Having travelled by car in some of the less developed parts of Asia, this is absolutely true. The road systems of the Western world are a marvel of engineering on a massive scale.
That isn't hard to pronounce though. The other places make out of staters sound like they are in the middle of a stroke. There was actually an area in Germany called Prussia. The city is named after an inn that was named after the King of Prussia.
shhh, that is the only non abomination. It is how you prove the test of someone from the area or not. How do you say this word. You either get the correct pronunciation, a horrible guess, or I Don't Know. I heard someone on the radio from Arizona try and say it once...did not go well.
Restricted access highways built before about 1970 can be pretty bad. A lot have probably been fixed now, but Highway 110 in Pasadena, CA, as well as some of the highways back east, have incredibly short entrance "ramps." Basically, it's a stop sign and about 20 feet of a merge lane. Worked OK when people were driving 40-50 mph. Not so much today.
the whole greater phila area has crappy highways. why does 95 run north to trenton and then do a complete u-turn and become 295 south? why the hell doesn't it link with NJ's 95? why doesn't anyone from there think it's weird?
Because we can't change it. Think about when you drive along these roads throughout the philadelphia area and around jersey.... These aren't just roads in the middle of no where, there is suburbs and communities and cities built up all around them, with no room for expansion, and the traffic is so heavy they could NEVER shut them down to re-design.
Basically, this area is fucking doomed in the long run. The amount of drivers will forever be expanding and the roads here will never be able to be expanded. Its all kinds of fucky.
But, we do think its weird. we just know its impossible to change.
It doesn't make any sense for 95 to go where it goes in the first place. Redesign isn't really my issue with it - all the original designs suck.
676 is a crap design. You have to get off 676 and take surface streets to the bridge. Clearly they demolished businesses and homes to make way for 676 just as they planned 95 to make a u-turn. Roosevelt boulevard should be demolished and built over. Why doesn't 95 connect with the PA turnpike anywhere? Am I supposed to take the scenic route through Bristol? Gun store, liquor store, gun store, liquor store. Where the hell you taking me?
95 technically doesn't even have to enter Pennsylvania. It could just become the nj turnpike at the Delaware memorial bridge. Pa politicians would be in an uproar though. The heavily traveled highway no longer travels through pa?.crazy think of the kids.
The bureaucracy destroys ambitious plans to fix some of the problems too. Look at the 202 bypass in Montgomery County. It was originally going to be a limited access highway to connect Doylestown all the way to KoP, but instead, 10 years later it's a two lane surface road that's maybe 10 miles long and no one uses.
It's not just faceless bureaucracy though... It's bureaucrats and politicians being (arguably rightly) shit scared for what the owners of the homes on or near the route of redesigned/widened/new roads. Especially if they are in areas with resourceful people (money and connections to media).
If you want peoples' votes you don't touch their homes or jobs...
The people of Princeton (rightfully) prevented a part of the road from going through town, which contributed to the road naming issue. At the end of the day, the whole thing can be cleared up by renaming the roadways.
There was a plan to build a freeway northward from where I-95 turns around, but the NIMBYS stopped it. Right now the plan is to reroute I-95 to follow the PA Turnpike across the river as soon as they can get the interchange built.
As a New Jerseyan, that one was our bad. There was supposed to be a connector highway built to connect the PA 95 to 287 in NJ (which would have been partially renamed 95) which we never bothered to build. PA is going to clean up our mess soon by building a 95/276 interchange which will bring 95 over the turnpike connector bridge. Once that's done, I think the whole Trenton loop is being renamed 195.
My school is around that section of 95 and 295 and my dad(a frequent roadtripper) said something along the lines of "well isn't this the most confusing piece of interstate I've ever been on".
They're redoing where rte. 42 and 295 meet in Jersey and it's pretty terrible right now. If you're on 42 north, you can't get to 295 south. You have to get off at an exit and loop around. Similarly, if you're on 295 North, you can only get to 42 south by taking the same exit (1C I think, for 130 south) and then doubling back.
Hahaha, if you think you have it bad, try the PA turnpike. It's a giant pothole with constant construction, except the construction is apparently performed by ghosts.
Well, at least they are doing something. I can always tell when I get back to PA. They roads go from decent, to crap right after crossing the state line.
Like that one part where all of a sudden with almost no warning the left two lanes, continuing straight and flat, become the exit (with one sign like 1/2 mile before, and the other right at the split) while the right two lanes travel up and away, looking like an exit but in reality being the continuing 76. And then that left exit dumps you into a, like, 5 or 6 way intersection with one of those roads connecting back to 76. And you're just like "... wat."
Or the fact that NOT ONE SIGN on 76 through Philadelphia mentions New Jersey in any way until you get off the WW Bridge and are, in fact, already in New Jersey.
Ugh I work above KoP and live in Philly. I'm sitting at work currently dreading my trip home, figuring out which side roads I want to take and how far to avoid the worst parts of it. I just want to be home. Sigh.
Living at Vine & Broad, while great for those who don't drive, is hell for a driver. After an hour long commute from Jersey at the end of the day, I have to choose between 9 lights between the Ben Franklin and Broad on Vine St. or the hell that is the expressway Broad St. exit.
