What do you call your freeway or highway?

How come nobody said 'parking lot'?

 

I know it's geeky, but since someone brought it up:

We have six main roads coming radially out from London, numbered A1-A6 clockwise, A1 being North from London. This divides England and Wales into six segments, and roads are numbered according to whereabouts the majority of their length lies. So roads between the A5 and the A6 might be numbered A55 or A51 depending on where they might be on the clock face. There are also A roads with 3 or four digits, the more digits meaining the more minor roads. Roads being long things, they often continue out of their segments, so you get things like the M5 going to the South West, which is the 3 area.

It's pretty neat really

PS is Oxo the only other UK contributor?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(molgrips @ Jul 15 2006, 06:12 AM) [snapback]286653[/snapback]</div>

No. There's one in Cambridge (KMO?) and there have been others in Kent and London but I haven't noticed any in the north or in Scotland. There should be a lot more of course. Why not?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 14 2006, 01:27 PM) [snapback]286316[/snapback]</div>

In the Chicago area there is an I-190...

Anyway, around Chicago the roads tend to be called by names rather than expressway numbers. So, I take "The Tri-State" all the way to work, even though it's I-94 close to my house and I-294 close to work. Still the Tri-State (Tri-State Tollway to be exact). If I go from my house (in the far north suburbs) toward the city, I would take I-94 (Tri-State) south, then when I hit the next county south, the Tri-State becomes the Edens Expressway, even though it's still I-94. Then when I-90 joins in, it's the Kennedy Expressway. When you get south of downtown, it's the Dan Ryan...and so on. Lots of names, instead of numbers. It took awhile to get used to.

Most of the state highways around here have both names and numbers. I find that people who live way up north here use the numbers, and people a little further south use the names. I sort of picked up the number usage along with the other people in the immediate area.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(meezercat @ Jul 17 2006, 07:54 PM) [snapback]287850[/snapback]</div>

Well, I didn't want to say too much earlier, for fear of appearing too geeky, but that won't be a problem to anybody that's this far into the thread

If the extension is an interstate spur (starts on an interstate and then ends), it will begin with an odd number followed by the interstate it connects to, hence I-190 goes from I-90 to O'Hare. But if it's a connector, like I-290 that has interstates on both ends, then it starts with an even number. Those are local designations for extenions, they can be repeated in different parts of the country (I think Dallas and Mpls/St.Paul both have I-635 looping the metro area?).

The interstate numbers do increase W->E and S->N, maybe it started by ending with 0 or 5 (depending if it's N/S, and thus odd, or E/W and even), but there's some additions to that, like I-39 in central IL. The U.S. highways increase the other direction, if I remember rightly, ending with Highway 101 on the California coast, and I know highway 2 runs thru Duluth, MN from Grand Forks, or is that a state highway?

As to Meezercat's comment, those names for the interstates are local to Chicago, so when you get farther from the city, people tend to use the numbers that are used throughout the country. Since Meezercat is in the N. suburbs, people to the south are more affiliated with the Chicago way of thinking. That means transplants have to learn a whole new nomenclature to listen to the traffic reports, which are confusing enough already! :huh:

One last trivia - I'd heard that one mile out of every five for an interstate has to be straight, so that it could be used in times of war as an emergency landing strip (remember, the interstates were commissioned not long after WWII by Eisenhower). But maybe that's an urban legend?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wilco @ Jul 13 2006, 11:46 AM) [snapback]285772[/snapback]</div>

Having lived my life in SoCal, we say "go north on PCH" or "Pacific Coast Highway" or "the Coast Highway" but not on "the PCH" or "the Pacific Coast Highway."

But in context of many discussions using the article "the" seems more like simple good grammar rather than putting on airs. Even in Kansas you don't "sit on chair," you sit on *the* chair, or *a* chair. Even in the deep South you don't "walk on trail," you walk on *the* trail.

