Most substandard on- or off-ramp on an Interstate

[Kacie Jane]

There are some pretty nasty left merges along US 1 in both Trenton and Newark, but fortunately that's not an Interstate.

FTFY.  (I know you meant "unfortunately" for the purposes of this thread, but it's an interesting choice of words, especially considering US 1 in Trenton was one of the originally proposed alignments for I-95.  Hopefully if it had become I-95, it would have been upgraded sometime in the past half-century.)

[bassoon1986]

Also, up I-35E in Denton are some very short on/off ramps with inadaquate length weave areas. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=33.113287,-97.027846&spn=0.001281,0.003085&t=h&z=19

That Denton link was the same as the Lake Dallas Exit. Did you mean the N. Texas Blvd/ Mc Cormick Street exits? Exiting McCormick southbound is probably the worst and it dumps you right onto the service road. Granted, the speed limit is actually 55 through there, but no one goes that slow unless there's traffic.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=denton,+tx&hl=en&ll=33.20361,-97.150509&spn=0.001147,0.002401&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=35.547176,78.662109&hnear=Denton,+Texas&t=h&z=19

[JREwing78]

I'll nominate 3 fairly infamous exits off what was constructed as US-12 in the early 1950's, but was later grandfathered into the interstate system as I-94.

I-94, Exit 130, Parma, MI:
http://g.co/maps/p23da

It doesn't look so terrible, but the ramps are barely 500' long, and you have little distance to merge safely into 70+mph traffic. Oh, did I mention the grade on those on-ramps is sharply uphill? Also, this stretch gets 30,000-40,000 vehicles per day, about 10,000 of them commercial vehicles.


I-94, Exit 133, Spring Arbor, MI:
http://g.co/maps/csywm

The ramps are just as short, but EBD used to be a real deathtrap. Up until a couple years ago, that EBD on-ramp didn't have that stretch of 3rd lane to merge from. If you didn't merge in time, you didn't have grass to run off on like you did at Exit 130. You had a Jersey barrier on a bridge to crash into instead.


I-94, Exit 137, Jackson, MI
http://g.co/maps/jbmtj

Take the two exits before, add more traffic, and put it on the outskirts of an urban area. I took a test drive in a new small economy sedan here once, and had it floored from the entrance of the EBD on-ramp. It barely reached 50 before I was forced to merge into traffic, right in front of a semi driver who easily was traveling 10-15mph faster. Impressively, neither me nor the salesperson riding shotgun needed new pants afterwards, but it was close.


Yes, there's worse in Michigan - take a drive on I-94 EBD past Telegraph into downtown Detroit for a taste. But these are striking because the rest of the highway is largely interstate standard. But this stretch between mile markers 129 and 145 is a dangerous exception.

[flowmotion]

This one gets brought up pretty often here - The I-94 / US-52 Lafayette Bridge junction in Saint Paul, MN. Some of these appear to be signed for 20MPH.

http://g.co/maps/52drk

[flowmotion]

And I-95 thru traffic on a 25MPH cloverleaf in Boston MA certainly deserves a mention.

http://g.co/maps/wzuhk

[MrDisco99]

The BQE (I-278) in Brooklyn is easily the worst.

The Atlantic Ave. on-ramps both have a stop sign merge after a blind curve.  Always an adventure.

NB:
http://g.co/maps/w6ndy

SB:
http://g.co/maps/3gcwr

[InterstateNG]

I just mentioned that I-35 through Austin has some pretty bad ramps in another thread.

Driving through Treasure Island, yeah, those are pretty bad.

I didn't think the 290-Shrewsbury ramp was all that bad, to be honest.  I do remember a giant rut or bump or something with the road that felt like I drove my car off a curb about a mile before that exit, which helped soothe my nerves after a 14 hour drive.

