What interstate has been traveled on by the highest percentage of Americans?

[Roadgeekteen]

This is different from "most traveled interstate", as traveling it just once counts just as much as traveling on it every day. My guess is I-95.

[ilpt4u]

I-95 has good odds

So does I-80, since it is in the NYC Metro Area, Chicago Metro Area, and SF Bay Metro Area – 3 large population centers

Of course, a decent chunk of the country's population lives along I-95, so it may have I-80 beat, even easily

[Konza]

My guess is that it's among Interstates 10, 75, 80, 90, and 95.

[jmacswimmer]

My guess is that it's among Interstates 10, 75, 80, 90, and 95.

I think I-5 could be a contender too, but ultimately I agree with OP that it's probably I-95.

[Rothman]

I-27.

[Ketchup99]

I-27.

Maybe, but I'm thinking I-99 might have it beat...
In all seriousness, my guess is it's I-95. Over a hundred million Americans live near it.

[I-55]

I-95 for sure but I give I-75 a close second due to its high volume of vacation traffic. Most Florida traffic, UP traffic, Cincy traffic, Smoky Mountain traffic, and any traffic cross country on I-40, 64, 85 or 71 will multiplex it.

The closest EW route I would think is I-90, longest interstate, travels through more population centers than I-80 and the ones it goes through are closer together than I-80's (if not the same ones 80 goes through to begin with).

Most on a non x0 or x5 goes to I-94

Most on a 3di goes to I-678 (wild guess but a lot of people probably enter NY via JFK airport and feed out onto 678)

[sprjus4]

While I-95 is likely the winner, I-81 and I-40 are good contenders.

I-81 avoids a lot of the East Coast population centers, bypassing them to the west, though has connections towards Philadelphia, New York City, and further Northeast through other interstates, and acts as a southwesterly outlet.

[dgolub]

I'd concur with I-95.  I-80 and I-90 may be longer, but a lot more of that length is through rural areas.

[thspfc]

Probably 95. Followed by 80, 70, 10, and 90, in that order. That's my guess.

[jeffandnicole]

Going with I-95 as well.  Just looking at a normal weekday commuter ADT, there are so many areas with 100,000+ vehicles on a daily basis, and are fairly localized.

When it comes to vacations and leisure travel, while some highways may see more of this in some locations, it's only for 2 days vs. 5 days for commuters, so the numbers would never be as high overall.

[nexus73]

Probably 95. Followed by 80, 70, 10, and 90, in that order. That's my guess.

Funny to think I have been on all of them except I-95.  My guess goes to I-80.

Rick

[SectorZ]

I concur with 95. Just seems logical based on the placement of the nation's population. Also think it's likelier that people from the West Coast have been to the East Coast for going to places like DC and NYC as opposed to vice-versa, only adding to the population advantage the East Coast already has in this case.

[Roadgeekteen]

Going with I-95 as well.  Just looking at a normal weekday commuter ADT, there are so many areas with 100,000+ vehicles on a daily basis, and are fairly localized.

When it comes to vacations and leisure travel, while some highways may see more of this in some locations, it's only for 2 days vs. 5 days for commuters, so the numbers would never be as high overall.

Actually, for this question, traveling it once and traveling it a thousand times count for the same.

[jaehak]

I concur with 95. Just seems logical based on the placement of the nation's population. Also think it's likelier that people from the West Coast have been to the East Coast for going to places like DC and NYC as opposed to vice-versa, only adding to the population advantage the East Coast already has in this case.

Actually this is probably an argument against 95. People flying from the west coast for NYC or DC visits would likely never see 95. Getting into town from LaGuardia, JFK, Dulles, and DCA doesn't involve 95. Plus, visitors to those two particular cities are probably more likely to walk/take transit/take taxis than they are to rent a car. That said I still assume 95 is the overall winner.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

My Midwestern conception is 95 is essentially one long traffic jam from Savannah to Portland. I don't think I'd say that about any other route. That wins.

[ftballfan]

2di: I-95
3di: I-495 (the Beltway)

[dlsterner]

I would be willing to wager that Jim Teresco of the "Travel Mapping" site could make a database query to find the answer for the Travel Mapping population.

That group may or may not be a microcosm of travelers in general, but the answer may be interesting nonetheless.

If I had to make a S.W.A.G. myself I'd probably choose "Main Street USA", i.e. I-95 ... like most others have.

