East-West and North-South Interstates Compared

[CtrlAltDel]

On Reddit today, I noticed an interesting set of Interstate data. It places the west or north terminus of each of the ten longest of them and shows their deviation from a straight line. I thought people here might want to take a look on it, so I thought I'd post the link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7nfxbd/the_10_longest_eastwest_us_interstate_highways_oc/





(Both visualizations created by Reddit user mister54.)

I didn't know that I-80, while shorter than I-90, "stretches" a bit farther. Same with I-95 and I-75.

[US 89]

That's pretty cool. You could figure out which interstates are more "efficient"  (like 80 would be more efficient than 90, since it travels farther across the country in a shorter distance).

[Hurricane Rex]

I just wished it showed all 2di interstates for curiosity. Otherwise great image.

[Rothman]

They just look like overlays of their actual routes to me.  Neat comparison, though.

[hubcity]

I have to assume they're counting "95" as though the PA Tpk/95 intersection is complete...

[vdeane]

Zooming in on the image, it looks like they just drew a line from the end of the "southern" I-95 in Trenton to the beginning of the "northern" I-95 at I-276.

[PHLBOS]

Zooming in on the image, it looks like they just drew a line from the end of the "southern" I-95 in Trenton to the beginning of the "northern" I-95 at I-276.

The line actually looks more like they used I-295 (south of US 1) & I-195 (up to the NJTP) as "part" of I-95.

[froggie]

^ Looks more to me like they followed an I-295/I-195 routing between Trenton and the Turnpike.

[Henry]

I think it's cool how they seemingly drew the actual paths from memory, which not many of us can do. And I did notice the loop around Trenton for I-95, even though that has never been a part of it.

[mvak36]

I created a map in Google Earth that has a pin at every intersection of the 20 interstates in the above list. It doesn't have all the intersections (there are a lot of intersections near the Chicago area that I only did a few).



A few interesting things I noticed:

• St. Louis has the most interstates within a city with 4 interstates within a few miles of each other in the downtown area.
• The Chicago metro area (including Gary, IN) has the most number of interstates with 5 (80,90,94,55,65)
• Once I-69 gets finished to Memphis, this list will change. It will knock I-29 off of this list. If it ever gets completed to Laredo, then it will be even further from the "origin" than I-95.
• If I-74 ever gets connected between Ohio and NC (not very likely), it can probably knock off one of the interstates on the East-West list.

[triplemultiplex]

I think it's cool how they seemingly drew the actual paths from memory, which not many of us can do. And I did notice the loop around Trenton for I-95, even though that has never been a part of it.

Or he just copy/pasted the lines from their actual location; which seems far, far more likely.
Or one could mess with the coordinates on a shapefile of these interstates to make them start at the same point.

[Hurricane Rex]

• The Chicago metro area (including Gary, IN) has the most number of interstates with 5 (80,90,94,55,65)

Since when was I-94, I-90, and I-80 end with 5?

[mvak36]

• The Chicago metro area (including Gary, IN) has the most number of interstates with 5 (80,90,94,55,65)

Since when was I-94, I-90, and I-80 end with 5?

I didn't say that they end with 5. I said that those 5 interstates pass through the Chicago metro area.

[sparker]

• The Chicago metro area (including Gary, IN) has the most number of interstates with 5 (80,90,94,55,65)

Since when was I-94, I-90, and I-80 end with 5?

I didn't say that they end with 5. I said that those 5 interstates pass through the Chicago metro area.

Forgotten with this list: I-57 (right into town), I-88 (makes it to suburbia), and -- stretching things a bit -- I-41. 

[mvak36]

• The Chicago metro area (including Gary, IN) has the most number of interstates with 5 (80,90,94,55,65)

Since when was I-94, I-90, and I-80 end with 5?

I didn't say that they end with 5. I said that those 5 interstates pass through the Chicago metro area.

Forgotten with this list: I-57 (right into town), I-88 (makes it to suburbia), and -- stretching things a bit -- I-41.

I know those go into Chicago. I was only considering the 20 interstates listed in the OP.


iPhone

[Flint1979]

I-80 runs on more of a straight line while I-90 shifts a lot like from Seattle to Wyoming, then it shifts down again to Chicago before coming back up around Buffalo then a somewhat straight shot to Boston. The only area where I-80 really shifts anywhere other than a little bit in Nebraska and Wyoming is in central Nevada heading towards San Fransisco. I-90 is only longer by about 120 miles.

[Bickendan]

Since I-5 and I-15 have very similar southern origin points, as do I-75 and I-95, you can determine what the drift is between both pairs. I-5 and I-15 have the bonus of both terminating at 49­º N. Rough guess is that they're about 560-575 miles apart from each other there.
It's a little harder with I-75 and I-95, but they're about 920 miles from each other at their north ends!