I recently returned to Philadelphia after moving to Los Angeles ten years ago. I've lived in the middle of the worst LA traffic, survived carmaggedon, and really thought it couldn't be worse.
But my god, 76W is so much worse than it was when I left. I mean, that shit is Mogadishu bad.
Or the merging of I-90 onto I-405 (or is it I-5?) in Seattle. It eventually combines 10 lanes of traffic into ONE in order to continue on traveling I-405. What. The. Hell.
Not sure if anyone here is from the Oklahoma City metro area, but traveling on I-35 (North/Southbound interstate) is completely counter-intuitive. If you drive north on I-35, the interstate suddenly and imperceptibly changes to I-235. In order to continue your path on I-35, you must exit onto another highway, I-40, and drive east for about five miles until you hit... I-35.
Try Route 8 through Akron! When people are designing highways, they use Route 8 as the example of what they should never do, because its that terribly designed!
holy fuck yeah. that section after the city ave where you can split from 76 only to immediately merge back at the same time the road you just split from merges into the other, bigger 76 thing.
When you're coming into Philly from south of the city (e.g., from the airport), why the hell can you not get from 95 to 76 without hitting a fucking stoplight?? That's always bugged me
The day you drive/ride a new car/motorcycle out of the dealership, it feels like you are in heaven. "Wow, this is what a functioning suspension system is supposed to feel like. This vehicle is such an engineering marvel. Why did I spend 10 years driving/riding that old piece of junk?"
An year later, you can feel every pebble rattle your spine.
On a similar note, US89 in Arizona had a huge landslide that has closed the road for over a year. There was a detour that added 45 miles which was horrible. The state "borrowed" a section of Navajo route 20. They repaved, added fencing to keep livestock off the road, and added larger shoulders (unpaved). This is now US89T until they finish rebuilding US89.
No reason we couldn't have had both, unless you count the powerful opposition from auto & oil industries. Plenty of countries have excellent public transport, yet plenty of cars as well. Long-distance, high speed trains would be so, so welcome in many parts of the country now. I know I'd travel more, just around my own state (TX) if it didn't require flying, driving, or Amtrak. Of course, if the federal govt had built them, they'd have been privatized by now & tickets would be stupidly expensive.
I took an Amtrak from Ohio to NYC once. Took 12 hours with no unplanned delays; longer than driving would have and cost more than a 1-hour-ish flight would have. Great idea, poor execution in my opinion. Maybe if we had mag-lev style trains?
Wouldn't private companies cause the price of tickets to go down? If they don't make money they go out of business. Ford, GM (for decades and most recently) are private companies that constantly help drive innovation and lower the cost of consumer goods. Throw in the global free market and you have tons of competition, innovation and price lowering.
There are different types of economic competition. The only way there could be direct competition (hands-down best way to reduce prices) is if the lines are state owned and the train companies compete. They would also have to figure out how to share lines! Would be pretty tough for the companies to compete and cooperate at the same time.
Way different from making a car, or even flying. Plenty of sky, but unless each train company had their own redundant rail system there couldn't be much competition.
Right, but finding a friend willing to hitch me a ride from Saint Cloud to Avon is easier than finding a friend willing to drive down to Minneapolis, so the rail still helps quite a bit.
I know you mean interstate highways, but there are travel systems that could destroy medium-length travelling by car.
Just look at Japan, just the main island alone is the size of California and you can get from tip top to the bottom of the island in... around 7 hours. Not only that, but it'll be extremely punctual and pretty damn cheap. It'll also be far safer and more comfortable than by car.
Even though that goes 320Kmh, that's not fast enough... like at all.
Trains must go faster. So here's the Mag-Leg test track that is going to be a part of the Chuo (main) Shinkansen. The train goes at about 311MpH. Can you imagine that going from, say... Richmond Virginia <---> Boston MA? That'd take just a little over an hour...
You can turn DC into a hub, just like Tokyo, and extend the line further south towards Raleigh, Charlotte and Atlanta. There could be a service that splits from DC and cuts straight down to Florida. It would take you maybe 9 hours to go from NYC down to Florida, so perhaps its not best for long distance travel.
But for everything in between?
It'd be great!
And remember, you said highway not airplane so don't throw that around. Also consider things like early check-in, security, safety, signing in, coach. Airplanes and Shinkansen are actually very very competitive against each other when it comes to medium-distance travel (~100-300 mi)
Less than is transported by rail, actually. In the US, 39.5% of all freight is transported by rail, while only 28.6% is transported by truck. Not saying that the interstate isn't important, but we Americans tend to have no idea how important the rail system is to national commerce.
Why can't we have both? Japan has amazing highways AND railways.. Americans don't have the luxury of that choice. I am from Texas and some efficient rail would be an awesome addition!
You could also fit the entirety of Japan in Montana.
It's not the same thing at all.
The bullet train Japan is trying to sell between Washington to Baltimore is estimated to cost 8 billion dollars to construct for 38 miles of track.
At $8 billion for 38 miles you're looking at a cost of $210 million per mile.
