Streets that should be Arterials/expressways

[Buffaboy]

I can think of several streets that should be arterials, or roads with very few traffic lights, no left turn lane and RIRO intersections, driveways are allowed, as well as a 55 MPH speed limit. I'm basically talking about a Jersey expressway.

- NY 78 in Elma, Lancaster and Amherst, NY (grade separated at Seneca St, Clinton St, Losson Rd. The rest of the road is so narrow I'm not going to conjure up anything more. But the intersection at the I-90 access ramp would need to become a trumpet)
- NY 179 in Blasdell, NY (Diamond interchange at US 62, grade separation at McKinley Parkway with access ramps as well as Abbott Rd. and Amelia Dr)
- US 20 in Orchard Park and Hamburg, NY (grade separation at South Park Ave, McKinley Parkway, Abbott Rd and intersection realignment at NY 179 since Milestrip would be continuous onto US 20 east)
- US 74 south of Charlotte NC (in progress)

Can you come up with some?

[noelbotevera]

I've been fascinated in Dallas' freeway system, personally, I think the south leg of Loop 12 could be freeway (in stark contrast to the east and north legs, which the neighborhoods Loop 12 passes through there is anti-freeway).

[roadman65]

Kirkman Road in Orlando near Universal Studios.  It needs to be grade separated at Major Boulevard, International Drive, Vineland Road, and Conroy Road.  Those intersections are consecutive and have long waits at them 

The one at Major and Vineland should have been done by Universal Studios as most of the traffic that passes through those two intersections are from the theme parks so with all the money they have, they could have splurged years ago, but did not.

[Buffaboy]

I've been fascinated in Dallas' freeway system, personally, I think the south leg of Loop 12 could be freeway (in stark contrast to the east and north legs, which the neighborhoods Loop 12 passes through there is anti-freeway).

Just taking a cursory look at it I'd have to agree

[peterj920]

MN 7 has been upgraded with several new interchanges and has become an alternate for I-394 to get from the west suburbs to Uptown/Downtown Minneapolis.

[dgolub]

How about 34 Street in Manhattan?  Build overpasses carrying all the avenues over it (or tunnels carrying them under it).  There probably wouldn't be space for ramps, since it's so dense there, it would still provide an express route for traffic between Long Island and New Jersey.  Designate it NY 495 for consistency with I-495 and NJ 495.

[mariethefoxy]

Sunrise Highway west of where the freeway section ends to about downtown Freeport, at the very least between NY 109 and Sunrise Mall/Unqua Road intersection.

US 1 between I-287 and I-295 - good candidate since most of it is, theres just a couple of traffic lights.

US 13 between Puncheon Run Connector in Dover and US 13 Business in Salisbury.

[Ned Weasel]

How about 34 Street in Manhattan?  Build overpasses carrying all the avenues over it (or tunnels carrying them under it).  There probably wouldn't be space for ramps, since it's so dense there, it would still provide an express route for traffic between Long Island and New Jersey.  Designate it NY 495 for consistency with I-495 and NJ 495.

Why not just drive through Staten Island, or not drive at all, if you want an express route between Long Island and New Jersey?  Even if it's physically feasible to reconfigure 34th Street like that, there are so many reasons not to that it would be challenge to list them all here.  First of all, would the sidewalks along the intersecting Avenues use the over/underpasses, too, or would they still have at-grade crossings with 34th Street?  If it's the former case, how does everyone access the buildings from those sidewalks?  And if it's the latter case, then what's the point?  Second, 34th Street is part of a bus route that makes turns at 8th and 9th Avenues (http://web.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf).  Also, 34th Street is being used for dedicated bus lanes (http://www.nyc.gov/html/brt/html/routes/34th-street.shtml ); it's not intended for express automobile traffic, and I don't see any reason why it should be.

On the same topic, while I can certainly think of examples of surface streets where I've fantasized about grade-separated interchanges and RIRO configurations (wait, shouldn't that go under Fictional Highways?), I have to ask, doesn't today's engineering wisdom tell us that it's generally best to build roads either strictly as freeways or strictly as surface streets with little-to-no grade separation?  Aren't the in-between types of roads, including expressways, seen as less safe or less desirable because of (1) drivers' expectations of free-flowing traffic and (2) reduced pedestrian, bicycle, and public transit viability on surface streets when grade separations are introduced?

[dlainhart]

Why not just drive through Staten Island, or not drive at all, if you want an express route between Long Island and New Jersey?

As much as this may appear to be an express route between LI and NJ, I can assure you this is not at all actually the case.

