We laughed like loons the first time we saw that sign…
I was amazed at how many signs in Los Angeles proper listed Sacramento as their direction. Not Burbank, not San Fernando, not Santa Clarita. Sacramento, 400+ miles away.
I mean, 80 goes straight from San Francisco to Sac, but our signs say Oakland, Berkeley, Vallejo, Davis, etc.
Where? I can’t think of any off the top of my head, much less many.
Which reminds me, near the western beginning of I-80 in San Francisco, there was a distance sign that included Fort Lee, NJ (the interstate’s eastern terminus) which is some 3000+ miles away. Is it still there or has some humorless Caltrans bureaucrat had it removed?
Not official road signs, but I’ve driven by billboards in Texas that advertise for Carlsbad Caverns. They instruct you to “take the next exit, turn around, and drive 678 miles to Carlsbad.”
Huh. As far as I can tell, I 40 only goes as far as Barstow, 136 miles short of Bakersfield. The rest of the distance is handled by a state highway, CA 58. Ah, no, neither Bakersfield nor Barstow are what I would call primary tourist destinations, but that’s off the point here.
Leaving LA, there are a few signs on I 5 (or is it I 405?) that say the next major destination of the highway is Sacramento, and for that stretch of road through miles and miles of miles and miles, that’s true enough.
I think the longest distance between two control cities would be between San Antoinio, TX and El Paso, TX.
Yes, I’ve often seen a sign on I-80 near Youngstown, Ohio, just west of the Penna. border, which refers to NYC being 500-some miles away.
Reminds me of the signpost in MASH**, set in South Korea of course, with directional arrows and distances to various major U.S. cities.
I think the street departments of Nome, Alaska and Key West, Fla., for instance, ought to mutually arrange to have signs indicating the distance to each other.
Yes, I know. I work 3 minutes from there. I see it almost daily. See for yourself.
I grew up in Waldorf. I know that area pretty well.
Yes, that’s on Chambersburg Street a block or so west of the square. On the east side, there’s one for a place in France, if you’re up for a nice refreshing swim.
Actually, it was originally called Tamiami Trail down here because (regardless of later US designation as highway 41) it went from TAmpa to MIAMI, connecting Florida’s then biggest cities. Completed in 1928, much of it required use of the “walking dredge” described here. (warning PDF)
Why a dredge? Because in southern Florida the only way to build a road was to dig a canal and pile the dirt up next to it. We also create “waterfront property” (as opposed to the default “underwater property”) by digging a lake, piling the dirt around it, and building homes on the pile.