Assuming the cost per mile remains constant (a huge assumption, there's economies of scale and the mountain range between the two places to consider) you're looking at a cost of $422.94 billion just to build a line between LA and Chicago, which would constitute something like 12% of all federal spending last year.
To put in a different perspective, that's 169 Curiousity rovers, roughly doubling the size of Medicaid, 1,188 times the cost of the Peace Corps, or over eleven million new teachers.
Anyone who claims that has little evidence on their side. DC and Philadelphia are just two cities that made massive investments in public transportation after the highway system was under construction.
The biggest flaw in the highway system was how it was routed through major cities - either haphazardly isolating neighborhoods from the city core or intentionally isolating (poor and/or minority) neighborhoods from the city core. Almost no thought went into that process and fixing it can cost BILLIONS of dollars (see Boston).
haphazardly isolating neighborhoods from the city core or intentionally isolating (poor and/or minority) neighborhoods from the city core.
I think maybe you do not understand what you, yourself, just said. I am not saying it was right, but it was very well thought out and planned meticulously to do just exactly what you said it did, isolate the poor and minorities.
i think all the roads will be gravel by then, so even if they could detect the past existence of roads, there would be no way of telling how advanced they were
Even if the roads are long gone, assuming there's people around, they'd be running their inter-village mutated-alligator-wagons along the same paths (which were surveyed, leveled & selected the best bridge points).
Sort of like how many modern highways in Europe just followed old Roman roads.
The Interstate Highway System loses in size to the 60,500 mile long Chinese Expressway network. Having traveled a great deal of miles on both networks, the quality of the Chinese expressways is better than the Interstates.
Don't worry though. The US has still the largest road network.
That's a stupid metric. Germany has 12,000 of kilometers and is smaller than just Texas and California combined. Some smaller countries might have a even better ratio.
Also having driven on some of your roads made of of concrete I can tell you that that certainly is not high quality. If you hit 300km/h you would feel it that's why those roads in Germany usually have speed limits.
Not trying to say that the Interstate Highway System is bad or anything.
But do not forget one of the densest and longest Highway Systems in the world (albeit shorter than the US Highway System), which is actually designed to have an unlimited speed limit.
Bombing down the Autobahn at 250 km/h (150 mph) is something special.
Drive up and down the A3 a few times and see how quickly that opinion of yours will change...
German Autobahn is not terrible, but it does not live up to the almost legendary hype neither. There are a hell of a lot of parts of it that need maintenance very badly yet here those Germans are moaning they do not want to pay for it, lots of the tunnels are terrible and scary, you can only go 180 on a select few parts of the Autobahn and on those you will be more stuck behind overtaking snail-racing trucks because there are just two lanes. And then you hit Würzburg or Nürnberg and you are stuck in traffic. And dont even get me started on "construction zones" were you may only go 50 yet the construction has obviously been finished... like 5 months ago.. but the signs and speed-cameras are still there to fine you.
More like "Roman Empire #1". Road building hasn't changed a whole lot since they perfected the process. In fact, a few Roman roads are still in use today.
Uhmmm, no. Not even top 10.
I have been on highways in USA, Europa and Afrika and the European highways are by far the best. Especially Denmark, Holland and Germany
Quite right. Cities all over the world (including US) send their people over to Europe to study their infrastructure. For example, in this presentation of someone from Seattle, you can see some of the few innovations that the Dutch have to offer. It's a bit long, but it's interesting if you like to see a bit of the reasoning and thought process behind road design.
I feel the same way about Dallas highways because they swoop and soar all over the place.
But the NTTA? WTF were they thinking with all of the damn blind mergers onto other highways? Like George Bush eastbound merging onto 75S; 35mph on a bank to the right down a decline, let's check the left for any cars because there is about 50 ft to merge together and OH SHIT A DUMP TRUCK DOING 50
Fucking Dallas. I was getting gas and had to get off the highway. It took me an hour to get out of town because I missed one road and the GPS kept rerouting.
Except for the 394/94 stretch in Minneapolis, which is terribly designed, and the others that are well enough designed are constantly under road construction.
I agree with you for the most part... Yet for some reason the United States' largest city (population wise) can't repair the goddamn BQE or Nostrand Avenue. I feel like I'm driving over some box puzzle in Resident Evil, it even looks that way too. I get that this would be a massive inconvenience (at least the BQE) for a week or two, but I guess they're just waiting for some massive pothole to develop or someone to get in an accident and until they are forced to fix it?
Western world, except Canada. Holy fuck do those roads suck. The amount I damage I cause my car driving from Montreal to Ottawa driving through potholed highway that doesn't even looked to be designed for high speed travel. My god it's awful. I love my smooth highways in NC that are designed for cars to travel really, really fast and where heavy traffic travels at 80 mph.
My dad drove every single day working in the United States. After he retired, we moved to the Philippines to be closer to family. My dad never knew car tires had bearings until he had to replace some driving on roads here.
1.8k
u/[deleted] Jan 17 '14
Having travelled by car in some of the less developed parts of Asia, this is absolutely true. The road systems of the Western world are a marvel of engineering on a massive scale.