It certainly is a possibility that if the OP had been driving through Iowa and noticed a bunch of highways with names, that he would have phrased his question differently. Using “y’all” was such a nice touch.
Here’s a CA blurb on the subject and a list of named highways, overpasses, bridges, etc:
There are quite a few CHP officer freeways, such as the “Scott M. Greenly Memorial Freeway” on 85 around here. However, “James Lick Freeway” is for the rich guy who also endowed Lick Observatory:
I wonder if the “Lick Old Ladies Home” is still so named and prominently signed.
Oops, sorry, I didn’t notice the other link.
In the case of North Carolina, it used to be known as the “Good Roads State”,with much pride, even printed on license tags. Nowadays, not so much with the massive influx of folks from other places—you might have hit all the potholes on I-40, Twickster, between Durham and Raleigh…
But, NC, in the early 1900’s, created a “Good Roads Association”, to upgrade the pretty poor roads to accomodate the burgeoning tobacco and textile industries. As any kid in NC learns in basic school history,Harriet M. Berry was “The Mother of Good Roads” in NC, and lobbied for the construction of a network of highways to connect the state.
From that site:
Harriet Berry knew how to get politicians on board with funding her project, and did the network thing. I really admire her, she did well in a good-ole boy environment early on. I can’t find specific cites, but what better way to get politicians on board than to have their name permanently up on well-trafficked avenues?
That tradition has continued, kinda sad that it’s a political billboard, but that’s one way to get things done.
As to why it’s not done so much in Pennsylvania and points North vs North Carolina and California, perhaps it’s a matter of space; where there’s a plenty, go ahead and do what’s needed to get the roads funded. Or, was an awareness of highways in place earlier in the older states, not needing as quick development as in the South? Wonder about Quaker and Puritan traditions of Vanity, too, as a factor.
That’s very cool, elelle – she does, indeed, sound like an amazing woman.
And yeah, it’s interesting to speculate as to the reasons for the regional differences in this. (I was going to raise the issue earlier, but I didn’t want Operation Ripper going after me as a regionalist or something.)
Older infrastructure makes sense – there are a lot of roads in the Philly area that date back to colonial times, complete with 17th-century milestones. A lot of these significant roads in the Philly are called by their destinations, even if there are now better ways to get to whatever that destination is (Lancaster Pike, Bethlehem Pike, Old York Road, Germantown Pike, etc.). Anyway, the age of the infrastructure hadn’t occurred to me – and though I was thinking about different attitudes towards history North and South, the Quaker and Puritan attitudes towards self-aggrandizement hadn’t occurred to me either. And I call myself a sociologist of religion. (Oh, wait, I don’t, anymore. My bad.)
Even usually. Look for the gold star on the sign. It’s been a local custom since WW2 to name the the nearest significant street intersection to his home after a serviceman who lost his life in combat.
But it’s hard to find even a highway overpass without somebody’s name on it around here anymore.
Traditionally, the roads where I live in NC often have destination points as their name; the road I live on is the name between two churches, local names often designate the way to the prominent mill of the time; “Thompson Mill Road”
So, Twickster, I also live, coincidentally, in the most concentrated area of Quakers, migrated from PA back in the 1700’s, in the South. Most left after the Revolutionary War, but there are 10 Friend’s meeting houses within a 10 mile radius of where I live. Only place in the South with that population; my little postage stamp of the area has well-reasoned road names in that vein.
Then you’ve got this part of the Southwest, where if the highways are named anything other than I-40 or I-25 or I-10 or US-70 or US-84/285 or so on I don’t really know it and I don’t know anyone who uses names if they do exist. A lot of the newer infrastructure is probably post WWII.
Of course nobody uses the names.
When I was a kid (1960s-70s) it was common here in L.A. to refer to freeways by name–for example “The Harbor Freeway” or “The Santa Monica Freeway”, but now people usually just use the numbers.
In California, the 5 runs up and down the state, including the stretch from downtown L.A. to San Diego and the border. The 405 diverges from the 5 north of L.A. and runs through the western parts of L.A., and by the airport, rejoining the 5 in Orange County. I always thought it was weird that the 405 was called the San Diego Freeway. It’s as if the people who named it thought that only people who lived in Santa Monica and West L.A. would want to drive to San Diego.
