is kind of awkward, and the split nature of I/CC-215 that makes it sort of impossible to refer to the whole thing in any other way. So it's probably at least a plurality using the "the" convention.

Having grown up in Vegas, the lack of "the" in local parlance when I moved to Reno for college was immediately noticeable. I now, somewhat subconsciously, switch styles in conversation depending on where I am ("take 395 to 80" versus "take the 95 to the 15").

So I would say "the" is the norm for a lot of long-time Vegas locals (although granted the number of "long-time" locals continues to diminish). I have even noticed on recent visits to Vegas that local news anchors tend to use "the 95" etc. more than they used to years ago.

But I would say that I've noticed sometimes that people drop the "the" when referring a specific location, e.g. "Meadows Mall is at 95 and Valley View." 

Probably after they get everyone to stop calling it "the 95".

That's never going to happen. My lady and my two best friends (all three raised in Vegas) said Vegas people are stubborn. They'll never call the road anything else but the 95.

I've run into a couple of those. Funnily enough when you ask them if they still call it San Francisco Avenue instead of Sahara Avenue or Bond Road instead of Tropicana Avenue they change the subject.

Vegas is transient enough that in 5 years there will probably have been enough new people moving in and out of the valley that there will be a decent population who has never known it as anything but I-11.

I can somewhat believe the notion that "the 95" isn't going away. Consider that I-515 shields went up on US 93/95 between downtown Las Vegas and Henderson in the mid-1990's, but despite being around for nearly 30 years, references to "the 515" never really caught on locally. (I think for many, it made sense as US 95 was the one through route on that freeway that continued on the other side of the Spaghetti Bowl.) I've only ever really referred to "the 515" (or even "I-515") when talking about roadgeekery. Now with I-11 overlapping US 95 on both sides of the Spaghetti Bowl, I could see "the 11" gaining a bit more traction than "the 95" in the local parlance—but I think that is going to take a while to catch on.

I think a big difference with comparing people referring to I-11 over US-95 versus something like Sahara Ave over San Francisco Ave is that there is no existing field references to the old name of San Francisco Ave—with the freeway, there are still US 95 shields on the freeway. Also, it's been a much longer time gap in those street name changes such that there are few people old enough to remember it. 

[Scott5114]

Maybe I should start calling Las Vegas Blvd. "the 466".

[roadfro]

We could call the freeways by their road names (Las Vegas Freeway-Interstate 15, Bruce Woodbury Beltway-Interstate/CC-215, etc.). However, the freeway names are likely not known by enough people to make this work, nor is it likely people care what the freeway names are outside of their route designations.

There are only a couple official Vegas-area freeway names:

• Bruce Woodbury Beltway - I-215/CC-215 whole loop(signed prominently in multiple locations near other freeway junctions)
• Oran K. Gragson Freeway - US 95 between Las Vegas Blvd & Rancho Dr/Ann Road (only signed on the US 95 NB on-ramp at Las Vegas Blvd)

"Las Vegas Freeway" isn't an officially recognized name for I-15—an older "Las Vegas Expressway" moniker was associated with the east-west portion of US 95 west of downtown.

[DenverBrian]

We could call the freeways by their road names (Las Vegas Freeway-Interstate 15, Bruce Woodbury Beltway-Interstate/CC-215, etc.). However, the freeway names are likely not known by enough people to make this work, nor is it likely people care what the freeway names are outside of their route designations.

There are only a couple official Vegas-area freeway names:

• Bruce Woodbury Beltway - I-215/CC-215 whole loop(signed prominently in multiple locations near other freeway junctions)
• Oran K. Gragson Freeway - US 95 between Las Vegas Blvd & Rancho Dr/Ann Road (only signed on the US 95 NB on-ramp at Las Vegas Blvd)

"Las Vegas Freeway" isn't an officially recognized name for I-15—an older "Las Vegas Expressway" moniker was associated with the east-west portion of US 95 west of downtown.

And I think there are still some Las Vegas Expressway signs/references along surface streets below the freeway.

[roadfro]

We could call the freeways by their road names (Las Vegas Freeway-Interstate 15, Bruce Woodbury Beltway-Interstate/CC-215, etc.). However, the freeway names are likely not known by enough people to make this work, nor is it likely people care what the freeway names are outside of their route designations.