Anyone remember the movie "Murder by Death?" "THE door, THE door, use your damned articles."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Jul 19 2006, 01:42 PM) [snapback]288915[/snapback]</div>

No maybe: it IS an urban legend. Not that long stretches of interstates couldn't be used as emergency airstrips (and already HAVE, by light civilian aircraft in distress), but no such "official" requirement exists. Any military sized transport that tried to use an intersate as a runway would collapse the road surface, even if it didn't lose its wings to the trees, billboards, buildings, transmission lines and all the other obstructions that adjoin the highways.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cpl @ Jul 19 2006, 02:22 PM) [snapback]288938[/snapback]</div>

Maybe it was just me :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cpl @ Jul 19 2006, 04:22 PM) [snapback]288938[/snapback]</div>

I think it's a matter of viewing a road name as a proper name, or as an adjective of highway, street, etc.
Proper names don't use "the", like "Take John with you" is different from "Take the john with you". Similarly, you say "Go to New York", not "Go to the New York". There are a few exceptions with nicknames however - like "the Twin Cities" or "the Quad Cities".

 

I use "the" then the number of the freeway/highway, as do most Southern Californians. I also sometimes use the freeway's given name as opposed to number, ie: take the Garden Grove freeway or the Costa Mesa freeway or the Riverside freeway. But I don't say "the" when referring to PCH though. On occasion I'll say "highway 14" or "highway 138" instead of "the 14" or "the 138". Depends on how many syllables I feel like using I guess?? B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(meezercat @ Jul 17 2006, 06:54 PM) [snapback]287850[/snapback]</div>

Dallas is the same way. You are more likely to hear "take LBJ to Stemmons" than "Take 635 to 35". Otherwise, we just use the number or an I for interstates.

 

I think it is an LA thing, but there's at least one other pocket of the country that does it... the Buffalo, NY area. It's all about "the 90", "the 390", etc. there. Western NY and western US match in that way... though otherwise, Buffalo and LA could hardly be more different!

- Michelle

 

One more thing about LA:

La's named freewyas have already come up in this thread but since we're on the subject...

La's freeways were built before the National Highway Act that standardized the numbers, that being said, freeways that have names, The Hollywood Freeway for instance, is made up of parts of the 101, and 170. The 5 changes names from the Gloden State to the Santa Monica. The Pasadena Freeway is comprised of the 134 and the 110, depending on direction. For example, there is no "Golden State Freeway South," you know the direction by the name. The Ventura and San Diego Freeways suffer the same fate. When there were no numbers, we named them. When numbers were mandatory, the Feds built new freeways and picked which existing freeways they would help take care of, they numbered them in a more linear fashion. Confusing to new Californians, like my wife, traffic reporters half of the time still use names only.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mssmith95 @ Jul 13 2006, 12:57 AM) [snapback]285463[/snapback]</div>

As a Northwest Ohioan, I noticed this too as I spent 3 days in southern california (which was enough to last me a lifetime, what a 'heck-hole!')



For some reason, californians are so in love with their freeway's that they have diefied them by referring to them as "the" thus giving them a title, a persona... not the case here in NW ohio at least... here in the Bowling Green / Findlay area, everyone refers to Interstate 75 as either "The interstate" or "I-75". This is also how the toledo media refers to the major roadways such as "i-475" i-80, i-90, and i-280... no one here is driving on "the 475" and people might even be a bit confused as to what you ware referring to if you called it that as it would sound so strange... even while typing this "the 475" sounds foreign and strange to me...

The ONLY example of this type of highway naming I can think of here is the Anthony Wayne Trail... a 4-6 lane divided roadway with a 50 MPH speed limit running from downtown Toledo southwest through the Toledo Zoo and downtown Maumee. It follows the path General Anthony Wayne took to defeat Blue Jacket and his men at Fallen Timbers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Timbers... but this road is commonly referred to as "The Trail" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Wayne

But yes, the cult of worship for freeways in California was a bit frightening to me when I was out there, although being in a carpool lane (a new concept to me as we have no such things here, or a need for them) 8 lanes over ( no freeway in Ohio is that big) driving at 95 Miles per hour and still holdiing up traffic (the fastest I have ever driven in my life, as we ohioans freak out above 70 MPH) was far more frightening.... California can keep "the 5". I like I-75 and it's 2 or 3 lane simplicty while I cruise along the flat countryside at 65 MPH exactly.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aaf709 @ Jul 13 2006, 07:20 PM) [snapback]286001[/snapback]</div>

I tend to speak similarly, here in Indiana. I take Highway 3, but I also take 109 north to get onto 69. I'll bet the rest of you don't have residential addresses like we do here: 6656 North County Road 325 West. Poor little kids trying to learn their addresses! It's hard for even us grown ups!