2003 Flashback: Fun With Interstates

Every so often during this trip, we'll post something from the 2003 trip that's either funny, informative or just interesting. I got a lot of feedback about this interstate information back then, so here is again. This is from when we were in New Mexico, and had just encountered U.S. Route 666.

You hear lots about Route 66, but not much about Route 666. That's too bad, because there's a great story behind the latter. Because of the rigid structure regarding the numbering of federal highways, spurs of major interstates and U.S. highways always carry the base number of the main road, i.e. I-495 in Washington and I-695 in Baltimore are spurs of I-95. Thus, when spurs of the old U.S.-66 were created, the sixth one of those was U.S.-666, created in 1926. This being the number of the beast, this of course created a lot of issues, especially with the superstitious nature of the Navajo Nation, through which much of the road went through. But despite all the talking, the highway's name remained, despite talk that the number of deaths on the road was unusually high and the fact that some people refused to drive on it altogether.

Finally, just this year, on July 1, U.S.-666 officially was changed to U.S.-491, since the road could also be construed as a spur of U.S.-91. For the whole story, here's a dry-but-interesting summary.

A few other interesting things you might not know about the U.S. highway system:

-- All interstates and U.S. routes running north-south, i.e. I-95, U.S.-1, etc., end with an odd number.
-- All interstates and U.S. routes running east-west, i.e. I-10, U.S.-40, etc., end with an even number.
-- All one-or-two digit interstate names, i.e. I-95, I-10, etc., are only used once.
-- All three-digit road names, i.e. I-495, I-110, etc., can be used in multiple places, since they are merely spurs. Thus, there's an I-495 in New York (Long Island Expressway), one in Washington (the Beltway) and one in Philadelphia, etc.
-- When you are unsure which side of the road an exit is on, look at which side of the sign the exit number is oriented. If there's an exit number oriented to the left of the sign, it's a left exit. If the exit number sign is oriented right, it's a right exit. I checked, and it works. Can save you an unpleasant merge. Here's an example: The small "Exit 11" sign is oriented to the right of the larger sign. Thus, a right exit.

Comments

[Chris]

Additional thing some folks don't realize: Exit numbers correspond to mile markers.

[Chris]

Jim,

You have now shared with everyone you know the thing that I thought you and I were the only people in the world who knew or were interested in...facts about US highways. I can already hear the commentary from Andrew when he reads this:-)!!!

[Mark Potts]

Au contraire: Exit numbers don't conform to mile markers in all states. In Connecticut, for instance, I-95--aka the Connecticut Thruway--has its own straightforward consecutive exit-numbering system that has nothing to do with miles traveled.

In many states, consecutive-number exits have been renumbered over the years to match mile markers (which does make more sense as a travelers' aid), but Connecticut has stubbornly held out, partly because of businesses by the exits that are named after them (e.g. something like Exit 17 Towing). I'm sure this practice exists in other states as well.

[Sonja]

And sadly, the NJ Turnpike does not conform to this rule, either.