Here’s a question that I’ve encountered a number of times in the past that I don’t have a direct answer to.
Ignoring limited access highways, which would fit the precise definition but are not quite what I’m looking for…
What is the longest stretch of road where you can “keep going straight ahead” for the greatest distance. Obviously, curves in the highway are excluded; what ends this is a T or Y intersection where the option to “keep going straight” through the intersection is not available.
I had heard, about 40 years ago, that Grand River Avenue/US 96 between Detroit and Lansing was the longest road that fit this definition. I’d suspect that there are other roads longer elsewhere.
I don’t have figures (yet), but Westhiemer in Houston is insanely long. It changes names (a couple of times IIRC), but stays the same street. Leads you way out of town on the west side.
Yahoo claims that Yonge Street, which starts (or ends, I suppose, depending on which way you are going) in Toronto, is the longest street in the world. I’ve never driven it’s length, so I can’t actually say that it doesn’t have some jogs in it where you have to turn to keep going. Perhaps someone else would be able to drive this answer a little further?
After deciding that I need to know a little bit more about this, I read the Yahoo thing through. I then followed a link to Sylvana & Hans’ Toronto site (scroll down just past half-way). They claim that Yonge street is, in fact, only 56 km long. They suggest that Highway 11, which is supposedly Yonge Street, is the road that was 1900 km long, but that Yonge Street and Highway 11 are quite different.
It looks like the answer to this conundrum remains unposted.
Los Angeles County has some very long streets: Figueroa, Sepulveda, Olympic, and Washington are all quite long, but I believe that Avenue J, up in the Antelope Valley is the champ out here and it’s around 50 miles long.
Cuz if you want to call a highway a street, the Trans Canada has got Hwy 11 beat several times over. In fact, I suspect that it is the longest highway in the world. However, the OP contemplated the exclusion of highways.
I once heard (from a taxi driver, so ‘pinch of salt’ rules apply) that Boston’s Commonwealth Ave. cuts through three states. Now, states being awfully tiny up there, that may or may not mean much. Having trouble finding an actual length, though.
According to Microsoft Streets & Trips, 11 is never a limited access highway, something which the Trans-Canada cannot claim. 11 runs from Toronto through Richmond Hill, Aurora, Newmarket and Bradford. It veers of to the right at Bradford but the road continues straight on, finally terminating as 7[sup]th[/sup] Line at Adjala-Tecumseth Tline, Adjala-Tosorontino, Ontario.
Don’t you need to define the parameters before you can ask what the longest street is?
[ul]
[li]Does it have to have the same name throughout?[/li][li]Can it have any break in it? (E.G. A factory is in the way so you have to go around the factory and pick the road up again)[/li][li]Can the road have any right angle turns in it?[/li][li]Can the road be part of a highway at any point?[/li][li]Do highways even count? Not all highways are 10-lane beasts. Many are two lanes that seem to be a highway only by virtue of putting a sign that says so on it. Locals may still have a name for it.[/li][/ul]
Maybe there are other possibilities but I think the definition is important just the same.
