Knoxville, TN- Too many people and only one major interstate going through it. Not to mention that there’s so much construction.
Blanchard, USA
Why does the speed limite need to go down from 65 to 25 in increments of 10 over the length of maybe half a mile? And why do people tell me there is always a cop checking speed at this trap, when there has never ever been? And, most of all, why can’y you people realize that it goes up in speed on the other side of town, just as you realized you had to slow down whilst going “into town?” 35mph isn’t fast enough for a highway!
Just west of downtown Ithaca, NY (near the Greyhound station and the “Farmers & Shippers”):
I heard rumors that it was fixed, but at one time, Routes (note plural) 79, 89 and 96B (from the Trumansburg and Watkins Glen areas) all converged from three directions at one stoplight, in conjunction with four other streets (no stoplight for them, just stop signs), and this entire mess of take-your-life-in-your-hands-and-hope-the-other-guy-sees-you traffic (at the bottom of some lovely twisty hills, by the way) ended up traveling eastbound towards Cornell University onto a single two lane bridge (one lane each way). Thank you, Army Corps of Engineers. Locals dubbed it “The Octopus”, and it was just as snarled as an octopus trying to play Twister.
Does anyone know if it ever got fixed? I mean NYS finally eventually fixed Rochester’s famous “Can of Worms”
I think the biggest problem with the I-4 construction is that they had to widen all the bridges along the way, the bridges that cross I-4. But generally, when I have to take that route, I see four guys watching one guy work.
And the new bridge fiascoes, what a joke that is. I’m also afraid to drive over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, there’s just something about that thing, I think it’s haunted.
Ahhh, but Franklin St. has that student crossing zone. Nothing like being behind the wheel on a cool fall morning, clasping your warm Starbucks, and taking a bead on a gaggle of students that wandered into the crossing zone. Sometimes, if you accelerate just right and catch them unaware you can look in the rearview mirror and see a very impressive shower of textbooks, term papers, and birkenstocks hitting the road in your wake… and the circle of life continues.
Dang, when I was a kid we used to go through there every year on the way up to my Uncle’s place in Buffalo, and that was my favorite part of the trip. There were railroad tracks running everywhere, including a little narrow-gauge system to haul the pulpwood logs around the plant, and all kinds of fascinating activity. But, yeah, it sure did stink.
My nominee: Lancaster, PA. US 30 makes a sort of half-circle around the north side of the city, and there nas never been a time on that road when I didn’t think I was gonna be squashed into a flyspeck by a hurtling 18-wheeler. And if you do make it off that stretch alive, all the other roads in the area are narrow two-lane affairs with about 30 times more traffic than they can actually handle, with the occasional Amish buggy presentling a more or less mobile chicane.
You forgot Route 13. Anyway, all of this has been fixed for some time now. Route 13 has been split into two separate one way streets. Routes 79, 89, and 96 all go over the Cayuga inlet on separate four-lane bridges. See how it looks like now with Yahoo Maps.
Just to the northeast of Ithaca is the little village of Cayuga Heights, NY. Zoom in to street level to see how it’s laid out. Note the lovely mess of winding streets, none of which are straight, none of which meets other streets at a 90 angle. Note the thoroughly confusing six-way intersections (or is that seven-way?). I always, always get lost driving there.
Considering that I get onto 30 for exactly 2 stop lights in York county (just west of Lancaster) and it is the worst part of my commute daily, I will agree with you. I can’t believe how many people have the idea that merge means “sit there until there is a break in traffic.” Grrrr :mad:
Death to the civil engineer who designed Scranton, PA. My friend and I were on I-81N in the middle of our road trip from Roanoke to Plattsburgh when we decided to grab a bite. Looking at the road signs, we saw that Scranton was coming up and there were plenty of restaurants available, so we elected to head for the drive-thru at Mickey D’s (neither of us is fond of stopping). So, we take the Scranton exit…only to find ourselves on the Local Highway From Hell. This thing looked like a drawing of a file path directory – roads branching every which way, exits galore on the left and right, roads branching off of the branches – with nary a clue as to which way to go aside from the exit signs themselves, which gave street names and nothing more. No sign for McDonalds, no sign telling us how to get back on 81, no nothing. We continue down what seems to be the main portion of the road, which eventually dumps us out into a light commercial area. We don’t see any restaurants around, so we pull into a gas station and ask how to get back to 81. The guy doesn’t know for sure, but he tells us that he thinks we have to go a few miles across town. A guy in line behind us pipes up and says this is correct, and gives us some bizarre and lengthy directions to an onramp he isn’t certain still exists. We thank them, and head down the street to an ice cream stand, where we ask the proprietor the same question. He, too, gives us directions that involve going all the way across town, but in a completely different manner and direction. He isn’t sure of any of the useful data – road names, number of stoplights, signage – so we flag down a passing car and ask the driver. He gives us directions similar to Convenience Store Guy’s, except with useful information included. We thank him, and head on our way. His directions prove to be mostly correct, and we find our way back onto the interstate, hopefully never to return again. Hint: when your city is designed such that most of your residents are unsure as to how to get out of it, you’ve got a screwed-up city. Furthermore, don’t put up signs on the interstate advertising a secret hidden (and possibly nonexistant) McDonald’s that cannot be found without the aid of OnStar GPS, the FBI, Lewis and Clark, and a dozen telepathic Sherpas.
