Old design deficiencies never fixed

[Alps]

There were a lot of innovative or... at least "interesting," if not unique, design solutions developed from the early days of motoring into about the 1950s, before standards really started to be implemented. Most of these early design elements have at least been improved, if not eliminated. But, like US 24 at US 12, the strong survive with no plans for removal.

Here's a list that starts in North Jersey, of inadequate, dated design that hampers traffic flow with no fix in sight:
Essex County

   
• Little Falls Road one-lane underpass, not controlled for opposing traffic
• Livingston Circle
• NJ 58 section of I-280
• US 22 floods repeatedly through Weequahic Park, has never been raised or had walls built

Morris County

   
• US 46 WB goes down to one lane for the left merge from NJ 159 — even after the 159 bridge was reconstructed
• Two Bridges Road is barely wide enough for two narrow cars to squeeze by across the Passaic River, but is not signed for one lane — even though the bridge has been reconstructed

Bergen County

   
• NJ 5 hairpin
• NJ 17/US 46 incomplete interchange with left ramps and sharp curves
• NJ 17 four-lane section through Rochelle Park

Somerset County

   
• US 202/206 at US 22 is still mostly a cloverleaf; ask about our southbound weave!

Passaic County

   
• Notch Road comes into Long Hill Road at an unnervingly acute angle with restricted sight lines and large difference in grades; no restriction on turns uphill around the acute angle despite it being impossible to keep in one lane
• NJ 20 and NJ 4 incomplete interchange
• Garden State Parkway left ramps to NJ 3

Hudson County

   
• Pulaski Skyway left ramps with no accel/decel space, not being completely fixed by current project
• No connection from Tonnele Circle to 139 Upper eastbound
• Traffic signals along "I-78"  in Jersey City
• Truck 1/9 at Communipaw Ave. — "split Y"  intersection with long delays due to geometry that requires multiple signal phases and long all-red times
• NJ 495 — seemed like a good idea to carve it into rock, but now try to widen it to fix the ramps and add accel/decel

[Roadrunner75]

Pulaski Skyway left ramps with no accel/decel space, not being completely fixed by current project

Not being completely fixed in the current project?  Is there some improvement planned for these ramps at the merge?  I would think these either stay pretty much the same, they are closed completely, or they become exits only, given the lack of room on the bridge to make any significant improvement.  They are horribly dangerous, but they can be kind of fun when you zip off the left exit and rocket down the ramp.  Not so much when entering, which requires Porsche-like acceleration to avoid getting plowed down.  These ramps to me are the best example around of an earlier time in roadway design, although they probably weren't even a good idea in those days....

Traffic signals along "I-78"  in Jersey City

Yes, a big problem, but going eastbound you still jam up at the toll, have to squeeze down to the 2 lane tunnel and end a short distance later in jammed city streets on the other side so you're still going nowhere fast with or without the lights.  Let's just end the I-78 designation at the first signal and call it a day, so those four blocks don't have to make all those 'interstate anomalies" lists.

Truck 1/9 at Communipaw Ave. — "split Y"  intersection with long delays due to geometry that requires multiple signal phases and long all-red times   

Can't stand this one.  I go through here a lot, and use Communipaw to cut across the city from downtown to the west side.  I can sit for multiple light changes here just to get out to 440.  I've been barreling down side streets to get around this lately.  What's a good fix for this one?

[NE2]

No way to bike between West Memphis and Memphis without using an Interstate shoulder, which is in a legal gray area. But this will be fixed when a path is added to one side of the old Harahan Bridge (where you used to drive before the current bridges).

[Brandon]

Where to begin...

I'll do a short list of ones in Illinois.

* The rapid-fire left entrance ramps on the Kennedy Expressway near the Loop.

* The Hillside Strangler (I-290/I-294/I-88).  IDOT tried a fix and epically failed.  The problem?  Merging 5 lanes down to 3 plus additional traffic from ramps.

I'm fairly certain there's more.

[roadman65]

There are a lot in Orlando to say as most of OBT is not up to today's traffic counts and most likely will never be even if they keep adding one lane at a time as the budget only allows barely.

The I-4 and John Young Parkway interchange has been redone over 3 times and still has not gotten it down right.  That new flyover from I-4 WB onto JYP creates a major weave problem on SB JYP especially because the John Young and LB McCleod Road signal has a long red wait period due to the high traffic counts on both of those two roads.

