Most Diverse Interstate Highway in your state

[bassoon1986]

I want to know what interstate highway in your home-state (or the state in which you presently live or have lived in) you think stands out from the others in that state. It may be a geographical reason, such as crossing diverse terrain across the state. It could also be a historical reason or maybe how parts of its design or looks make it unique.

Here's one of my examples:

I have by no means traveled on all of the Texas interstates yet, but I noticed something interesting on a trip from Dallas to Houston recently. I-45 may  seem like a pretty boring interstate drive, but its exits (and not the type of exits: cloverleaf, trumpet...) seem to capture something unique to Texas. Except for maybe the Ranch to Market road,and a Business TX highway,  I-45 has an exit with every type of Texas state highway, plus a few oddities.

Obviously there are interchanges with Texas highways: TX 7, TX 21, TX 105.....and FM highways: FM 80, FM 275, FM 1960

Exits with old Urban Routes: 10- FM 519 (UR 519) in LaMarque
                                      12-FM (UR) 1765 in LaMarque
                                      15-FM (UR) 1764 and 2004 in LaMarque
                                      19- FM (UR) 517 in Dickinson
                                      (and many more UR's throughout Houston)

Exits with Spurs: 1A-Spur 342 in Galveston
                        136- Spur 67, near Madisonville

Exits with Loops: 84B- Loop 336, Conroe
                       263A- Loop 561, Trumbull
                       279 - Loop 12, Dallas

Exits with Tolled Roads: 32 and 60, Sam Houston Tollway in Houston
                                 Exit 72, Hardy Toll Road 


Exits with Specialty highways:   Exit 24 - Nasa Route 1
                                           
                                           Exit 31 - Beltway 8 (the numbered service road for Sam Houston Tollway)     
                                           
                                           Exit 109- Park Rd. 40, and is also a Brown Exit sign 
                                           
                                           Exit 152 - Texas OSR (Old San Antonio Road)
                                           



And of course interchanges with Interstates: 610, and 635, 3di's
                                                             10, 20, and 30, 2di's
                 Interstate 45 Business Loops: in Corsicana
                                                               in Ennis 
                                                               in Palmer
                                                               in Ferris


Interchanges with US highways: 59, 79, 84, 90, 175, 190, 287
                                             and ALT US 90 (exit 41A)

                                 


       

[Darkchylde]

Current I-49. Transitions from (what passes for) LA's hilly country down to the swamps at the end, and passes through three of the state's larger cities (Shreveport, Alexandria and Lafayette).

Once completed, it will be more so as it will actually pass through the swamps themselves and lead to New Orleans, allowing for one to experience a full cross-section of the state's cultures along the way.

[bassoon1986]

I agree Dark...I would have said I-10, but 49 has/will have the same sort of geographical contrast, and it will be longer than I-10, even without the southern extension

[agentsteel53]

I-5.  urban coastal, rural coastal, urban modern, urban antiquated, bizarre interchange, more urban, rural mountain pass (desert edition), miles and miles of cows, big fucking volcano, rural mountain pass (forest edition)

[Takumi]

My pick for Virginia is I-64. It crosses the most kinds of terrain and has very rural and very urban sections.

[D-Dey65]

Exit 109- Park Rd. 40, and is also a Brown Exit sign  
                                         

The Southern State Parkway has that for Valley Stream State Park, but that was from back in the days when they were replacing those old small wooden signs with brown & white ones. What they should do is replace the green ones for Hempstead Lake State Park and Belmont Lake State Park, with brown ones.

[rawmustard]

Michigan's is so patently obvious I should not need to mention its number. Being the only state trunkline on both peninsulas, it crosses through urban, suburban, farmland, and forested areas with a little bit of coastal mixed in.

[corco]

I-17 in Arizona probably. Starts in the high plains and drops through the mountains into the desert.

