Insane highway multiplexes -- C/D?

Want to see something really weird?

http://roads.tulok.net/20-e1.jpg

One highway inside one state with two highway designations. The road eventually comes back into Arkansas, but for awhile there, you've got an AR state highway completely surrounded by Oklahoma.

(More information about it can be found here.)

One of my favourite multiplexes is in South Carolina, where North US 17 briefly merges with South US 21 (and vice versa) near Pocotaligo and Tillman's Corner. That's classic.

Clicking on the thread I was expecting this sort of thing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/local_events/2003/02/images/people_artwork/spaghettijunction.jpg

Which is classic, obv.

http://www.sc3000.com/images/kt/cloverleaf.jpg

These folks are standing on the US side of the street. The Canadian side has all the streetlights. The border is the center yellow line in the road. If you live on this street and take a left out of your driveway, you've got to stop at customs. It's really neat to drive down canusa Ave. and notice Quebec cars in driveways on one side and Vermont cars on the other.

I went through Spaghetti Junction on a train once (if you look closely at the picture, you can see the rail line crossing underneath everything else). Apparently it's not as bad to drive through as a lot of other places in the UK; it just looks confusing when you see it on the map. My own least favourite drive is around the M60 (the Manchester ring), because a) the road gains and loses a random number of lanes at each junction, so it is very hard to predict which you need to be in b) the junctions are all very close, so you have very little time to *get* where you need to be on the road when you find out.

We don't tend to do road multiplexing in the UK; if we do, generally only one road is signed.

Jon - erm.. yes, you're dribbling. I dont get it. Is this something to do with my dribbling fangirl comment? IM CONFUSED.

There are tons of Spaghetti/Malfunction Junctions in the States. Offhand -- that nasty interchange on the northside of Miami with I-95/Florida Turnpike and various state roads weaving through out, I-85 and I-285 on the northeast side of Atlanta, I-95 and I-695 in the northeast of Baltimore, I-20/59 and I-65 in Birmingham (and those last two are the same design -- full of weird left ramps because the normal direction of traffic will briefly cross over the opposite direction of traffic so you're actually driving briefly on the left side of the freeway like in Britain!).

This happens all over Kentucky, the most-county-havin' state in the whole of the Union! Just this weekend I somehow hit Mercer, Casey, Boyle, and, um, Franklin(?) counties, all within 10 minutes.

Don't you mean "one wrong lane and, 6 hours later with an overheated radiator and a relationship in tatters, you're in Leeds"? Or was motorway travel in the midlands rather more fluid when you were here?

I miss the colour shield system we used to have in Florida. Admittedly, it's unnecessarry, but still a unique curio. Signs can be found every here and there -- there's one across from the bus terminal in my city for US Highways 27 and 90.

Alternate/business/truck routes that spurred off their parent highways had a white shield but had a background with the colour of matching that of their parent highway. (For example, US 90 had a blue shield, but Alternate US 90 had a white shield with a blue background -- US 27 had a green shield while Alternate US 27 had a white shield on a green background, and so on.)

From R0bert Dr0z's Florida in Kodachrome site:
"Florida started using colored US highways signs in 1956, and the language of the MUTCD of that time allowed it. By the 1980's, the verbage in the MUTCD had changed to prohibit the use of colors other than black and white on the standard US highway shield. Florida's colored US highway signs were now considered non-standard, after three decades in use. Replacement and new shields could not be paid for using Federal funds. The colored US shields were no more expensive than a standard US marker. Yellow (like US 17) and Orange (US 41) markers did require more frequent replacement. FDOT maintenance forces placed colored shields up at state expense. Florida officially ceased using colored US route markers on August 27, 1993. No new colored US shields were made after that time. Old stocks were used until they were exhausted. The last of the old colored shields were posted in 1996. Each day that passes, there are fewer of the old colored signs left. They are being replaced with standard MUTCD black and white signs."

I admittedly have seen a few coloured shields left in my county -- there's a blue US 90 and green US 27 next to the bus terminal downtown, and some county roads have blue 90 signs when they intersect that particular federal highway. US 98 still has a slough of black shield signs at various intersections around the outer portions of Panama City, too.

re. Canusa Ave. When you hop into the car to go somewhere, you will be in a foreign country - ie. the other side of the road - either on your way to or from home, thusly requiring a stop at customs.

Ian, you been there?

It's actually part of Whatcom county, where Bellingham is located, but it's actually a tiny one square mile peninsula south of Richmond, British Columbia, a south suburb of Vancouver, B.C.

However, Point Roberts exists because a tiny portion of that peninsula lies below the 49th parallel that dictates most of the Western North America border between Canada and the U.S., excusing Vancouver Island and the Orcas/San Juan Islands.

Here's the map.. go to the bottom, just to see how ridonkulous it really is. And there's there are customs there checking you out and everything to and from... American money is required on Point Roberts, even though there are no sanctioned boats that allow you to go back to mainland Washington state from it... you have to cross back into B.C. and out again.

http://www.pointrobertschamber.com/map.shtml

Here's Dothan, Alabama!
http://www.gribblenation.com/alpics/gallery/us84-231-431-nasiatka.jpg

As a rule of thumb, if you're ever faced with the choice of "Hwy XX" or "Hwy XX, Business Route", the first way will be the fastest while the second way will be more scenic. 99% of the time, either way will get you to the same place.

Or if you're at the South Pole.

But the signs in the UK suck, because they keep fucking with the landmarks & reference points .. Pick one and reference it until we're there please.. THEN you can pick a new one.

http://www.tirsys.com/images/resources/facade_building_ligthing/ColossusFamousPlayers_b.jpg

See, they're more N/S than E/W but not directly so, and sometimes one of them makes an odd sharp curve. Not uncommon at all. what about highways that are exactly NW/SE or NE/SW? Which do they get? N/S or E/W? Flip a coin?

It's more about what the highway does in general than it is about what it's doing at that particular point.

There's been talk of expanding I-30 from North Little Rock up through the Missouri bootheel. It would eventually connect with I-57. But what do you call the new interstate? I-30, a W/E route or I-57, a N/S route?

Unrelated to multiplexes, but I love the weird highways that will go north-south when they have an even number and east-west when they have an odd number. US Highway 98 goes north-south through the Florida Peninsula, US Highway 220 goes north-south from the Carolinas to New York state, and the defunct US Highway 666 in the Southwest went north-south. Also curious are highways that go almost as much to one direction as they do to their signed direction, like US Highway 52 (goes from Charleston, South Carolina to the Canadian border in North Dakota and actually travels north-south for much of its route) or Interstate 26 (which I think has been expanded into the northeast corner of Tennessee now).

Can anyone figure out how the hell a traveler continues on US 64 in Tulsa, Okla.? Me neither.

What unique curios!

-- Ian Riese-Moraine. Sweeter than a lorry load of white Toblerones. (Eastern Mantr, Tuesday, June 7, 2005 1:25 PM (Tuesday, June 7, 2005 1:25 PM) Bookmark Link

You know, the kid did start a few interesting threads.

Zoom in, PP. 64 melds with 244 for a bit, that's all.

'lorry load of white toblerones'

Sorry, that should be the Red Fork portion of I-244, specifically.

The kicker is that you have to get on I-244 EAST so that you can continue on US 64 WEST.

I thought this would be about giant 24-screen theatres that are always off highways, 10 miles outside their towns.

It was many things to many people, indeed.