Then the worthless signal between the I-4 ramp and LB McCleod on JYP at the intersection of Clear Way also does not help matters.  That intersection needs to be a RIRO, but local social issues will not let Orlando remove the signal and do it right.

Many of our highways that are arterials need bus turnouts as our local Lynx buses have to stop in the right lane screwing up traffic always. 

Then not old, but old before it was even built was the OBT and Stable Drive traffic signal that now screws up the flow on OBT big time all because Wal Mart wanted to build a neighborhood grocery store at that location. 

[Joe The Dragon]

Where to begin...

I'll do a short list of ones in Illinois.

* The rapid-fire left entrance ramps on the Kennedy Expressway near the Loop.

* The Hillside Strangler (I-290/I-294/I-88).  IDOT tried a fix and epically failed.  The problem?  Merging 5 lanes down to 3 plus additional traffic from ramps.

I'm fairly certain there's more.

They got rid of some of the left ramps.

plans are being worked on to widen I-290 pass the Hillside Strangler

[Bruce]

Interstate 5 in Downtown Seattle narrows to two through lanes per direction under the Washington State Convention Center.

WA-520 has left-hand ramps that forces drivers to veer across I-5 to make it to Mercer Street, causing congestion.

[TheStranger]

In some rural segments of US 101 and Route 99 - where the highway used to continue as an in-town surface street and the freeway bypass was built decades later - the original through lanes into town were kept while the newer limited-access carriageways essentially exit off of them.

Abbott Street, southern Salinas http://goo.gl/maps/yhcyu

J Street, northern Tulare (northbound lanes only) http://goo.gl/maps/X7CaL

One example where this HAS been corrected is in southern Tulare (note the wide median where the old road used to continue through) - http://goo.gl/maps/9Bvol

[roadman65]

How about Virginia where the two carriageways on divided highways are on split grades.  One is hilly while the other is level. Even US 22 in New Jersey has a segment like it near Whitehouse and on parts of US 278 in Alabama in Cullman County.

However, that is a VA attribute and I can live with it.  I only wish modern construction would allow old alignments in divided areas now to keep the old stuff such as bridges and lane configurations.  Here in FL almost all dualization requires the old road to undergo modernization to be as up to date as the new road.  I have seen many classic bridge designs fall do to this and I commend some of the old ways so much.

[hm insulators]

I-10 through the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, where there are what I call "scrunched cloverleafs" that might've been state-of-the-art when the freeway was built in the 1950s but are a royal pain to deal with today.

[NE2]

I-10 through the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, where there are what I call "scrunched cloverleafs" that might've been state-of-the-art when the freeway was built in the 1950s but are a royal pain to deal with today.

Route 4 in New Jersey has one of those from the early 1930s. The obvious reason in LA is to avoid taking more than half a block of houses.

[1995hoo]

Awful left-side ramp with no merge area from the Ninth Street Tunnel onto northbound I-395 in DC.

I-395 in Virginia has two partial cloverleafs with fairly sharp curves on the loop ramps coupled with no C/D roads (Exit 2, Edsall Road, and Exit 3, Duke Street). It significantly slows the traffic in the right lane on the highway.

[akotchi]

Pulaski Skyway left ramps with no accel/decel space, not being completely fixed by current project

Not being completely fixed in the current project?  Is there some improvement planned for these ramps at the merge?  I would think these either stay pretty much the same, they are closed completely, or they become exits only, given the lack of room on the bridge to make any significant improvement.  They are horribly dangerous, but they can be kind of fun when you zip off the left exit and rocket down the ramp.  Not so much when entering, which requires Porsche-like acceleration to avoid getting plowed down.  These ramps to me are the best example around of an earlier time in roadway design, although they probably weren't even a good idea in those days....

There is some widening proposed in the vicinity of the Broadway entrance ramp outbound (southbound), for the purpose of providing a bit of an acceleration lane for ramp traffic.  This is, by far, the higher of the two left entrance ramp volumes.

[silverback1065]

The two interchanges I hate the most in the Indianapolis area are the 865/465 interchange, and the purposely not fixed 465/69 interchange.