Idaho is an interesting case- all four interstates serve pretty much one geographical region. I guess I-15 is the most diverse, since it's a combination of high desert with a tiny bit of mountain driving in it. You could talk me into I-90 being the most diverse too.

I would have to say I-90 in Wyoming too- there's the high plains with good view of the Big Horns, high plains with no view, eastern part of Black Hills. I-25 and I-80 are fairly similar end-to-end.

Washington is easy- I-90 is the only route that traverses both sides of the Cascades, so it's a shoo-in.

[US71]

I-540 between Alma & Fayetteville, AR

Not only does it have Bobby Hopper Tunnel, but it has the tallest highway bridges and crosses some of the harshest terrain in the state.
Just south of Mountainburg, 540 passes under AR 282 then a mile north,  passes over it.

When Winter weather sets in, the area around the tunnel may see up to a foot of snow, while communities to the north or south may only see a couple inches.

In the Spring, it may be raining north of the tunnel, but sunny on the south end.

Heading north from Alma, it's a long, slow, gradual incline. But as you enter Fayetteville, it's a much shorter, more pronounced decline.

[1995hoo]

This thread's subject line had me scratching my head to think of what road passes through the areas with the highest minority populations.

Funny thing is, when I approach it from that point of view I still come to the same answer I arrive at when I consider it in the intended context: Same thing Takumi said–I-64. I-81 is long but doesn't go near big cities, and I-95 goes through two major metro areas but doesn't come close to any mountains. I-64 also crosses the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.

[NE2]

This thread's subject line had me scratching my head to think of what road passes through the areas with the highest minority populations.

No, it's the road that's diverse, with black asphalt and white concrete. No brown brick on Interstates.

[US71]

This thread's subject line had me scratching my head to think of what road passes through the areas with the highest minority populations.

No, it's the road that's diverse, with black asphalt and white concrete. No brown brick on Interstates.

????

[Beltway]

This thread's subject line had me scratching my head to think of what road passes through the areas with the highest minority populations.

Funny thing is, when I approach it from that point of view I still come to the same answer I arrive at when I consider it in the intended context: Same thing Takumi said–I-64. I-81 is long but doesn't go near big cities, and I-95 goes through two major metro areas but doesn't come close to any mountains. I-64 also crosses the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.

From the mountains to the sea. Well, I-264 connects I-64 to a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.

[triplemultiplex]

Well for Wisconsin I'd have to go with the longest numbered route in the state: I-94.  It's geographically diverse from the hills and rock cuts of the western uplands, across the pancake-flat central sand plain, bounding through the drumlin fields, dodging the lakes of the Kettle Moraine and down to one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.  And you get a diverse selection of freeway types.  From rural four lane to a modern 5 level stack interchange.  From a narrow fifty-year-old urban freeway with crummy little left-hand ramps to a beautifully modernized stretch of rural 8 lanes the longest in the state.  You'll find system interchanges with tight, narrow ramps that are falling apart and system interchanges where you don't even need to take off the cruise control while you pass slower traffic on the ramp itself.

[Brandon]

In Illinois, I'd have to say it is also the longest one, I-57.  I-57 is in both urban and rural environments.  It has modern interchanges and old, substandard ones.  It crosses the flat plains and goes through the hills of far southern Illinois.  Along the way is prosperity and growth in places like Bradley and Champaign.  And there is decay and poverty in places like Harvey and Cairo.  One can follow it from Cairo into Chicago.

[Duke87]

For New York, I suppose I-87 by default, since it is the only one that is both in the city and upstate. Although really, once you get north of Suffern, with the exception of Albany there isn't much change in scenery.

For Connecticut, I-84. Does more back and forth between urban and rural than 91 or 95 and is more diverse designwise. Has more interesting interchanges than the other two.