There are only a couple official Vegas-area freeway names:

• Bruce Woodbury Beltway - I-215/CC-215 whole loop(signed prominently in multiple locations near other freeway junctions)
• Oran K. Gragson Freeway - US 95 between Las Vegas Blvd & Rancho Dr/Ann Road (only signed on the US 95 NB on-ramp at Las Vegas Blvd)

"Las Vegas Freeway" isn't an officially recognized name for I-15—an older "Las Vegas Expressway" moniker was associated with the east-west portion of US 95 west of downtown.

And I think there are still some Las Vegas Expressway signs/references along surface streets below the freeway.

I don't think so. The last of the "Las Vegas Expy" signs I was aware of were removed in the mid-2000s when US 95 was widened between the Spaghetti Bowl & the Rainbow Curve.

[Short n Swift]

Any news on when US-93 will get upgraded to an interstate from the Nevada stateline to Kingman? I heard they're building a new 93-40 interchange bypass but other than that there's nothing on the rest of the highway.

[Scott5114]

Any news on when US-93 will get upgraded to an interstate from the Nevada stateline to Kingman? I heard they're building a new 93-40 interchange bypass but other than that there's nothing on the rest of the highway.

That segment is covered by a companion thread over in Mountain West, but the summary is no, we haven't heard anything, and if anything ADOT is letting US-93 get beat to shit in the meantime.

[hobsini2]

Well, I wouldn't expect them to call the highway "the 11" just yet.

Good lord, the interstate's not in California...It's I-11.

I've got bad news...

People have been saying "The" before the highway number in Phoenix and Las Vegas for some time.  It isn't 100% saturation but it isn't insignificant either.

Refugees from California . . .

Here in Wisconsin, we often normally just say the number (ie. "Ten", "Forty One" or "Four Forty One").

Mike

Or Highway ___ or Trunk ___. I will always refer to the Wisconsin state highways as Wis ___ and the county highways as Hwy ___.
It's funny though. Living in Illinois for over 45 years does have me call it Route ___ instead of Highway or Ill.

[US 395]

Nevada has the same north-south division as California.  Nobody up here refers to "the 80" or "the 580", but as Scott alludes to that's the norm in Vegas.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily the norm, since a lot of transplants hang on to whatever the style was in their hometown. So it's not like nobody says "I-15" (and I think I've even heard a Kansas City-style "95 Highway" a couple of times). But there are a number of things working in favor of the "the" convention—the number of SoCal transplants, the fact that "I-11" has two consecutive vowel sounds which is kind of awkward, and the split nature of I/CC-215 that makes it sort of impossible to refer to the whole thing in any other way. So it's probably at least a plurality using the "the" convention.

Having grown up in Vegas, the lack of "the" in local parlance when I moved to Reno for college was immediately noticeable. I now, somewhat subconsciously, switch styles in conversation depending on where I am ("take 395 to 80" versus "take the 95 to the 15").

So I would say "the" is the norm for a lot of long-time Vegas locals (although granted the number of "long-time" locals continues to diminish). I have even noticed on recent visits to Vegas that local news anchors tend to use "the 95" etc. more than they used to years ago.

But I would say that I've noticed sometimes that people drop the "the" when referring a specific location, e.g. "Meadows Mall is at 95 and Valley View."

I'm the same way myself. I also go back and forth in styles. My usage of the "the" comes from having family down in Los Angeles and being around them enough to pick it up. I drop the "the" when in Reno or NorCal of course.

[mgk920]

Well, I wouldn't expect them to call the highway "the 11" just yet.

Good lord, the interstate's not in California...It's I-11.

I've got bad news...

People have been saying "The" before the highway number in Phoenix and Las Vegas for some time.  It isn't 100% saturation but it isn't insignificant either.

Refugees from California . . .

Here in Wisconsin, we often normally just say the number (ie. "Ten", "Forty One" or "Four Forty One").

Mike

Or Highway ___ or Trunk ___. I will always refer to the Wisconsin state highways as Wis ___ and the county highways as Hwy ___.
It's funny though. Living in Illinois for over 45 years does have me call it Route ___ instead of Highway or Ill.

Often it is 'highway (xx)' or 'I-(xx)', but very often, in quick conversations in more urbanized areas, usually it is just the number (if it is a numbered highway), 'Highway (xx)' if lettered, or even the street name.  The 'route' v 'highway' demarcation is hard at the IL/WI state line.  For example, it is 'Route 131' in Illinois and 'Highway 31 in Wisconsin.

Mike