New York state’s Capital District (Albany, Troy, Schenectady, and nearby towns) has three, but no one city has all three of the highways within its city limits. I-88 leads toward Binghamton; I-90 leads toward Boston or Buffalo; and I-87 leads toward New York City or the Canadian border south of Montreal.
Well, the town I live in has a population of about 40K and is served by 3 interstates. (Slidell, La.)
I am trying to count the interstates serving DC, but there are a lot.
some of them are functionally the same road, but have multiple designations (i-395 and I-695).
I counted 6, but depending on your definition of interstate and in the city (ie I-270 is a commuter feeder to DC but terminates at the beltway), that number may vary. And I-95 goes right past DC, but loses it’s designation to other interstates for a while.
In this case - only one and two-digit numbered Interstates count, and only within the city limits. DC seems to have only one - I-66 - and it’s only about a mile long.
Denver has 3: 70, 76, and 25.
Interstate 20, Interstate 75, and Interstate 85 all intersect at Atlanta. All three are considered “major” highways.
A couple of my cartographer friends have created diagrammatic maps of what roadgeeks call 2di’s (two-digit Interstates). This one by Cameron Booth makes it fairly easy to see that several cities, including Indianapolis and Birmingham, make it to four.
As you might expect from knowing North American geography, though, the Chicago metro area is the champion with ten: 39, 41, 43, 55, 57, 65, 80, 88, 90, and 94. Four of those do enter the City of Chicago, if that’s the test.
What exactly are the “primary” interstate highways? I had always thought these were the major long-distance cross-country highways, all having one- or two-digit numbers ending in 0 or 5.
What is the nature of the other two-digit interstates, that don’t end in 0 or 5? Are they long-haul cross-country roads? Or shorter more local-ish or regional highways that, say, connect cities not too far apart? Are they late-comers to the Interstate highway system?
The OP defined them, for purposes of this thread, as interstates with one- or two-digit numbers, and that’s consistent with how the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials defines “primary interstates” (as opposed to the three-digit “auxiliary” interstates). But, yes, you’re right, the longer “major” interstates are (intentionally) numbered ending in 0 or 5.
Was going to say the NY Capitol area, but ninja’d above.
Binghamption NY has 81, 88, 86, which that last one is one of the newest interstates, it was a rebranding of Rt 17. Though this meets your standards, really it’s sketchy to call 88 and 86 ‘primary’ as they are each in the 2-3 hour mark to fully drive the entire highway end to end.
(On Edit 86 is discontinuous, so longer and planned longer, so only 88 is short)
Great post!
I was just teaching my “Maps and Society” students about parodies/maps inspired by Harry Beck’s iconic London Tube map. The “popular music acts and genres” drew their attention.
Baltimore is served by 70, 95, 83, and 97 (which is the shortest interstate, at 17 miles).
Atlanta’s served by 20, 75, and 85
Oops. I missed that definition in the OP. Sorry. Slidell still counts (I-10,12,59).
With this definition, the results will be determined almost entirely by geography. The city/town will have little to do with it. Though large cities like Dallas or Los Angles have a better shot since they cover more area. A more general question is where in the country do one or two digit interstates intersect?
On the opposite side of that spectrum, I remember when I lived in the Orlando area, there was only one interstate - interstate 4. And it was a total parking lot.
Detroit has I-94, I-96 and I-75 converging right downtown.
Honolulu has 3. H1, H2, and H3.
88 and 65 are just barely short, too. Each gets to within about five miles of the city limits.
I-80 is actually the only one within 5 miles. At its closest point, Google maps shows me it’s just under 5 miles (as part of 80/294). If you only want to count the part just before it joins 294, then just over 5.5 as the crow flies from the border of Chicago. I-88 is actually a little bit farther in its closest point to Chicago: about 6.5 miles. I-65 is about 12 miles or so from the city limits.
Does anyone actually call it I-69 though? I would imagine it’ll always be “59” until the end of time.
39 and 43 are stretches, in my mind. For 39, a whole lot of corn/soybean fields separate that interstate from any of Chicagoland metro area. And for 43, neither Milwaukee nor Beloit are generally considered to be Chicago metropolitan territory.
Fantastic map, by the way. Thanks!