And then, there’s New Jersey.
Same friend, same car, same me, headed to Atlantic City for a concert. We get through the VA-DC-MD-PA leg of the trip without a hitch (neglecting to stop at the Scranton McDonald’s). We enter New Jersey, and promptly find ourselves on the most bizarrely-labeled interstate system I have yet to encounter. Rand McNally’s driving directions and our trusty 2004 road atlas fail us, so we get off of the interstate in some small town. We ask a gas station attendant how to get to the Jersey Turnpike. She asks us if we’re headed to Atlantic City, and we tell her we are indeed. She then says that the road we are currently on is known as the Atlantic City Expressway, and that it is much faster to just continue heading down it than to head back to the turnpike. We thank her, and as the sun finishes setting, we head on our way.
Thus begins the tale of the Atlantic City Expressway.
We set out on the ACE, confident that our Top-Secret Information will lead us safely and quickly to our destination. We quickly find that the Atlantic City Expressway is not exactly a road, per se, but is instead the name of a series of roads that presumably lead to AC, requiring us to keep diligent track of any and all road signs to let us know whether or not the “expressway” takes a random left on us at the next stoplight. No big deal; I’ve dealt with rural routes before. If I can handle 250 through Sandusky, OH, I can handle this. After a few twists and turns, we head out of civilization and into the sticks, and the expressway seems content with remaining the same road for a while. We’re just starting to relax a bit, when all of a sudden, we see a peculiar sign:
CIRCLE
“Circle”? Allllrighty then. The meaning soon became apparent, however, when we entered into what must be the World’s Smallest Traffic Circle. It is truly a sight to behold – a little tiny roundabout, surrounded by small and well-lit businesses, in what is otherwise middle of nowhere. Even better, it isn’t actually an intersection; the only ways to exit it are to continue down the expressway, or turn around and head back the way we came. “Circle” indeed. Oh well, we laugh it off, and continue on our way. After venturing another distance through the darkness, we notice something startling ahead. It’s a traffic light, red, surrounded by – no exaggeration here – at least a dozen blinking yellow lights, seemingly randomly positioned along the roadside and with no rhyme or reason to the pattern of their blinking. A touch confusing, to say the least. We proceed cautiously, anticipating the worst, and creep slowly up to the intersection. As we approach, we notice that the randomly-blinking lights are affixed to about half a dozen diamond-shaped yellow road signs, all of which read the same thing:
TRAFFIC LIGHT
…Yes. Yes, that would be correct. There is indeed a traffic light, and luckily we’d noticed that earlier, as it would’ve been fairly easy to miss amidst the dozen huge randomly-blinking haphazardly placed yellow lights you felt compelled to place around it. But hey, different strokes, it takes all kinds, and what can you do, ya know?, so once again we laugh it off and proceed through the now-green light. A couple miles down the road, my friend spies an extremely small green rectangular sign reading
ATLANTIC CITY NEXT LEFT
He does not, however, point out this sign in sufficient time for me to avoid missing the turn, so I pulled into the convenience store just past the intersection to turn around. As we prepare to pull out of the parking lot, we notice that the road signs at the intersection say that the Atlantic City Expressway is not in fact the road on the left (now actually our right), but instead the road we were on in the first place. We debate this for a moment, and decide that, given that the NEXT LEFT sign was extremely small and odd-looking, we should continue straight on the road we were on before. We do so. Sure enough, the next set of road signs confirms that we are still on the Atlantic City Expressway. A few miles later, after passing roughly 14,528,923 car dealerships, we see another small sign, identical to the previous one, that reads ATLANTIC CITY NEXT LEFT. With great confidence, we ignore the hell out of it, and a few minutes later, we arrive in Atlantic City in just enough time to find the casino and get to the concert.
I don’t know what New Jersey has against people trying to get to Atlantic City. Well, sorry, NJ, but despite your best efforts at confusion and misdirection, we arrived safe and sound…don’t worry, though; we certainly won’t be coming back. Just for the record, we took the turnpike back, and barring gridlock, there is no way in HELL that the Expressway is faster. Even if we’d known exactly where we were going and what to expect in terms of bizarreness, we’d only have shaved off ten minutes maximum amidst the stoplights and low speed limits. On the turnpike, the only odd thing we encountered was a very large and extremely official-looking yellow sign that boldly directed us to
STAY ALIVE
Sure thing, New Jersey. Matter of fact, I was planning on it. Thank you, though, for the friendly reminder.
Roland, my cousin (also a poster on this MB who probably won’t read this thread) lives in a nearby town on the same island as Atlantic City. She feels your pain well as she has to take the Parkway, Turnpike, or ACE to get almost anywhere.
