Communities that have changes in street layout because of one large development

[roadman65]

I was looking at Hershey, PA on Historic Aerials which brought back memories for me as far as roads go in Hershey.  I do remember as a child that there was a different set of arterials in that particular community that existed back in the early 1970's.

Back in 1974 when Hershey became a general admission theme park, as previous it had no admission and had multiple entry points around the park from the outside where you could just walk around the park for free back then.  It was just like the Boardwalks in Coney Island and Wildwood where you paid for each individual ride by purchasing tickets.

Anyway, before all of that the town's road system was much different.  Derry Road which now is severed into two discontinuous segments used to be one, as it was aligned through the parking area of the Stadium/Arena and across where the 1980's to 2000's expansion area is now located.  In fact you had to cross Derry Road to go from the parking lot to the Arena and Amusment area as the road was directly next to the arena.  Also, Park Boulevard did not intersect PA 39 where it does now at the intersection of Hershey Road and Hersheypark Drive as it continued across where the parking lot for the park is and intersected with Hersheypark Drive where the former Hotel Road intersection was.  The curve on Park Boulevard now adjacent to the Chocolate World was a four way intersection between Park Boulevard and Derry Road as well.

Basically the expansion of Hersheypark of 1974 changed the street layout of the town somewhat.

I was wondering if there are other places where a large business or development changed a road system just to allow for their site to be one continuous piece of land without being severed by local roadways?

[silverback1065]

in Indianapolis, Eli Lily has made Kentucky avenue a 2 segment street between Harding and Morris streets.  just north the same thing happened to Kentucky ave as it used to go much further into downtown, not sure when that happened.  also Lucas oil did the same thing to Merrill street

[NE2]

This happens all the time.

[GCrites]

Universities do this a LOT.

[vtk]

I was wondering if there are other places where a large business or development changed a road system just to allow for their site to be one continuous piece of land without being severed by local roadways?

US 40 WB / OH 4 SB / (I don't recall the street name) was realigned in Springfield for a hospital's parking lot.

OH 750 was realigned to pass south of the Columbus Zoo to allow the zoo to expand to the north.

I can think of several others that don't involve signed state routes.

[roadman65]

This happens all the time.

Yes it does on a small scale.  I am talking about on a grander scale where a lot of road mileage is changed.   Millenia Mall counts as that truncated a lot of Americana Boulevard to make room for the whole mall and surrounding apartments and strip malls.  In fact before the Conroy Overpass over I-4 was constructed people had to detour way out of their way to go the new road layout for a few months until the City of Orlando opened up that particular crossing linking Conroy with Americana which now makes that transition easier.

[Scott5114]

I suspect Lawton and its Central Mall might be an instance of this, but I'm not up on Lawton history enough to know what was there before.

[GaryV]

Universities do this a LOT.

Including sections of a former routing of US-41 at Michigan Tech University (Houghton).  Although US-41 still cuts across Tech a little farther to the south, the original routing right through the middle of campus has been removed and is now for pedestrians.  (There is also a still-existing section that serves as a driveway to a parking lot.)

Also former US-12 at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo) was moved to Stadium Drive.  (Stadium Drive is now Business I-94 and US-131.)  The old US-12 routing was on Michigan Avenue.  Some of it still exists as minor roads on campus, but other parts of it have been removed completely.

[kphoger]

This probably doesn't meet the "a lot of road mileage" criterion, but...

Branson Landing

Has anyone been to Branson's downtown (MO) both before and after the installation of the Landing? As for changes, perhaps the most obvious is that there are now two parallel bridges crossing Taneycomo towards Hollister. Then, too, the five-way intersection north of downtown on US-65(Bus) was converted into a multi-lane roundabout, which itself required the street to lose its status as a US highway (the grade was too steep to install a roundabout on a US highway, so the city took it over).

[Pete from Boston]

Every town in the upper Swift River Valley of Central/Western Massachusetts.

[NJRoadfan]

Garwood, New Jersey breaks the 45 degree tilted street grid of all the surrounding towns opting for a strict North-Southish oriented grid.

[Duke87]

Stamford, CT leveled the better part of their downtown circa 1970 and then rebuilt it from scratch over the next decade with straighter, wider streets and a bunch of modern office buildings. This involved significant realignments of CT 137 and US 1, onto streets which mostly did not previously exist. If you look at a map of downtown Stamford from 1950 and compare to today, it's almost unrecognizable between I-95 not being there and the redevelopment having not occurred.

Stamford thus has a very unusual layout for a New England city, with wider streets than you would expect a city of its age to have.

[silverback1065]

Stamford, CT leveled the better part of their downtown circa 1970 and then rebuilt it from scratch over the next decade with straighter, wider streets and a bunch of modern office buildings. This involved significant realignments of CT 137 and US 1, onto streets which mostly did not previously exist. If you look at a map of downtown Stamford from 1950 and compare to today, it's almost unrecognizable between I-95 not being there and the redevelopment having not occurred.

