The road to nowhere....

[Rumpy Tunanator]

-I was wondering if this has happened to anyone while traveling from one place to another. Your going down an interstate and you have to get off the road to get some gas or whatever it is, so you get off at the next exist.

-You then finish whatever it was you were doing only to find that there is no on-ramp to get back on the interstate in the direction you were originally going, only an on-ramp to go back in the direction you were coming from.

-You then have to take all these back roads with arrows pointing you in the direction of the interestate which might eat up some time while your wondering where you are to begin with. Thoughts of dueling banjos begin to play in you mind.

-This happened alot to me when I was going from Buffalo to Pittsburgh. Once I got on the I-79 going south, if I decided to get off at a random exit, sometimes the on-ramp to get back on wouldn't exist. Whats up with that? Tourism trap for that town so you drive down their main street?

 

[Duke Of Dystopia]

-Whats up with that? Tourism trap for that town so you drive down their main street?

In my vision, I would make an attempt to put UN-wayfinding up, to make people such as yourself very confused. Under each such un-wayfinding sign would be an advertisement for the brewpub. Of course, to find thier way back on to the freeway, they would have to pay for a pint to get directions

 

[Richmond Jake]

Whats up with that?

I've seen this in a few places, too. I place the blame fully on the engineer. It's like, they fell asleep during the second half of the class dealing with interchange design (always defend the brothers & sisters in transportation planning--they would never commit such an error).

 

[Rumpy Tunanator]

Re: Re: The road to nowhere....

Under each such un-wayfinding sign would be an advertisement for the brewpub. Of course, to find thier way back on to the freeway, they would have to pay for a pint to get directions

If life only worked that way and otto was driving....

I haven't come across this around here, other than on some of the rural state-owned expressways that eventually end at some town, but not on the interstate system.

 

[Cardinal]

I have occassionally seen what you describe, but these intersections have always been marked. The Eagle Canyon (?) exit on I-70 in western Colorado is an example. There was not enough room to have both ramps.

What I find more interesting are the ramps to nowhere. You tend to see these in remote places, like eastern Utah. They are usually labeled something like "ranch exit - no services." There are a couple in the "missing miles" stretch of I-70 near the ghost town of Cisco. (The missing miles are about three miles of the interstate that appear on the map, but apparently not on the ground. For some reason, the mile markers on the road record three miles less than what you will actually count on your car's odometer.

 

[simulcra]

me and a friend were driving back from austin to dallas, when we decided to stop by in waco because we were hungry.

the oddest thing ensued.

we got off the highway onto the service road. then watched in amazement as none of the commercial services (ie food) connected to the service road.

we continued to drive down, trying to find a way back onto the highway when all we found was that the service road turned around and curved the other direction. we were like "what the hell, why does the service road end after a half mile of nothingness." we proceeded to continue now south on the service road, trying to see if there were any connections to food. then we noticed another peculiarity: there again, were no connections. in fact, no way to get back on the highway.

instead, the service road eventually turned back around and headed north. that's when we realized teh ugly truth: this was a looping service road servicing ONLY THE FREAKING OFFRAMP WE GOT OFF ON. it was then we removed all doubt about waco's insanity.

 

[Jeff]

Welcome to Baltimore, MD or Philadelphia, PA and I-95

 

[Duke Of Dystopia]

They have a lot of on and off again exits in Indiane on I-65 and I-70. Places where you can get gas and stuff but no outlet past the gass station. At least you can get back on the highway again.

 

[Dan]

You then finish whatever it was you were doing only to find that there is no on-ramp to get back on the interstate in the direction you were originally going, only an on-ramp to go back in the direction you were coming from.

There's a few exits like that in Buffalo; Northbound I-90 (Thruway) to Cleveland Avenue, eastbound NY-33 (Kensington Expressway) to Bailey Avenue, and eastbound NY-33 (Kensington Expressway) to Fillmore Avenue.

You encounter half diamond interchanges more often in urban areas, when it's assumed that commuter traffic dominates. Where you have mostly through traffic, there really shouldn't be half diamond interchanges.

There were plenty of "exits to nowhere" in New Mexico; just a diamond interchange identified with a sign with only the exit number, and no road or town name.

 

[Rumpy Tunanator]

Re: Re: The road to nowhere....

There's a few exits like that in Buffalo; Northbound I-90 (Thruway) to Cleveland Avenue, eastbound NY-33 (Kensington Expressway) to Bailey Avenue, and eastbound NY-33 (Kensington Expressway) to Fillmore Avenue.

I think with Cleveland Av, its mainly used by commuters and I think if they put an on-ramp to the WB I-90, it would be hazardous due to the I-90/290 split.

If you get off EB on Bailey, you have to drive a few blocks to Suffolk to get back on. Fillmore is the same, but not so direct. You have to crisscross untill you get to Pembroke and then get back on EB past Deerfield. We just closed the WB on-ramp at Fillmore to the 33/198 split over the summer as part of the plan to reduce the number of fatal injuries in that section of the 33.