My impression had been, rather than being a relatively rare occurance, naming a highway, in addition to its route number, is very common.
Certainly I’d be hard pressed to think of single section of highway that was put in since I’ve been of age to vote that didn’t have someone’s name associated with it. And all respect to those people talking about naming roads, bridges and intersections after servicemen, it seems, lately, it’s a benny for outgoing state politicians more than anything else.
Or a way to butter up a powerful state politician by naming a road after his (usually it is HIS) father or grandfather.
Of course, the way they seem to be marked is a single marker at the start of the section of the highway named for the given person (or in rare, older cases the group such as Marine Veterans) and is never again referred to by that name by any of the signage. Let alone by anyone using the route for directions.
Ack! Meant to say my experience is mostly in the NorthEast: NY and MA. But some things I’d observed while living in Virginia.
They recently made a law here that you have to be dead first. I believe it was because they named a stretch of road after somebody who later really embarassed themselves.
A piece of Highway 1 about a block from here is “Jefferson Davis Highway”, FYI. I don’t think anybody really knows that, though.
Here in nearby Lancaster, we have so many “pikes” it’s ridiculous. Manheim Pike, Fruitville Pike, Lititz Pike, Oregon Pike, New Holland Pike, Old Philadelphia Pike, Willow Street Pike, Millersville Pike, Harrisburg Pike, Marietta Pike…
Back home in Altoona, of course, there’s the notorious-to-highway-enthusiasts Interstate 99, aka (officially, no less) “The Bud Shuster Highway”.
I figured that was the case but I can’t claim to have done an exhaustive study of the matter.
Sadly many of the signs aren’t exactly prominent or well maintained.
Maybe the Spectre can confirm, but I’m pretty sure that the signs on the 101 S don’t refer to the 405 as the 405, but rather as the San Diego Freeway. The one’s I’m referring to would be the ones you see announcing upcoming exits and their distances. I’m almost positive I saw a sign that said something like:
You’re So Lost Blvd 1 1/2 mi
San Diego Freeway 1 3/4
Not Your Exit St 2 mi
We we’re slightly lost and trying to get to Irvine (apparently this isn’t a good idea). We remained slightly lost, but eventually we did it in Irvine, so that was positive.
sinjin
CinCinnati has Pete Rose Way near the stadium. Think Green Bay has a Vince Lombardi Drive or some such. I want to say there’s a road in Louisville named after Secretariat…
Elmer’s Lane?
:D&R:
As someone mentioned in an earlier post, the rest areas on the NJ Turnpike are named for famous people, and I can definitely say that Vince Lombardi is one of them…we stopped at that rest area on our way to White Plains once…
This confused me on my first driving trip in L.A. In Hawaii, there are only 5 highways, and three of them have their own names (Likelike, and Pali) The other three are interstates and so are H1, H2, and H3. I actually didn’t realize the Likelike, Pali had designation numbers until a tourist asked me how to get to the 63. So, exclusive use of either its own name or a number is fine for highway designations. But, go to L.A. and signs can either have their name or their number, sometimes one without the other. And sometimes they give a town for the direction instead of a compass point (Santa Monica freeway to Ontario, to make up an example). So, not only do you have to know all the highways and their various numbers, but where other town are in relation to your current location. Very confusing for newcomers. Think they will ever standardize it?
Oakminster – I’m not talking about streets named for people but stretches of highway, whether federal or state.
And speaking of “obscure local references” for highways – here ins Philly, there’s a major freeway, I-476, that completes a triangle with I-95 and the Penna. Turnpike, and also intersects I-76 (the Schuylkill Expressway, or “SKU-kul,” after the river it parallels), a major highway that runs from Valley Forge to Philly.
When planning started for this back in the '50s, three separate routes were proposed, which were called the yellow route, the red route, and the blue route. Decades of lawsuits and hassles of all sorts followed, and the highway didn’t actually open until the early '90s. It is always just called “The Blue Route” (to the extent that I have elaborate mnemonics about whether it is 476 and the Vine Street Exp. is 676, or vice versa) – though I’d guess fewer than 5% of the people in the area know why it’s called the Blue Route.