Even if building overpasses over 34th St would be one of the worst ways to "solve" the problem of a missing Mid-Manhattan Expwy, it's not worth throwing out on the basis of this argument. Also, 34th St is very much intended for express automobile traffic: as it stands, it's the primary crosstown route in that vicinity and has been so since this argument's been worth having. If you're headed to New Jersey and coming out of the QMT, you'll be directed to 34th St to get to the Holland Tunnel.

(The bus lanes are a product of foolish recent Bloomberg/de Blasio transportation policy and do not change any of this. Dedicated bus lanes were recently hammered into innumberable arterial streets in NYC as a result of policy decreed from above, and the lack of sound engineering involved in their creation renders them ill-suited to support any argument along these lines.)

The real issue is that it's still a surface street in midtown Manhattan, of course. It can't be tunneled under because that's where the subways are.

Here's how I'd solve it: level everything between 28th & 29th St crosstown and give them the Vine Street treatment.

[cl94]

NY 7 (Hoosick Street/Road) in Troy and Brunswick. The hill in Troy would be quite bad even if there wasn't cross traffic and people trying to enter from driveways. Do note that this was supposed to be I-88.

[Ned Weasel]

(The bus lanes are a product of foolish recent Bloomberg/de Blasio transportation policy and do not change any of this. Dedicated bus lanes were recently hammered into innumberable arterial streets in NYC as a result of policy decreed from above, and the lack of sound engineering involved in their creation renders them ill-suited to support any argument along these lines.)

Explain why the bus lanes are "foolish" and why this is not "sound engineering."

Here's how I'd solve it: level everything between 28th & 29th St crosstown and give them the Vine Street treatment.

Explain how that would be beneficial to the functioning of Manhattan's urban fabric.  Is that "sound engineering?"  Would that encourage people to walk or use public transit?  Do you honestly believe that this would not be a car-centric transportation scheme that would attract more automobile traffic?

[Duke87]

Re: 34th Street.

If you wanted to make an express route out of it, it seems to me the physically easiest way of doing so would be to leave the existing surface street in place and build an elevated viaduct above it... although it would be impossible to connect to the existing tunnels without taking a few structures on either end. And space would limit you to two lanes each way unless you double decked it.

Of course, the aesthetic impacts of this would be massive. Manhattan has already had past experience with elevated structures over its streets, and they tore them down for a reason. It is a history they are content to not repeat.


As for the bus lanes, what I see as foolish about them is that the city's grander plan to reconstruct 34th Street was never realized. The city wanted to put in physically separated bus lanes that might have actually allowed the M34 to move at a decent speed rather than still being not much faster than walking, but there was intense NIMBY opposition to the idea. So the city gave up and just painted a couple bus lanes in the existing street, which people constantly illegally park in and prevent the bus from being able to properly use.

I don't think it's realistic to expect driving through the heart of the most densely developed place in the country to be convenient. There simply is not enough space in Manhattan to move everyone around by car.

[froggie]

I don't think it's realistic to expect driving through the heart of the most densely developed place in the country to be convenient. There simply is not enough space in Manhattan to move everyone around by car.

A fact that many on this forum and in this thread either don't understand or just don't care about...

[bing101]

CA-19 Lakewood Blvd in the Los Angeles area should be classified as an expressway (similar to Santa Clara County's criteria for expressways)

La Cinega blvd in Los Angeles aka unsigned CA-170 would have to be declared an expressway.

[cl94]

I don't think it's realistic to expect driving through the heart of the most densely developed place in the country to be convenient. There simply is not enough space in Manhattan to move everyone around by car.

A fact that many on this forum and in this thread either don't understand or just don't care about...

Yes. Using a car is not always the best option. If everyone working in Manhattan drove, you'd have to have insanely large parking garages. Just about everyone in Manhattan uses public transportation to get everywhere and there's a damn good reason for it.

[Buffaboy]

I don't think it's realistic to expect driving through the heart of the most densely developed place in the country to be convenient. There simply is not enough space in Manhattan to move everyone around by car.

A fact that many on this forum and in this thread either don't understand or just don't care about...

Yes. Using a car is not always the best option. If everyone working in Manhattan drove, you'd have to have insanely large parking garages. Just about everyone in Manhattan uses public transportation to get everywhere and there's a damn good reason for it.

If LOMEX and the mid-Manhattan expressway were constructed, Manhattan may resemble Kansas City today.

[jfs1988]

Mission Blvd through the city of Ontario, California. The section south of the Ontario Airport between Euclid Ave (CA-83) & the San Bernardino-Riverside County Line (I-15 & CA-60 JCT). It parallels the railroad tracks.

That section has a 45 MPH posted speed limit & has 2 lanes in each directions. It even has control city mileage signs.

Mission Blvd is an east-west throughfare in southern California that stretches from western Pomona to western Riverside. In western Riverside it becomes Van Buren Blvd, in western Pomona, it becomes Diamond Bar Blvd.