Edmond, Oklahoma
I-35 runs N & S through it on a map, sure. But the map fails to indicate that I-35 is actually about 5 miles E of the city. Now, that wouldn’t be a problem for most travellers, but I have to work there. Edmond is a rapidly growing (mostly towards the NW) city, which means all sorts of construction, which is the field I’m in. State Hwy 235 comes right up to the center of Edmond on the South, but ends right at the border of the town, becoming a regular street with intersections and lights.
And they have the worst traffic imaginable. All over the town. Any time of day. Basically, you can’t get anywhere within the town without spending around 20 to 30 minutes in stop and go traffic. Try doing that several times a day, as some jobs demand that you do (can’t buy all the supplies at once, ya know, not every job, anyways) and you see how much work time is converted into windshield time.
I don’t see any immediate fix coming up, either. There are no highways to speak of, it’s all regular streets with either stop signs or lights.
Lots of money to be made there, though, so I keep going.
I was going to post this but wasn’t sure if Tampa qualifies as a “town” since it’s one of Florida’s largest cities. However, I agree, I hate driving through Tampa especially if it involves and trip to Orlando and the dreaded I-4 junction. For as long as I can remember, and I’ve been driving for almost 30 years and living in this area for over 30, that I-4 junction has been hell.
Also the Sunshine Skyway is indeed creepy but not nearly as creepy as driving across the old one after one of the spans had been knocked down. There’s nothing like driving over a high swaying bridge that’s only two lanes and looking over to see the other span just ending in midair and thinking of all those people who drove off that span that morning many years ago … damn my palms get sweaty just thinking about it. I had to commute to Bradenton for a while over that bridge, I consider that one of the bravest things I’ve ever done. That bridge was a constant source of nightmares for me, even before it was knocked down. I still have the occasional Skyway nightmare even now. The newer bridge is 100 times better but you can still feel it swaying in the wind and I am not all that confident in it’s structural integrity.
I was going to nominate Breezewood, but only partially for its kitsch… mostly it’s because you HAVE TO drive through Breezewood just to stay on I-70.
The most blatant example of political corruption in highway design in America.
Lone Oak, Texas. Tiny little bumfuck town with exactly one cop, and he spends his entire time patrolling the two-mile stretch of road where the 65mph US Hwy 69 suddenly, with one small sign beneath a tree, becomes 40mph. He goes to the edge of the 40 mph section, flips a U, goes back. (No, the 40mph section is not the town line. The town line is a few miles back in the 65mph part of the highway four-lane highway.) Everyone in Greenville has gotten a ticket there their first time through. I try to avoid going through on principle now, even though I know the speed trap’s there and can now avoid it.
'Bout the hell time! (Could’nt have fixed it when I was in the area, noooooooo!)
Is Trumansburg still the 55mph-to-25mph-sudden-slowdown-while-going-downhill-thanks-for-the-ticket-quota speedtrap it was years ago?
Ditto Dryden?
Forgot about Cayuga Heights. Yick.
Waldo, FL. The generally favored way to get from Jacksonville, FL (my hometown) to Gainesville, FL (University of Florida). It’s a speed trap of fantastic proportions; I think AAA even had it listed as the #1 speed trap in the US.
VCNJ~
Althought the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is very pretty to look at, I too wonder about its structural integrity. I have never driven over that bridge without seeing construction going on at the top, and that’s not a very comforting sight to see.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/sunshineskyway1_bridge.html
The worst city I ever tried to drive through was Washington, D. C. Going around in circles is literally what happens to an out-of-towner there. What’s really frustrating is that the street you entered the circle on doesn’t necessarily exit directly across from where you went in. It could be at an angle you never expected. When I finally got out of there and onto the beltway I found myself on the feeder road to DUlles International Airport. No exits until you get to the airport, but numerous signs saying that you can be ticketed (or arrested) if you don’t have business at the airport. By the time I got there, there was almost no hair left on my head (I was tearing it out). Since there was a Marriott Hotel there and I hadn’t booked a room yet, I decided “Screw it, I’ll just stay here. At least I now have '‘business’ here.” It turned out to be not so bad at that. Soundproof rooms, good restaurant, and Metro station in nearby Chantilly, VA. I spent four nights there and took public transportation to D.C. The only way to go. BUT NEVER AGAIN IN A CAR!!!
They’ve bumped the speed limit up to 30 mph. Pretty much all the little villages here have that same speed limit. There’s usually a sign that warns you about the change in speed limit a couple miles before it actually changes. I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket. But I try to avoid Trumansburg whenever possible. Ditto Dryden.
I don’t know how you go to the Turnpike from AC because the turnpike is over 50 miles from AC, but I’m thinking the person you spoke to didn;t put you on the expressway because there are no lights or car dealerships on it. There are rest stops in thge middle of the lanes though. It’s a multi lane highwat with 2 or 3 lanes in each direction and toll plaza every so often.