[civilmaher]

this is a pretty nasty on-ramp/off-ramp weave that my family and i have to travel through every thanksgiving

Van Wyck Expressway
I-678 at Exit 4
http://g.co/maps/fp6me

[kendancy66]

Driving South on what was Temp I-85 just north of Lexington, NC at US-64 interchange, you had to "exit" onto one lane ramp to stay on I-85 South.  I saw a driver who was in left lane about to miss ramp and cut off drivers in the other lanes to stay  on I-85

[hbelkins]

And I-95 thru traffic on a 25MPH cloverleaf in Boston MA certainly deserves a mention.

http://g.co/maps/wzuhk

I-55 does the same thing in Memphis, and IIRC I-76 in Akron.

[PHLBOS]

And I-95 thru traffic on a 25MPH cloverleaf in Boston MA certainly deserves a mention.

http://g.co/maps/wzuhk

Yes & no.  Yes, in that it is a very sharp turn for a thru-Interstate; no, in that I-95 North thru-traffic was NOT originally planned to make such a turn.  I-95 was originally supposed to continue along through north of this interchange towards Boston (the interchange is actually in Canton BTW).  But the I-95 extension (known as the Southwest Expressway) was killed off in the early 1970s. 

Had the northern extension of the Northeast Expressway (aka I-95) through Lynn been built (that proposal was ultimately killed off circa 1973-74) sans the Southwest Expressway; 95 would've been routed along what's known as I-93 today from Canton to just north of the now-Zakim Bridge and that ramp (originally intended as an cloverleaf ramp to northbound 128) would not be a thru-traffic ramp in a sense.

It is worth noting that MassDOT does have plans to completely re-do this interchange and provide fly-over ramps for thru I-95 northbound traffic and southbound I-93/95 traffic.
http://www.mhd.state.ma.us/cantoninterchange/project_description.html

Another one to add to the list: I-295 in Bellmawr/Mt. Ephriam, NJ thru-traffic lanes/ramps at the I-76/NJ 42 interchange with the infamous Al-Jo curve for 295 southbounders (sharp 35 MPH left turn).  Unlike the above-95/93 Canton interchange; this one was designed and built like this from the get-go.

Like the Canton interchange, NJDOT does have plans to revamp this interchange as well.

http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/works/studies/rt295/fd.shtm

[jcarte29]

Driving South on what was Temp I-85 just north of Lexington, NC at US-64 interchange, you had to "exit" onto one lane ramp to stay on I-85 South.  I saw a driver who was in left lane about to miss ramp and cut off drivers in the other lanes to stay  on I-85

And now, south of Lexington, the Yadkin River Bridge/exit for NC 150, which separates Davidson and Rowan Counties is very substandard and old but is being re-constructed. It will soon be 6-8 Lanes from Durham all the way to Concord (and beyond)!

[PurdueBill]

I-55 does the same thing in Memphis, and IIRC I-76 in Akron.

76 fortunately manages to take the outside of both trumpets as it switches from following US 224 to following I-77 (and then taking it over futher east).  In both directions, you first take the outside of a trumpet, then take one of the 90-degree ramps.  

I-77 traffic using 277 and 76 as the bypass around downtown (posted as the way to go southbound on 77, not advertised as well northbound) gets to deal with an inside trumpet loop either direction.

[PurdueBill]

Nearby to my above post's location, the ramps at I-76 and OH 21 are very substandard.  Even the outside ramps are bad, but the EB-NB loop ramp takes the cake.  The gore signage has to be regularly replaced or re-erected.  The yellow arrow sign under the gore sign used to be posted separately to the right of the gore sign but ODOT got tired of resetting so many posts!  The 20 mph advisory speed is probably still generous.  That ramp, as you can see in the aerial, is much more squished than the others at the interchange due to the adjacent golf course.

[roadman]

For a truly bad Interstate to Interstate ramp connection, try I-295 NB to I-95 NB in Attleboro (MA) This ramp features a very sharp compound 270 degree curve that actually tightens as you go through the ramp.

I-290 EB to I-495 NB in Marlborough (MA) is a close second, with its left hand exit and reverse curve configuration.

[PurdueBill]

I-290 EB to I-495 NB in Marlborough (MA) is a close second, with its left hand exit and reverse curve configuration.

