swag

The new feature at many of the small tollbooths on the Tollway, especially during off hours, is bill changing machines that take the place of manned booths. Fine to change a buck, but if all you have is a 20, you're SOL.

Of course, only a few of the toll lanes have video enforcement, and even if they do record the license number of the offending vehicle, it takes many violations before they will even send out a notice. (Of course, there's no way to know how many a given rental car has accumulated). Just drive on thru, and mail 'em a check if you feel really guilty.

kappa

What is it with Route 9 north of NYC?? There is 9A, 9B, 9C, etc., ad nauseum. There could be 26 of them!

Canarsie

Even more bizarre: the southern terminus of US Route 9 does not end near Cape May, New Jersey, but rather continues along a toll ferry across the Delaware Bay just to continue for another 28 or so miles into Delaware before it terminates at US Route 13.

Kubla

I guess there is a severe number shortage in New York.

Efrem

There's 9W, which gave rise to a bad pun that went around when I was in college nearby. (It works best when said aloud.)

"Do you spell your name with a V, Herr Wagner?"

"Nein, W."

robb

I was about to post that it's actually RR (Ranch Road), but it turns out that there are both Ranch Roads and Ranch to Market Roads.

http://www.geocities.com/lockstar/texas.html

Another intersting tidbit in this link is that OSR (The Old San Antonio Road), near and dear to many an Aggie's heart is considered to be the oldest highway in the U.S., dating back to 1691. It is also the only SH without a numeric designation.

Also, see:

http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/D...ys/txhwys.html

for a detailed list of all Texas Road designations with a description of each road in numerical order.

Canarsie

Very informative, robb. Thank you. I perused the links which you provided in your last post.

I found it quite odd when driving on Interstate 10 years ago from El Paso to San Antonio that I could drive for miles without seeing another vehicle in some of the most desolate yet vast stretches of land I have ever seen.

Even more bizarre is that in several areas (I forget precisely where), rural roads actually intersect with Interstate 10, complete with a stop sign designated for that road. Furthermore, one can cross the median to drive in the opposite direction on Interstate 10. I suppose the traffic flow is so sparse that this was allowed.

I do not know if those few intersections still exist today along Interstate 10 in western Texas, but I can say with certainty that that is the only time I have ever seen any road actually intersect with an officially-designated Interstate highway.

Does anyone know of any other examples?

LIH Prem

When I lived in New Jersey in the early-mid 80's, if you didn't have exact change at one of the unmanned tolled off-ramps on the Garden State Parkway, you were supposed to take an envelope and mail the toll in. I think at the time I was there at the exit that I used, the toll was maybe 10 or 20 cents at the exit. I always wondered why they bothered with those exit/entrance tolls anyway.

Before I lived in New Jersey, but started working in Holmdel, you could exit the parkway at an amphitheater/maintainenance station, and there was an exit to the local roads there. It was much faster and easier to get to work that way, then to have to go further up to the next exit and then backtrack back to work. However, it wasn't an official parkway exit, but as far as I know everybody used it to get on and off the parkway anyway.

The old joke about Garden State Parkway signs in New Jersey (they have these small logo parkway signs all over NJ to direct you to the parkway or the turnpike) was that they would direct you to the nearest tollboth which was not necessarily the nearest entrance. No doubt a suburban legend, but funny nonetheless.

-David

LastClass

I'd prefer that to what North Carolina does with its Highway 226. There are two different 226As separated by only a few miles, but no other "A" state routes* anywhere else. Call 'em 226A and 226B, for crying out loud, or better yet give them their own numbers, of which there are plenty lying around unused.

*excluding "A" U.S. highways such as U.S. 19A and 74A

Canarsie

Whether it is Avenue K in Brooklyn, New York or Burnt Hickory Road in Marietta, Georgia, I do not understand how two or more completely separate roads can keep the exact same official designation, whereas in other instances one road can carry as many as four (or even more) names.

One egregious example of one road with multiple names includes one in Cobb County, Georgia that had 6 names: Piedmont Road, Barrett Parkway, Ridgeway Road, West Cobb Parkway, East-West Connector and Cumberland Parkway were all one road that formed an almost complete loop around the county. Recently, however, the designations Ridgeway Road and West Cobb Parkway were officially dropped and renamed Barrett Parkway, so now the loop “only” has 4 official names.

Can anyone provide other examples of either one road with many names (either all at the same time or the name changes along various points along the road) or many roads with one name? Which roads or streets are the worst offenders?

LastClass

Charlotte, N.C. has one road that I call the Nine-Name Street.

For a few years around 1990, one road changed names as follows, going west to east:

Remount Road
West Tyvola Road
Tyvola Road
Park Road
Farview Road
Sardis Road
Rama Road
Idlewild Road
Lawyers Road

Since then I believe Remount was renamed as part of West Tyvola and the section of Park was renamed as part of Fairview. (I think Remount was also called Wilmont Road for awhile, and part of Fairview was originally part of Carmel Road, too, and so on... I'll spare y'all the geeky history here.)

Charlotte has more street-name changes than any city I'm familiar with, and I'm pretty familiar with places like Atlanta.

Compare this to the Chicago area, where a road such as Dempster Street will cross several town (or county) lines while keeping the same name.

Canarsie

A road with nine name changes — wow! How absurd. At least they corrected it, if only a little bit...

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I thought that FlyerTalkers reading this thread would be interested in how to avoid or fight a speeding ticket.

Kubla

Speaking of Charlotte, does anybody have news on how the I-77 construction is going?

Canarsie

Sorry, Kubla, I do not, but your post brought another excellent use to this thread for those of us who travel to different cities and want to be advised of road conditions.

If there is anyone who has encountered or knows of any road conditions worldwide (such as construction, detours, speed traps, traffic problems, etc.) which may impact other FlyerTalkers, please post them here.

If you know of any new highways that are to be built (such as the Northern Arc of the proposed Outer Perimeter in the Atlanta area, which is still under debate), please post them here.

Also, are there any alternate routes or driving maneuvers which are best for bypassing predictable traffic jams, avoiding tolls or other obstructions?

Please share your tips and techniques and update here as necessary — and somebody please answer Kubla’s question.

Thank you.

Canarsie

The following is from the The FlyerTalk Travel Trivia Forum:
I thought that was an excellent reference by Dromomaniac.

Two of the links found at the Internet web site provided by Dromomaniac’s link explains why a section of the highway on which I traveled in the United States has drivers legally driving on the left side of the road!

Can anyone guess the highway and where it is located in the United States?

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I do not know the answer to the following questions, but does anyone know of any other examples where vehicular traffic is, as a rule, legally on the left side of the road within the United States?

Does anyone know of any other exceptions to the driving on the left/right side of the road rules in other countries as well?