[Crown Victoria]

I'll agree that I-95 would be the winner here, with contenders being I-90, I-80, I-78, I-70, I-40, I-75, I-81, and I-5 (can't leave the West Coast out) for 2dis.

For the 3dis, I'll guess I-495 (Washington Beltway), I-695 (Baltimore Beltway), I-295 (connecting I-95 to the NJ Turnpike over the Delaware Memorial Bridge), and the 405.

[vdeane]

I would be willing to wager that Jim Teresco of the "Travel Mapping" site could make a database query to find the answer for the Travel Mapping population.

That group may or may not be a microcosm of travelers in general, but the answer may be interesting nonetheless.

If I had to make a S.W.A.G. myself I'd probably choose "Main Street USA", i.e. I-95 ... like most others have.

It's now actually possible to view such on the map.  See https://travelmapping.net/user/mapview.php?u=vdeane&sys=usai (change to "Color by Traveler Count" and "Highlight All"; do NOT check "always update visible routes" unless you want to add other systems and potentially fry your computer).  The deepest blue appears to be I-95 immediately south of I-495, which does have the 150 travelers shown as the maximum.

[STLmapboy]

Yeah, 3dis (as mentioned upthread) are probably the Capital's 495 and LA's 405. Maybe NY's 278 is up there too? I'm shocked it's only six lanes, but there's nothing much to do about it.

[Ketchup99]

Yeah, 3dis (as mentioned upthread) are probably the Capital's 495 and LA's 405. Maybe NY's 278 is up there too? I'm shocked it's only six lanes, but there's nothing much to do about it.

Outside the box, but might I-476 be a contender? It handles a decent mix of frequent commuter traffic and long-distance, and is useful to people across a wide swath of America. I-287 might be up there too, connecting anyone who's ever taken I-80 east to I-95 north or the Thruway.

[ilpt4u]

And I was thinking "out of the box"  thinking either I-190 (IL) or I-294 for 3DIs, but granted, regional bias

Almost all O'Hare Airport O/D traffic ends up on 190 at some point, and a decent amount of it ends up on I-294, also

294 also benefits from having the short multiplex with I-80 grabbing much of the E-W traffic in the region, adding more passengers, in addition to its regular traffic bypassing Chicago N-S. Of course, I-74, I-39, and I-43 together now hurt some of 294's numbers, since they make a functional long distance Chicago bypass for N-S traffic

Still, hard to compare with NYC for O/D traffic. The difference with NYC, tho, is more airports. Chicago is funneled into mostly ORD with some MDW, and NYC has O/D traffic using JFK, LGA, and EWR

I would bet I-295 (Delaware/NJ/PA) owns the 3DI number, tho. Delaware Memorial Bridge, the main reason

Is there any way to try to get this information? Are traffic studies even conducted to research this? Percentage of population that has traveled any part of individual Interstate Highways?

[Eth]

I would be willing to wager that Jim Teresco of the "Travel Mapping" site could make a database query to find the answer for the Travel Mapping population.

That group may or may not be a microcosm of travelers in general, but the answer may be interesting nonetheless.

If I had to make a S.W.A.G. myself I'd probably choose "Main Street USA", i.e. I-95 ... like most others have.

It's now actually possible to view such on the map.  See https://travelmapping.net/user/mapview.php?u=vdeane&sys=usai (change to "Color by Traveler Count" and "Highlight All"; do NOT check "always update visible routes" unless you want to add other systems and potentially fry your computer).  The deepest blue appears to be I-95 immediately south of I-495, which does have the 150 travelers shown as the maximum.

That's actually a little too specific for what we're looking for, though; we just want to know who's been anywhere on the route, not necessarily any specific segment.

Fortunately, TM's new "connected route" feature made this not too tough to look up. It appears that 202 users have been on some part of I-95, but that's only good enough for third place. The top ten are:

Route	Drivers
I-80	216
I-90	216
I-95	202
I-70	199
I-40	197
I-10	195
I-81	187
I-64	181
I-77	172
I-94	171

Caveat: I-35 is almost definitely actually in the top ten (knocking I-94 out), but the E/W splits in Minnesota and Texas prevent it from all showing up as one connected route. The section between the two splits shows up in 14th place with 164.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

My other thinking is some routes are just too hard to avoid. For example, 35 has duplexes with 10, 40, 70, 80, and 94.