Is the 290 to 495 ramp the one with the lighted jersey barrier? I swear I can remember seeing a continuous small tubular lighting thing atop the barrier at least at the start of the curve.

[PHLBOS]

For a truly bad Interstate to Interstate ramp connection, try I-295 NB to I-95 NB in Attleboro (MA) This ramp features a very sharp compound 270 degree curve that actually tightens as you go through the ramp.

Again, like the fore-mentioned I-95/I-93 interchange in Canton; the mainline 295 corridor was originally planned to continue east as I-895 (the road would've shortly turned south and head towards Newport, RI).  IIRC, there are still plans to extend the road to MA 152 in Attleboro.

I-290 EB to I-495 NB in Marlborough (MA) is a close second, with its left hand exit and reverse curve configuration.

Originally, the ramp from I-290 East to I-495 North was a cloverleaf ramp.  As with other 'partial cloverleaf' highway interchanges in Massachusetts; that interchange was designed under the presumption that I-290 would continue further east and connect to MA 2 and possibly even I-95 (MA 128).  While the road does extends further east today (it didn't used to), it only goes a mile or two goes to MA 85.  I'm not positive but the opneing of that extension likely coincided with the new left-turn ramp for I-495 North.  I guess a high-speed fly-over ramp would've been a bit too costly to construct.

[Alps]

There are some pretty nasty left merges along US 1 in both Trenton and Newark, but fortunately that's not an Interstate.

FTFY.  (I know you meant "unfortunately" for the purposes of this thread, but it's an interesting choice of words, especially considering US 1 in Trenton was one of the originally proposed alignments for I-95.  Hopefully if it had become I-95, it would have been upgraded sometime in the past half-century.)

I'd love to see US 1 redesignated I-395 from PA up to the end of the freeway. Maybe not so much the northern freeway, though the continuous route from NJ 81 through NJ 139 could be I-595.

Was trying to think of NJ examples.

How about I-280 in Newark, just west of Stickel Bridge?  EB on ramp from Route 21 NB ends in stop sign with horrible sight distance.

Ehh... the worst ramp is Broad Street, since it ends at a stop sign with only 2 mainline lanes. The next ramp adds a lane (I believe that's SB-EB), and then the remaining ramp just stops at that right lane - sort of a ramp junction on the mainline, as it were. I agree, it's very substandard.

[pianocello]

I-55 does the same thing in Memphis, and IIRC I-76 in Akron.

As well as both I-74 and I-80 in Colona, IL

The Illinois-bound on-ramps at exit 4 on I-74 in IA have sharp curves and no merging room. Map

[Kacie Jane]

I'd love to see US 1 redesignated I-395 from PA up to the end of the freeway. Maybe not so much the northern freeway, though the continuous route from NJ 81 through NJ 139 could be I-595.

At the risk of continuing an off-topic tangent, I'll just say that this may have worked in the 50's or 60's.  But it seems that in 2012 we live in a world where we can no longer grandfather in interstates, and roads have to be 100% up to standards before the get red, white, and blue shield.  Which could not and would not ever happen on the Pulaski Skyway.

[Brandon]

The rapid-fire ramps on the Kennedy (I-90/94) just north of the Circle Interchange (I-290).  Left entries every block with right exits.

[andrewkbrown]

Many of the on and off ramps of I-68 in Cumberland, MD.

[bugo]

There was the Deathramp from 51st Street to I-44 in Tulsa but now it's gone.

[Beeper1]

Exit 10 on-ramp to I-90 (Mass Pike) WB in Auburn.   Loop ramp with too tight of a radius that trucks roll on all the time.  It's also two lanes, which is very sharp on the right (inside) lane.

[MASTERNC]

The Speers exit (Pa 88) on I-70 in SW Pa.

Or the couple with stop signs.

I would also nominate the I-376 interchange with PA 121 in Green Tree (near Pittsburgh).  Two on-ramps are loop ramps with a stop sign at the end.  The right most lane of the Interstate at that point is an exit only lane that exits less than 100 feet upstream.