I thought an even first digit meant it loops back to the two digit namesake, and an odd one only intersected it once.
For instance, I-595 in Fort Lauderdale is a pure east-west that hits I-95 once.
I-295 in Jacksonville is a circle, and hits I-95 twice.
-D/a
I love how that entire wikipedia article is basically written from an astonishment point of view. It’s like the author just couldn’t believe that that intersate existed.
It doesn’t meet federal standards. It’s got several stoplights… but somehow it is an interstate.
Ah well, this is why we rarely should ever deal in absolutes 
The road was blocked at points by poles, i.e., pikes, that were raised on a hinged vertical base, i.e., turned. Think the gates that open to let you out of a parking garage, only much larger. You paid your toll and went about your business.
Most roads with the word “pike” in their names were at some point a toll road. Most continue to be major roads, which is precisely the reason they were initially built (usually by a private business) and tolled.
I-90 in Ohio, perhaps, but I-76 in PA and I-90/87 in NY
Freeways originally were limited access roads, period. The first ones were not highways in the modern sense, but more like boulevards, express routes within cities. Using freeway to mean free of tolls is a bit of folk etymology, trying to explain something using a “logical” story instead of actual research. You can read a detailed popular history in Earl Swift’s The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways.
Chronos, I repeat that in popular speech, all the terms are interchangeable. Freeways and highways and thruways and expressways and interstates and any other regionalism can all mean toll or free, include routes that may have stoplights and access roads, or any other variation that might exist locally. How exactly are you claiming that this is wrong?
To answer the OP, the term freeway denotes free flow of traffic.
Freeways and interstates have no at-grade intersections and no traffic signals, except in a few unusual cases such as drawbridges.
In the Midwest and some other places, early superhighways were called expressways, a shortening of express highway. In California and some other places, an expressway is a sort of junior superhighway, which may have infrequently spaced at-grade intersections and traffic signals, but not as many as ordinary roads or streets.
Thruway, turnpike, and toll road usually denotes a toll-financed facility. Most thruways and turnpikes were built prior to the 1956 legislation creating the Interstate system. Some ordinary surface roads were built as turnpikes in the 19th century and retain that name. A pike is merely a pole, which was turned to allow the traveler to pass when the toll had been paid.
A two-lane back road through the middle of nowhere might well be a highway, but it’s not a freeway.
The key to understanding a freeway is the phrase “limited access.”
Not only do you have on ramps, off ramps, and no traffic signals, the right-of-way boundaries of the freeway do not permit any type of access whatsoever. If you own a house that shares a property line with the freeway, you may not cut a hole in the fence and fashion your own personal driveway to the freeway.
At the time the property is acquired, there is a specific clause to the purchased land whereupon the right to access is taken.
This is why there is often considerable compensation to businesses which are affected by a new freeway. The businesses may be compensated, or a frontage road will be constructed.
~VOW
Not, of course, counting I99, which seems to horribly offend highway buffs because it violates the naming convention.
As a specific example, US 101 in California is a freeway part of the way and a non-freeway part of the way.
From the Wiki entry.
I often take it going south, and south of Gilroy there are stretches with cross traffic, though no traffic lights.
In fact here is a picture of an “End Freeway” sign on 101.
As with everything about this topic, there are notable exceptions, of which Breezewood, PA is perhaps the most famous.
I guess that makes sense; thanks. (Still seems weird to refer to the road itself as a “pike,” but no weirder than lots of languagey things, I guess.)
The term “highway” is rarely used in the northeast. There are expressways, thruways, parkways* (the generic term in NYC), turnpikes**, and (in NY) a couple of nonce names: the Adirondack Northway and the Quickway (a name I just love).
I can’t recall driving on any actual freeways. Maybe in Florida.
*Common in New York. NY Parkways are different in that they do not allow trucks (and have deliberately low bridges so trucks or buses can’t pass) and they have no route numbers.
