# right to travel vs. freeway restrictions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 13, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417 "2013-07-13T19:27:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417/21 "2013-07-14T16:10:22Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Freeway originally meant a road free of cross traffic from intersections and driveways. The number of lanes was not specified. But the idea that it’s a road free of tolls is a later interpretation of the term, a sort of folk etymology. Correct. Cities were growing larger and being flooded with autos. The traffic systems we take for granted today, with stop signs and red lights and bus lanes, were only gradually being introduced. Traffic was allowed to enter from every driveway, not just every cross street. Traffic designers realized that the antidote to this were limited-access roads on which people could travel long distances at higher speeds. Some were developed inside cities as boulevards or parkways, some were two-lane divided roads between cities, both here and in Europe. They are not what people call freeways today, which are expressways with no tolls. These started decades earlier. There has never been a time when people had a right to mode of travel on these roads. The relation between common law and statutory law is complex and we need a lawyer to properly explain it, but my understanding is that statutory law prevailed on this subject during the entire automobile era. Therefore, there was no common law right that existed and so could be impinged. You can’t travel by pogo stick on every public road. You can’t travel by tank on every public road. I’m pretty sure that if you were to travel on foot on an ordinary road in NYC you would be stopped. Automobile themselves were banned on some roads in its early history, and some bans continue today. You can’t drive an automobile on Mackinac Island in Michigan or Belle Isle in Detroit, e.g. You never had this “right.” It’s imaginary. You can’t impinge on an imaginary right. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417/22 "2013-07-14T16:34:02Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Maybe I’m too poor to afford a motor vehicle. Then walk. Right to travel refers to crossing state lines. How are you prevented from crossing a state line because of a freeway? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417/23 "2013-07-14T20:49:00Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Are there places in America you literally cannot reach except by freeway? I think most of the “highway plazas” on roads like the Mass Pike and Jersey Pike are only reachable via the highway itself; some may have a secondary road connection somewhere in the back. I recall passing some of these in the west and midwest, too, and if there were connecting roads other than the freeway, I didn’t see them. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417/24 "2013-07-14T21:10:21Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Yes it is. Interstate highways and US highways are state highways. They’re owned and maintained by states, not the federal government. Okay, I’ll grant you that one. My point still stands: there _is_ a definition of _freeway_ that covers the road that goes to Key West where it had been asserted that no such definition existed. ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417/25 "2013-07-14T21:36:37Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > [US 1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_1) is not a state highway. All highways are owned and maintained by states, even “US Routes” and “Interstates”. The Federal Government pays for much of the maintenance, but the state does all planning, construction, and on going maintenance work. The Federal Government does not even directly assign names or route numbers! (This is done by [ASSHTO](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AASHTO), a partnership between state DOT’s, with the cooperation of the US DOT). Thus, just about all roads are properly called “State” highways! (Only a handful of roads, such as in national parks or on military bases, would be truly federal roads.) ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417/26 "2013-07-14T21:46:32Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The right of people to travel by common roads is a principle going back to English common law, with centuries of precedent regarding right-of-ways. So how do modern laws setting restrictions on traffic on freeways (no pedestrians, bicycles, etc.) reconcile this? And as a possibly related question, are state and local road planners required to make it possible (even if incredibly inconvenient) to reach any destination by roads that are not controlled-access, or are there places in America you literally cannot reach except by freeway? In the history of roads, not being able to get to one’s adjacent land was a major reason for protests against limited access highways. Accommodations for access are taken very seriously, and were a condition of state legislatures in granting “limited access” rights to their state’s Department of Transportation by law. In some extremely rural segments, I believe there are still a handful of non-conforming at-grade intersections with interstates/freeways, to provide such access. In other instances, farms have gone out of business, because crop land was cut off from the owners home or barns by a highway, and the nearest over/underpass was many miles away. The added travel time and loss of land under the road diminished the farmer’s return too much for the his investment in labor. ---
**Author:** ![phxjcc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phxjcc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phxjcc)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417/27 "2013-07-15T19:25:26Z")
In California, and I believe generally in the USA, if there is one and only one route and that route is a freeway (eg, I-15) then the restrictions are lifted for that portion of the interstate/freeway for which there is no other route. So, for example you cannot hitch, walk, or ride your moped from San Berdo to Barstow on I-15, but you can from Bastow to Baker on I-15 because it is the only route. At least that’s the way it was in the 60’s when my father explaned this to me. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417/28 "2013-07-16T08:01:43Z")
> [@phxjcc](#): > > In California, and I believe generally in the USA, if there is one and only one route and that route is a freeway (eg, I-15) then the restrictions are lifted for that portion of the interstate/freeway for which there is no other route. But thats nowhere. You will see that the defined de-restricted zones are de-restricted by law and by signs, not by the “no practical alternative” principle. The “common law” is just the principle so that the law doesn’t have to have separate laws for each and every road. Its not really a ‘human right’ that blocks any other law… your right to a trial by jury is unalienable. Unless the government of your area decides to alienate it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-to-travel-vs-freeway-restrictions/663417.md?page=1)