[Alps]

NJ has several choices. I like I-280 - starts out looking rural, then gains a third lane and heads up and down mountains in the suburbs. After having been asphalt, it transitions to concrete and has a long urban trenched section - only one in NJ. Suddenly, it comes into a 5-lane section and abruptly exits itself, at which point it's on a 1950s four-lane state highway that's barely a freeway, let alone close to Interstate standards. Through some substandard ramps and the city of Newark, it then crosses a drawbridge, and suddenly widens out into a flat six-lane freeway through an industrial area. In order to clinch the highway, you technically have to pass the toll plaza at the Turnpike.

[hbelkins]

Kentucky would be I-75. Mountainous in the south, passes through the Knobs area, through the flat land of Lexington, into the rolling Outer Bluegrass, then into an urban environment in Northern Kentucky. Beats out I-64 because the mountains near the Tennessee border on 75 are steeper than those near the West Virginia border on 64.

[goobnav]

I-40 in NC, starts in the rockslide cliff faces in Western NC past the highest moutains East of the Mississippi, down past the foothills and the Triad area of Winston-Salem, Greensboro, & High Point, the 8 lane mulitplex with I-85 from east of Greensboro to just west of Durham, forming Tobacco Road in the Triangle of Raleigh, Durham, & Chapel Hill and then finally the rural areas of Coastal Plain of Eastern NC and then ending at the Port city of Wilmington.

[Mr_Northside]

For Pennsylvania, I'm gonna have to vote for I-376.
It cuts thru the heart of the 2nd biggest city in PA, and is also in fairly rural areas.
Some of it is free, some of it is toll.
It utilizes tunnels, and a double-decked bridge.
It has portions that are woefully substandard, and new portions that are quite good.
Pretty much every interchange in the stretch from Monroeville to I-79 is some unique setup (as opposed to a "diamond", etc...).
It has an exit for buses only (not sure that counts for much)
As a 3-DI it's both a loop and a spur.
The roadway it uses has a plethora of names, being that stretches were built at different times, even though it is fairly continuous roadway (the one exception being the trumpet @ US-422 near New Castle, though that has been worked on, and they did a good job making I-376 feel like the thru route with a left exit / entrances).

Almost forgot, it also has a "Business Interstate" route.


A good chunk of that could be also be used for it's parent (I-76), but I-376 does all that with only a 1/4 of the mileage, so it gets my vote.

[achilles765]

Definitely IH 10 here in Texas.  From the flat swamplands of Eastern Texas and Louisiana, to the cityscape of Houston, then through the midlands to San Antonio, and into the desert and desert hills as it winds toward El Paso.  880 miles from one border to the other, cutting a swath through Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso. 

That said, I prefer IH 45 personally.

[kphoger]

I'd say I-35 for Kansas, simply because it goes through the Flint Hills.  I grew up in western Kansas not far from I-70, and there's not a whole lot of change between Salina and the Colorado line.

[Darkchylde]

As for my onetime home state, Colorado, I'd say I-70 hands-down. Arid mountains and ski country, the Glenwood Canyon,  some of the highest points on the Interstate system, that transition from the Rockies down into Denver, then from there eastward, the High Plains in all their glory. There's very little the state has to offer that can't be found along that route.

[empirestate]

Gotta be I-87 for NYS: Antique urban expressway in the Bronx (including the stupefying Highbridge Interchange), suburban toll road in Westchester and Rockland Counties, with the Tappan Zee Bridge to boot, then traditional ticket toll road north of Harriman. Through Albany and Saratoga Counties it's a heavily suburban free Interstate, then you have the Adirondack Mountain scenery followed by some more level plains in the far north. And throw in a border crossing at the end.

I-81 gets honorable mention as well; you get the Upstate urban feel in both Binghamton and especially Syracuse, heavy suburbanization north of the 'Cuse, and quite different types of scenery through Broome and Cortland Counties versus in Oswego and Jefferson.

[The High Plains Traveler]

I-70.  Starts in Utah, ends in Kansas. 'nuff said. (Though, there aren't trees at either end).