So a Vegas Doper posted the above statement. As an East Coast Doper and rabid fan of the Interstate Highway System (that’s spelled “Dee Oh Arr Kay”) I immediately said to myself “he must mean I-15.” I googled for
expecting to find a weird anomaly, like another case of two roads with the same name. I got a huge list, but nothing definitive. Clearly, if everyone in Vegas seems to think that I-95 runs through their town, it must. So I googled a map, and noticed that US-95 runs through town. Having been screwed over multiple times by people referring to US roads as state roads (where the distinction was non-trivial), I’m probably just overreacting, but I-95 runs from Key West to somewhere up in Maine, and simply does not pass through the state of Nevada, any of the states that surround it, and specifically not through the city of Las Vegas!
So why on earth do Nevadans refer to that road as I-95?
Picky detail first: The real I-95 runs from a point south of Miami where it intersects US-1 (more or less “Homestead” but actually north of the city of Homestead) north to the New Brunswick border near Presque Isle and Houlton, ME.
Answer to the “why” question: I have no clue what motivates people in Las Vegas, but it’s been my experience in upstate New York and a few other places that people who were not familiar with limited-access divided highways before the National Defense Interstate Highway System was constructed started referring to any limited-access divided highway as “an interstate” whether or not it was part of the system (this was exacerbated by incorporating pre-existing LADHs like the New York State Thruway and the Pennsylvania Turnpike into the NDIHS) and the custom has continued to the present. For example, it’s not uncommon for folks in my old hometown to refer to the 401, a major interurban LADH in Ontario, as an interstate highway, and it’s not even in the U.S.!!
It’s basically sloppy thinking. Here in St. Louis we’re in a multi-year project to upgrade our major east-west highway to Interstate specs. The highway is U.S. 40 - when it’s completed it will be I-64. Of course everyone calls it I-40, but it annoys the hell out of me, especially when the traffic reporters do it.
That annoys the hell out of me, too! You could call it just “Forty”, or “National Highway” (its name), or “The National”. You could even call it “I-64” since that’s what it’s going to be. But “I-40”? ARGH!
Picky detail about your picky detail: I-95 actually runs in two sections, one from Florida to a point north of Trenton, NJ, and the other from Exit 10 of the New Jersey Turnpike to Maine. The famed New Jersey Discontinuity resulted from that state’s desire not to divert traffic between New York and Delaware/Maryland/DC from the toll Turnpike to a newer free interstate as well as from environmental and other concerns from residents along the proposed route.
As to the question about Las Vegas, I would imagine that a lot of it has to do with transplanted Easterners referring to US-95 by the familiar name of a major Eastern road.
I would suppose that any highway that runs in two states can be called an “interstate”, even if it’s not part of the actualy system. Maybe that’s what they’re thinkin’. Or maybe they’re just goofy.
Adding even more fun to the mix is I-195, running through the middle of Jersey, that so many people insist on calling “I-95”. :smack:
Hmmm…typing that just brought back a memory – people calling I-195 “I-95” is so prevalent, that I went the first half of my life thinking that was the actual name of the road.
One day I took my newly-licensed self out to visit friends in Trenton (I live at one end of I-195, Trenton is at the other). I got a bit lost on the way home, so I stopped at a gas station and asked “which way to I-95?”
Eventually, the “Welcome To Delaware” sign clued me in that something was amiss. :smack:
You could “call” it an interstate. You could also call it Joe. But if you’re giving directions to some poor tourist, he’s not going to find I-95 in Las Vegas or I-40 in St. Louis.
I don’t know how it is in other cities, but here in St. Louis the officials keep giving highways names to go along with their numbers, and it never sticks. No one calls U.S. 40/I-64 the “Daniel Boone Expressway” or I-55 the “Ozark Expressway.” (Although many people still call I-170 the “Inner Belt” although that hasn’t been its name for something like 30 years.) Chicago seems to be able to make its names (at least the Kennedy, Dan Ryan and Stevenson) catch on. I wonder what’s the trick.
I just call the US95 “The 95” or “The 93/95” (as both 95 & 93 go thru town they merge then split) It is also called the 515 I have not figured out why, though :o. I call I-15 “The 15” and the 215 “The beltway”. It helps save me the headache.
I try to avoid giving directions as my name is not Rand McNally. That and there are some days where I could not find my way out of a paper bag with a map and a compass.
There is nothing worse than trying to give directions to someone who doesn’t understand the Interstate system.
“Do I take I-95 East, or West?”
“Does I-195 cross I-95?”
“Why’d they name the beltway I-695? It’s confusing, with I-95 going right through it.”
Arrgh! Learn how the roads work! It’s not hard, and it makes using the system easy. That’s why there IS a system, so people will learn it and thus have an easier time navigating!
Pant, pant, pant.
Less ranty, on topic:
The misnomer might also be because a lot of people from the West coast (those that I’ve met, anyway), refer to highways as “The.” So everything is “The 95,” “The 40,” “The 1,” without regard to the actual road type.
Traffic helicopters. Get those guys on the radio to call it something, and everyone will call it that. The “John F. Kennedy Expressway” (I-83 through Baltimore) is the JFX to a lot of folks, even though it’s not ever really labelled as such. A corollary is that it’s more likely to get a cute nickname if there is a notable landmark nearby, and/or there are frequently backups or accidents there. The Wilson, the Mixing Bowl, the T-Rex, the Franklin, and the Schuylkill are all examples.
There’s also the option of only giving it the one name, like Baltimore’s “EmEllKay”, the Martin Luther King (Jr.) Boulevard, which, as far as I know, is its only name. And the Philadelphian practice of a road having a state number, a US number that overlaps it, and a name describing something that the road used to be used for, like “Old Bryn Mawr Road” (“Oh, so I just follow the road that used to go to Bryn Mawr? Why didn’t you say so?”) but that’s a rant for another day.
I Googled first, assuming that I was naive and that there was such a road. The plethora of erroneous references – on websites giving directions to businesses in Las Vegas! – was what piqued my interest. You’re right: one Doper’s mistake wouldn’t have merited the thread. But I saw this as an opportunity to fight economy-sized ignorance.
There is a highway in St. Louis that encircles the city. In the planning stage it was referred to as both “the circumfrential highway” and the “Outer Belt.”
It was built in sections. The first section ran from the junction of I-70 and I-55 in Illinois across the Mississippi River north of St. Louis to where it rejoined I-70. It was named I-270.
The second completed section ran from that point to where it intersected I-44. It was named I-244.
The third section ran from that point to where it intersected I-55. It was named I-255.
So for a few years, if you traveled a continuous piece of roadway, you would find yourself on I-70, I-270, I-244 and I-255.
Finally they renamed the entire stretch I-270. Then they decided to close the loop by extending the roadway across the Mississippi River into Illinois and around to meet the original stretch of highway. They were all set to name that section I-270 when someone looked at the plans and discovered there would be a north/south interchange of I-270 with east/west I-270.
The highway dept. threw up their hands and instead named the newest section I-255.
I have not figured out why, though :o. I call I-15 “The 15” and the 215 “The beltway”. It helps save me the headache.