[roadman65]

The Orange Avenue grade crossing in Taft, FL.  It needs to be grade separated as it is at a rail yard entrance where you have trains moving real slow, stopping, then backing up causing up to fifteen minuet delays which during rush hour many cars back up into it on either direction of Orange Avenue.

Being the rails have to right away over roads (only marine traffic is the only thing rails do not dominate) there is no time limit or specific time that a train has to abide by at road grades.  Basically a train can stop and spend hours there and no law can stop it from doing that.

Anyway, it is a nightmare at times to travel that stretch at any time.

[Laura]

Pretty much any indirect interchange in Pennsylvania between a toll road and non-toll freeway

[NE2]

Anyway, it is a nightmare at times to travel that stretch at any time.

:420:

[Pete from Boston]

Anyway, it is a nightmare at times to travel that stretch at any time.

:420:

Sometimes I try to do things at any time, but they keep happening at specific times.   

[SteveG1988]

Speaking of the I-55 bridge in TN/AR, the connection from I-55 to it, requiring all traffic for I-55 to use a 2 lane cloverleaf that was widened from a single lane by restriping. Plus the narrow clearances approaching it.

[Jardine]

I-80 westbound was throttled down to one lane at the I-480/Kennedy Expressway interchange in the middle of Omaha Nebraska (one of the top 100 largest US cities by population) as originally built.  After the interchange was rebuilt, I-80 now has 2 lanes.

I-680 at North 30th street the eastbound ramp leading  up to the Mormon Bridge over the Missouri has a very short merging length.

Several overpasses on I-680 (originally I-80N) in western Iowa never had the trim pieces installed to hide the joints and expansion gaps between the concrete beams over the pillars.

[Pete from Boston]

The BQE.  Pick a part, any part.  I'll offer the two-lane through-traffic right exit at the Battery Tunnel for starters. 

[cl94]

The BQE.  Pick a part, any part.  I'll offer the two-lane through-traffic right exit at the Battery Tunnel for starters.

Hmmm...

-The interchange with the Grand Central
-The Promenade
-The Kosciusko Bridge (I think that's right)

Heck, isn't all of I-278 substandard?

[Zeffy]

Heck, isn't all of I-278 substandard?

I-278 pisses me off and worse yet my parents take it EVERY time we go into New York. Well, I guess since it's the only way from Staten Island to Brooklyn you're pretty much FORCED to take it. Ugh.

[Pete from Boston]

Heck, isn't all of I-278 substandard?

I-278 pisses me off and worse yet my parents take it EVERY time we go into New York. Well, I guess since it's the only way from Staten Island to Brooklyn you're pretty much FORCED to take it. Ugh.

I have family in Staten Island.  Generally I overshoot it, take the Turnpike, and come in via the Goethals.  It still sucks. 

To touch back on an earlier post in this thread regarding 440, I periodically go from JC to Staten Island, and I pretty much bail onto the Skyway or the Turnpike Extension because 440 is so painfully stop-and-go. 

I feel like by the time Staten Island was connecting to New Jersey, too much of the areas where they meet were more or less disposed of to industry or waste.  The Verrazano then brought in all these people, but crammed them into a place doomed by too few access points.  There should be a fourth bridge to New Jersey feeding into the middle if the island. 



Aside: My biggest complaint about the BQE has nothing to do with the BQE.  I just still miss that moment coming northbound over the Gowanus Canal at night and seeing the mammoth bulk of the World Trade Center, with its scattered handsful of lights still on  at late hours. 

[Brandon]

The Orange Avenue grade crossing in Taft, FL.  It needs to be grade separated as it is at a rail yard entrance where you have trains moving real slow, stopping, then backing up causing up to fifteen minuet delays which during rush hour many cars back up into it on either direction of Orange Avenue.

Being the rails have to right away over roads (only marine traffic is the only thing rails do not dominate) there is no time limit or specific time that a train has to abide by at road grades.  Basically a train can stop and spend hours there and no law can stop it from doing that.

Anyway, it is a nightmare at times to travel that stretch at any time.

Trains and the companies that own them can be ticketed if they block the crossing for too long.  And yes, there are laws that stop that and are merely ignored unless enforced.

BTW, what's a fifteen minuet delay?  Fifteen minuets in a row?  Otherwise, the word is spelled "minute".