I'm curious about how people from different places refer to the names of numbered highways. I'm from the center of the US originally and tend to say "I-30", "US70", etc but I've noticed a lot of people from the more western parts of the US say "the (number)" most of the time.

Coloradan here -- I-XX is the more common phrase in our area.

Yeah, Ab, I used to hear the traffic guy on AM-820 years ago refer to the loop as "the 820" from time to time which always sounded odd in these parts.

One guy I knew from San Diego referred to all highways, interstate, US, state or county, as just "the _". Then I was getting directions from a coworker from Idaho that did the same thing which made me wonder if it's a western thing instead of just being a California thing.

We call Interstate-35 by the nickname "Thirty-Five" here. In Los Angeles we called freeways names like "The 710", "The 405", etc.

I hear people in the metroplex often refer to the I-* freeways as simply * such as "820" or "30" or such. Typically they don't do this on state highways such as SH 80 which they will refer to as "Highway 80".

Route or just number here in NY area. "I" is used very rarely.

Heh, I honestly couldn't tell you what is most common here. You hear all three variations all the time..

"I-<number>" "the <number>" and "<number>" all the time.

I've had to train myself not to say "The 40" here, since I spent 8 years in SoCal.

We've joked that Google Maps should do one of their little pranks and set driving directions to say "Continue on The 5 South from 5 South" somewhere around the middle of California.

the highway "Interstate-5" northbound
>
the I-5 north
>
the 5 north

Grew up in Philadelphia, so it was "I-95" and, more generically, "The Expressway."

Moved to Los Angeles, were it became "The 110" and "The Freeway."

Now in Arizona, and I couldn't tell you what people call it here. I'm rarely on the interstates for more than a few miles on the weekend, unless I'm leaving town.

Take 275 north to 696 west to 75 north.

That's how I say it.

Most of our highways are three digits, so it's 695, 495, 895, 795, 295 (darn, no wonder people get on the wrong road - I see a pattern there), 270(hah! found one). For highways that are 2 digits, we tend to add the I (for interstate) in front of them, such as I-95, I-83, I-70, I-40, etc.

Pennsylvanians, what do you all use for 22 and 30? I remember calling the U.S. 30 and U.S. 22, but as I recall they are also interstates.

On top of the number system, there is the phenomenon of the political class adding names to Freeways and Interstates here in Calif.

In years past, the 101 was the Hollywood Freeway, the 5 was the Golden State Fwy north of LA but the San Diego Fway when going S beyond the 405 Fwy junction. The 405 was the San Diego Fwy within LA county. The 60 was the Pomona Fwy, and the 11 was the Harbor Fwy S of downtown LA, while it was the Pasadena Fway N of downtown LA. The 10 was the San Bernardino Fwy but W of downtown LA it was the Santa Monica Fwy. Thus, W of downtown LA one would direct people to Santa Monica by "Take the Santa Monica Fwy W", while directing people to Santa Monica from E of LA one would say "Take the San Bernardino Fway W" - and they were the same freaking freeway! Confused yet? Well, there's a lot more, but it's not worth going into here, since the preceding should give a pretty good picture. (Yes, Calif is AFU in many other ways than just head-up-ass politicians and voters!)

Anyway, most of that confusion is slowly being reduced as more and more people are using the the number with the directional addition, e.g., 10E, 10W, 5N, 5S, when giving location and/or directions. Problems arise when people start using the numbers and the names together, which many still do, although less and less as time passes.

FWIW, what I find aggravating when traveling cross country is highway signs of the form "I-40 to Bum****burg" (where Bum****burg is a small town, often not on any other-than-very-local map) rather than "I-40 E" or "I-40 W".

In the metro Lansing area, I-69 changes direction from north/south to east/west. South to Fort Wayne/Indianapolis, east to Flint/Port Huron/Canada. The highway signs reflect the change in direction.

Plans are afoot to extend I-69 all of the way to the Mexican border.

Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_....

-BigCowboy

The instantaneous actual direction should be immaterial, IMO.

I-40 is fundamentally an E-W route. If one is on the road heading towards the Atlantic, one is on I-40 E, even if the roadway itself happens to be going N or S while curving through hill/mtns/whatever. Similarly, if one is heading towards the Pacific, one is on I-40 W.

In a similar fashion, I-69 is basically a N-S route between Sarnia and Indianapolis. If one is heading towards Sarnia, one is traveling N, if one is heading towards Indianapolis, one is traveling S.

That's how the roads ought to be marked, IMO. YMMV

If they don't want to do it that way, at least they can replace the "I-40 to Bum****burg" type signs with "I-40 to <next major metropolis> or <city of highway termination>" type signs. Again, IMO and YMMV.

Even-numbered interstates are E/W routes, odd-numbered are N/S.

It's not that complicated....

Three other points -- it's technically the "Eisenhower" expressway system, was built primarily for the purpose of national defense (to be able to move a lot of material quickly from one place to another inside the nation if it was ever necessary) and the design speed (at the time of construction among the vehicles of the time!) was 80mph.

On the east coast, we tend to use "I [number]" for Ike's Interstates. There are some exceptions though; for example nobody around Philly says "I-476"; for historical reasons, the southern portion (below I-76) is called "The Blue Route" and the above that (all the way to Scranton) it's called "The Northeast Extension". Also, nobody refers to I-76 as anything other than "The Schuylkill Expressway" (between Philly and King of Prussia) and "The Turnpike" (between King of Prussia and the Ohio border).

For numbered roads that aren't interstates, we tend to use "Route [number]" or just "[number]" The problem is that this doesn't specify whether it's a US route number or a State route number and this can occasionally cause confusion.

BTW, did someone mention "The 405"?



-Uwe-

here in Folsom Prison its usually nick named "The Hershey Highway" FWIW ;)

Peterm99, when driving in LA and listening to "Traffic on the Ones," I found it VERY helpful to have the reporter refer to the 10 freeway as "The Santa Monica Freeway" or "The San Bernardino Freeway," etc. I could immediately tell whether I cared about what they were about to say. If the report was "Sig Alert on the 10 San Bernardino Freeway at ...." I could care less about what exit or anything else, because I was never on that portion of the 10. Otherwise, I'd have to know every single exit on the 10 (since, you know, CA was able to avoid numbering their exits for the longest time).

It sure is a quirk of So Cal, but one that I appreciated the entire time I lived there.

Dan -

Interesting POV, I hadn't considered that. Glad it worked for you! Since I knew the area pretty well, the fwy number and city & exit street name always worked for me.

FWIW, I have very mixed feelings about exit numbering. It works great when traveling cross-country, between cities and the numbers are consistently applied, i.e., miles from the state's border, but I find it to be often misleading inside big cities. Don't know why it has that effect.

Route 666


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_....

Interesting.

DOT really missed the boat in terms of appropriateness of highway designators. They should just make an exception to current numbering rules and re-designate the Capital Beltway (I-495) as I-666.