Ok…maybe not everybody. Maybe just myself and a friend in Indianna, where interstate exits are numbered by distance from the western (for east-west routes) or southern (north-south) state line. Here in Massachusetts, interstate exits are numbered consecutively.
I tried valiantly to defend my state’s system but ultimately had to acknowledge that it was just plain stupid. As my friend pointed out, you can add or remove an exit with no problem if you number them according to mile markers. Try doing that with a consecutive system and look out Lucy! Also, the former system makes it unbelievably easy to calculate the distance between exits as well as distances to and from the next state. It was embarassing to think that my State, the land of the Bean and the Cod, could be so, “retahded,” as we say around these parts.
So help me out, here…why * do* some states still use consecutive numbers to identify interstate exits? Are there ** any** benefits that I’ve neglected to consider?
Georgia switched to the “nearest mile marker” method a few years ago. Other than some businessess having to change stationery and signs, there was little fuss.
They did this because of so many new roads being built and intersecting the interstates. Having to add letters to an exit number (32A, 32B, etc) got to be cumbersome and confusing. The only places you see those now is when another interstate crosses over.
North Carolina also switched a few years ago. When I was living there, we got off at exit 13 to go home, because it was the 13th exit from the start of the expressway. Last time I was there, though, it was a completely different number.
I can’t think of any good reason to use a consecutive-order numbering system.
The one hitch in the mile marker scheme, though is loop expressways around large cities. I had to travel around Indianapolis a couple of weeks ago, and got on the expressway (465) around exit 16 or so, and was supposed to get off at exit 53. So I’m think it’s going to be around 40 minutes or so to the exit. It only took less than 15 minutes, though, because I was going backwards on the circle, and 53 was the highest-numbered exit, so it caught me by surprise. Of course, this would have been a problem with the consecutive system, too.
Loop expressways drive me bats anyway, though, even as useful as they are…
The only possible benefit I can think of is that I know that the next exit coming up is mine. Let’s say I know that I have to get off at exit 19. As soon as I pass #18, I know the next one is mine.
I think Florida still uses the consecutive number system.
Florida is in the process of changing theirs as well. I’ve never understood the consecutive numbering system having been raised in Indiana. It’s not often that we get something right!
New York uses the consecutive number system (except for one route I-890 in Schenectady, and most people don’t even realize it’s numbered by miles). I don’t find it all that heinous. Even the mileage system requires A and B (check out I-83), so I hardly find A’s or B’s on a nonmileage system to be a serious issue.
The miles are convenient, but so it knowing exactly how many exits you have to go.
AFAIK, we are all the way converted. Now all the exits on I-95 use the mile marker number as the exit number, but also will say something like “OLD 43” in small letters in a corner of the sign (43 being the old exit number under the consecutive system).
PA managed to drag itself kicking and screaming into the mid 1950s and renumber things based upon mile marker, however in typical fashion, we couldn’t just slap stickers over the old numbers-we had to make all new signs with updated interchange numbers, and then hang smaller signs beneath the big signs for the terminally brain-dead telling them that exit 343 used to be called exit 27. Why not, I’ve got lots of money for PENNDOT to waste.
I beg to differ. Having traveled all over these United States, telling me that I have 29 exits to go gives me very little information. 29 exits could be 300 miles in a state like Montana. However, if I’m at exit 29 in a state that uses mile markers, I know that I have less than 30 minutes until I’m outta there.
I like the mile system, though it’s sort of strange at the ends of the freeways. Interstate 37 ends in Corpus Christi and it sort of fans out into several different roads and highways. So, in downtown Corpus Christi, you have exit 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D all together. I-45, on the other hand, simply becomes Broadway in Galveston. You pass Mile 1, and then one mile later, there’s a stoplight. Coming into Texas from Louisiana can be a shocker, though. You pass exit 1 at the Sabine River, then cross the bridge into Texas (on I-10), then pass something like exit 850. Yes, Texas is really, really big.
There’s a stretch on I-95 here in CT that has two or three exits within a single mile. Actually, I think it’s more like 9 exits in 5 miles. They are currently numbered 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 27A. Don’t ask me why there is no exit 20.
Anyway, most of these exits go to very different places, and several of them take you to places all but unreachable from any of the others.
So how would changing the exit numbers to mileage numbers help this very simple setup?
In that situation there wouldn’t be a gain, it’s a wash. But when you look at the whole state, the positives have been mentioned already for mile numbering, and there don’t seem to be any positives for sequential numbering.
Just out of curiosity, why mention where the exits take you? I don’t understand the relevance?
California didn’t even bother to number exits until recently, and I can’t even tell what the system is. But they have these little mile marking signs that I’ve never really figured out.
(But I must say, the DMV, which might not have anything to do with this, hasn’t been so bad to me.)
OTOH, if you’re at exit 12, and you want to get off on Exit 13, you know to get off at the next exit. As soon as you see the exit sign, you can prepare to leave.
If you’re at exit 107 and you have to get off on exit 125, there may be an exit in between, so you can’t be sure. Is it the next exit, or are there two exits in between?
Most highways in NY have mileage markers if you need to know that information.