**The Connecticut Turnpike has no tolls, though it originally did.
At sections along the road, there would be a tollbooth and a large bar or pole placed across the road. You would pay your toll at the booth and the tollbooth agent would move (turn) the bar (pike) out of your way so you could proceed. Then he would put the bar back for the next customer.
Ithaca, NY, the home of Cornell University, is a moderately isolated college town in the Southern Tier of New York. You can’t get there via an Interstate. The nearest one is I-86, a good 35 miles away. (I-86 is a good example of the variation in what high-speed roads are like. It’s built on top of NY route 17, which will someday all be I-86. Like nuclear fusion, this date has been 25 years away for the past 25 years. Route 17 is in most places, a four-lane, divided, high-speed limited access road. An expressway, IOW. But in a few places side roads and individual buildings retain direct access and even a few stoplights exist. Two large sections of it have been brought up to Interstate standards and they are labeled I-86/NY 17.)
Getting into Ithaca is a matter of taking any one of a half dozen New York state numbered roads, all of which are two lane, total access routes. (However, NY13 does have a few miles of high-speed, limited access on the east side of town out to the suburbs.)
The state numbered roads are part of the state highway system, just as I-86 is part of the interstate highway system. But nobody in Ithaca would ever say, take highway 96 north to Rochester. It would always be, take route 96 north to Rochester. You don’t take highway 13, either, even if it is an expressway for a few miles. You might say, take route 34 south and then the highway into New York City. I doubt that the use is at all common, though.
Highway was at one time the preferred name for a two-lane road that had been widened, graded, and paved to state standards. (National standards for interstate roads in the 20s through 40s.) The Lincoln Highway and dozens of others are covered in Swift’s book.
But we’re not asking what words are used for two-lane roads through the rural sections of states. We’re asking with words are used for four-lane, limited-access, high-speed routes. In that later case highway is a somewhat old-fashioned regionalism, but it is still interchangeable with expressway and the rest. It may have other meanings, too. Dictionary.com:
I’m using it in sense 1. You seem to be using sense 3. Fine, as long as we make a clear distinction.
Not for naming the major arteries, but “highway” is certainly a common term in my experience (and personal vocabulary) as the generic word that means “opposite of local street driving with stop lights and such”. As in the sentence, “The highways <any of them that would be in play> are totally jammed”.
As far as named roads, the “highways” tend to be multilane roads but street grade level with traffic lights, like Sunrise Highway (NY RT-27) that runs along most of the South Shore of Long Island and eventually becomes the Montauk Highway, and the West Side Highway in Manhattan. A big chunk of it is a “real” highway, but south of 57th St. or so down to the Battery (the southern tip of Manhattan), it has traffic lights and is street grade level.
So ironically, these two named Highways I use all the time are not, in fact, what I would otherwise call “highways” (they have red lights).
Can't speak for the rest of the state, but "parkway" is not the generic term in NYC. If I want to use a generic term as in " My son is learning to drive, but I'm not sure whether he's ready for __________ yet" or "All of the __________ are backed up, I'm going to take the streets" , the blanks will be filled in with "highways" not "parkways" or "expressways". And if you're just referring to the names of the roads, there are at least as many expressways as parkways in NYC (although plenty are not well-known, such as the Nassau Expressway and the JFK Expressway)
Just a TEENSY clarification:
Interstate highways (using the “I-” designation) and US highways (using the “US” designation) are ALL part of the State Highway System within the boundaries of the individual states. The State has complete jurisdiction and physical control of these structures.
The Federal government does not build or maintain any of these roads. The Feds have the construction standards, and control the pursestrings.
But ALL Interstates and US highways are 100% included in the individual State Highway Systems.
~VOW
So, why do people drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?
Just yesterday I drove from Santa Barbara to Long Beach, which involved driving on the 101 from Santa Barbara to Sherman Oaks.
Between Santa Barbara and Ventura, the “freeway” status of the road toggles on and off several times according to the signs, but generally with no changes to the road itself that a casual motorist would notice. Just a “BEGIN FREEWAY” sign here, and some time later another one reading “END FREEWAY.”