Stamford thus has a very unusual layout for a New England city, with wider streets than you would expect a city of its age to have.

that's really interesting. do you have any links that talk about this?

[Duke87]

Stamford, CT leveled the better part of their downtown circa 1970 and then rebuilt it from scratch over the next decade with straighter, wider streets and a bunch of modern office buildings. This involved significant realignments of CT 137 and US 1, onto streets which mostly did not previously exist. If you look at a map of downtown Stamford from 1950 and compare to today, it's almost unrecognizable between I-95 not being there and the redevelopment having not occurred.

Stamford thus has a very unusual layout for a New England city, with wider streets than you would expect a city of its age to have.

that's really interesting. do you have any links that talk about this?

None that I am aware of offhand. What I know about Stamford I mostly know from having grown up there and having been an intern with the city government for a couple summers in college. The website of the Stamford Historical Society has some info online, but not a lot.

Driving the point home about the map, though, compare the following:
Part of a scan of a map from 1931
Today

Note the route taken by US 1 then, via Main St (which has been cut off in several spots and can no longer be driven straight through) compared to now, via Tresser Blvd.
Also note the route of CT 137 via Washington Blvd and how that did not exist in 1931. In 1931 CT 318 ended short of downtown, but it was renumbered to CT 137 the following year and at some point was extended down Summer Street into downtown. Once Washington Blvd was complete, CT 137 was moved over there and Summer/Bedford Streets became a one-way pair.

[tdindy88]

Would Denver, Colorado count? The original part of the city is on a 45-degree grid that I believe runs parallel to the Platte River and/or some railroads around there. It seems that for the most part to the west of the river (or I-25), south of Colfax and east of Broadway it reverts to a more traditional north-south, east-west street grid.

[TXtoNJ]

The entire city of Houston falls in this category.

[vtk]

This thread is not for "part of the city is not like the rest", like a few of the recent posts.

I know we often use words like "begin", "after", "revert" to describe things that change as the observer moves geographically rather than temporally, but I'm pretty sure that's not what this thread is about.

I believe what we're looking for its road layouts that are significantly different from what they previously were, due to some event in non-road-related history.

[TEG24601]

Basically every city with a sports stadium anywhere near downtown.


Seattle and Portland made major changes for their stadiums/arenas.

[Mapmikey]

Colonial Williamsburg caused the closure of a number of streets to auto traffic.

Virginia has had plenty of smaller examples I'm sure but two I can think of that actually moved active primary routes:
Downtown Hampton pedestrian mall (1979)
Richmond Civic Center (1962)

I presume the OP did not mean to include military base closures/expansions.  Or something like the Savannah River Site in SC.

Mapmikey

[roadman65]

Colonial Williamsburg the roads are still there.  Though unused at most times.  If a military base removes roads it counts, though KSC in Florida with closing FL 3 (it may have been previously FL A1A as old maps do show it that) or other roads when eminent domain forced people out of the once public area pre space era.  In fact some towns got taken over completely such as Wilson, which was at the intersection of present day Kennedy Parkway and Brevard CR 402.  I do not think Wilson had a big street grid back in its existence, so it would not count.

[Mapmikey]

Colonial Williamsburg the roads are still there.  Though unused at most times.  If a military base removes roads it counts, though KSC in Florida with closing FL 3 (it may have been previously FL A1A as old maps do show it that) or other roads when eminent domain forced people out of the once public area pre space era.  In fact some towns got taken over completely such as Wilson, which was at the intersection of present day Kennedy Parkway and Brevard CR 402.  I do not think Wilson had a big street grid back in its existence, so it would not count.

Some colonial williamsburg roads (such as England St) were actually removed.
Yorktown Battlefield has removed roads including VA 238's routing at the time in 1959.

With the military base thing in play, the Wallops Flight center removed some of the road that VA 175 was using.  I'm also pretty sure the construction of the Pentagon removed some actual roads including the one used by VA 244 at the time.

Mapmikey

[vtk]

I'm also pretty sure the construction of the Pentagon removed some actual roads including the one used by VA 244 at the time.

Mapmikey

Yeah, the Pentagon is probably a pretty darn good example.  ISTR a story about how the building was designed as a pentagon to fit in the original site that had been selected; when a new site was chosen, however, the pentagon design was retained.  Anyway, historic USGS quads may be quite illustrative on this one.

[GCrites]

I actually got to go in the Pentagon once. Sadly they didn't talk about the roadgeek aspects of it.

[Roadrunner75]

Fort Dix in NJ was an open post, with roads open to the public passing through it, including County routes and the southern end of NJ 68.  When it was closed to public access post-9/11, a number of roads in the area were severed, either closed completely, rerouted or gated.  Most annoyingly, CR 545 was gated through the fort, severing the direct connection between Browns Mills and Wrightstown.

[thenetwork]

My favorite is Old US-24 (State Avenue) near Kansas City:  https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kansas+Speedway/@39.1144699,-94.8348205,2899m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x41143123b6c3c3ff