[DTComposer]

CA-19 Lakewood Blvd in the Los Angeles area should be classified as an expressway

Why? It's original functionality was replaced by I-710 and I-605 (which run parallel to it 3 miles or less on either side), and since it runs through the CBDs of Lakewood, Downey and Pico Rivera, I don't think it would be feasible construction-wise.

Now take the Rosemead Boulevard portion of CA-19 (i.e. hidden CA-164) - although there are similar issues with business districts and such - that makes more sense, particularly while it seems the I-710 gap issue will never be resolved.

[Joe The Dragon]

palatine road IL-53 to I-294

[Rothman]

NY 7 (Hoosick Street/Road) in Troy and Brunswick. The hill in Troy would be quite bad even if there wasn't cross traffic and people trying to enter from driveways. Do note that this was supposed to be I-88.

As is, I heard a director at NYSDOT quip that it sometimes seems Troy dampens the NY 7 traffic problem by timing the lights to dump the traffic into Brunswick.

[cl94]

NY 7 (Hoosick Street/Road) in Troy and Brunswick. The hill in Troy would be quite bad even if there wasn't cross traffic and people trying to enter from driveways. Do note that this was supposed to be I-88.

As is, I heard a director at NYSDOT quip that it sometimes seems Troy dampens the NY 7 traffic problem by timing the lights to dump the traffic into Brunswick.

As much as I'd love to believe it, Troy can't time their lights for crap. I often get stopped at every light in the city. Gets really annoying after living here for a month, but it does mean that I can often walk several blocks without stopping.

A lot of the NY 7 problem would be improved if it was widened out to NY 278. The traffic issues are mostly due to the lane drop at the east city line. AADTs certainly don't tell everything, but parts of the 3-lane section are over 20,000 and it's never much below 15,000 west of NY 278. I avoid that area like the plague except when I need to go to Walmart. I try to arrange my trips so I can swing into the Crossgates Walmart when necessary just to avoid that mess.

[Rothman]

Yeah, the Troylet is pretty awful.  I think he meant that the lights sort of align themselves at times with the result of boondocky Brunswick being overwhelmed.

I'm not sure what the actual solution is.  I don't see widening happening and yet NY 7 is the only real way out of Troy towards southern VT (Bennington, Brattleboro) and online mapping services love sending people out NY 7, down NY 278 to NY/MA 2 to the northern Berkshires.  NYSDOT would also put widening as a non-preservation project and given the AADT, I'm betting it wouldn't pass muster to be added to the program, anyway (probably would be a considerable project). 

It'll be a mess for years, if not decades, to come.

[cl94]

Yeah, the Troylet is pretty awful.  I think he meant that the lights sort of align themselves at times with the result of boondocky Brunswick being overwhelmed.

I'm not sure what the actual solution is.  I don't see widening happening and yet NY 7 is the only real way out of Troy towards southern VT (Bennington, Brattleboro) and online mapping services love sending people out NY 7, down NY 278 to NY/MA 2 to the northern Berkshires.  NYSDOT would also put widening as a non-preservation project and given the AADT, I'm betting it wouldn't pass muster to be added to the program, anyway (probably would be a considerable project). 

It'll be a mess for years, if not decades, to come.

I know the online mapping services send people that way and it's quite stupid, as taking NY 2 from Watervliet or 6th Avenue is faster. The only other ways to southern Vermont from the rest of the country are up US 7/I-91 or across NY 67, which has many issues of its own. There really isn't a good solution because terrain is rough and buildings abut the sidewalks. Widen Tamarac Road and encourage people to use that as a cutover? Finish building the road connecting the back side of Price Chopper and Walmart to NY 2? Narrow the lanes slightly, remove the shoulders, and make it 2 uphill lanes west of Walmart?

[froggie]

In my considerable experience (perhaps not as much as Rothman or Doug Kerr but still many many years), the traffic problems aren't from the lane drop at the top of the hill at Lake Ave, but from a combination of the steep hill, the aforementioned poor signal timing, and the lack of turn lanes, especially left turn lanes.  As Rothman noted, a widening project is basically a non-starter due to the right-of-way impacts.  But what could be done that would improve things is a combination of signal coordination plus converting a westbound lane on the hill into a left turn lane.  Those two things together should improve traffic flow considerably, especially for eastbound (up the hill) traffic.

[cpzilliacus]

U.S. 301 in Maryland.  The section north of the U.S. 50 overlap is slowly getting there, and the section between the Gov.Harry W. Nice Memorial bridge and U.S. 50 should be upgraded (send lots of money).

On the other side of the continent, much of La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles County should be upgraded to Caltrans freeway standards (it's pretty close now), given a state route number and signed as a freeway.