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I'd definitely have to say that I-70 in rural Missouri gets pretty heavy traffic. THe big one though that comes to mind is I-39/I-90/I-94 in Northern Illinois. Crossing into Wisconsin took forever. Also, I-80 and I-90 east of Chicago have pretty heavy traffic all the way to Cleveland. And finally, I-75 pretty much has heavy traffic in Florida and Georgia. I-44 in rural Missouri is pretty heavily traveled too.
Of all the interstates I'd imagine would be heavily traveled even in rural areas...this is my hypothesis: I-4, I-10, I-12, I-15, I-16, I-20, I-24, I-25, I-29, I-30, I-35, I-40, I-44, I-45, I-55, I-57, I-64, I-65, I-66, I-69, I-70, I-74, I-75, I-76, I-77, I-80, I-81, I-85, I-87, I-88(west), I-90, and I-94. The reason I suggest this is because all of these interstates are either very long, indicating major routes, they connect Mexico or Canada to big cities, or they directly link large cities (I-45 links Dallas and Houston). Many also function as bypass routes for other interstates. Finally, an -0 or -5 route is going to have significant traffic. The last thing is that these interstates, especially the ones ending in -4, serve as important connectors between transcontinental interstates or a branch-off of those interstates (I-94 more or less is a branch of I-90, I-44 is an important connector between I-40, I-35, I-55, and I-70, and I-64 essentially functions as a branch off of I-70...the two interstates are almost never more much more than 100 miles apart at any given point in time.
Yeah I was on I-75 before the split with the Florida Turnpike several miles outside Ocala and the road was just jammed even with 3 lanes in each direction. Crazy since it was in the middle of nowhere.
Interstate 94 and 35 just north of the Twin Cities can get pretty busy with people escaping to the cabin. Sometimes you'll see traffic moving fast, not rare to see a truck pulling a boat going about 80 weaving in and out of traffic but sometimes usually on a sunday morning there can be some backups with people coming home after there weekend trip
I've noticed similar issues in Michigan on I-75 and US 23; Maryland on I-70 between I-81 and I-68; Pennsylvania on US 22/322 between I-81 and US 15.
The last will also clog up with football Saturdays at Penn State (which is 75+ miles distant), which I'm sure is a rural traffic clogger factor in other states.
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
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Originally Posted by stlouisan
THe big one though that comes to mind is I-39/I-90/I-94 in Northern Illinois. Crossing into Wisconsin took forever. Also, I-80 and I-90 east of Chicago have pretty heavy traffic all the way to Cleveland.
True. I-39/I-90 from Madison, WI to Rockford, IL is EXTREMELY busy with freight and car traffic almost any day of the week I've ever traveled on it, and anything from Tomah, WI to Chicago is pretty moderate too considering it's mostly the middle of nowhere. I-80/I-90 from Chicago to Cleveland is also super busy, moreso with frieght (possibly one of the busiest corridors in the U.S.) than car traffic though. I assume this is true for most points between two large areas of commerce (STL-CHI, CHI-DET, NYC-BOS, LAX-SFO, etc.).
Washington County, Colorado, has a population density of only 2 people per square mile, but busy I-80 goes through it 100 miles east of Denver, and it has no exit.
I-15 goes through Clark County, Idaho, which has less than 1,000 people, twice as big as Rhode Island, 0.5 per square mile.
Lenawee County, Michigan, has over 100,000 population, but no rural four-lane highways. And Traverse City, Michigan, with a metro population of 146,000, cannot be reached from the Interstate highway system without driving part way on a 2-lane road into oncoming traffic.
Not counting the Interstates, Hoxie, Arkansas, has very heavy traffic in a rural area, with the Memphis/Kansas City route crossing traffic on the St. Louis/Little Rock route, and two-lane roads leading in all directions.
Heavily traveled US-59 from Houston to Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley has no bypass at Refugio, where the biggest industry is, of course, junk food in the bottleneck. In fact, here is a map that will basically answer the OP's question:
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
Washington County, Colorado, has a population density of only 2 people per square mile, but busy I-80 goes through it 100 miles east of Denver, and it has no exit.
I-15 goes through Clark County, Idaho, which has less than 1,000 people, twice as big as Rhode Island, 0.5 per square mile.
Lenawee County, Michigan, has over 100,000 population, but no rural four-lane highways. And Traverse City, Michigan, with a metro population of 146,000, cannot be reached from the Interstate highway system without driving part way on a 2-lane road into oncoming traffic.
Not counting the Interstates, Hoxie, Arkansas, has very heavy traffic in a rural area, with the Memphis/Kansas City route crossing traffic on the St. Louis/Little Rock route, and two-lane roads leading in all directions.
Heavily traveled US-59 from Houston to Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley has no bypass at Refugio, where the biggest industry is, of course, junk food in the bottleneck. In fact, here is a map that will basically answer the OP's question:
Those appear to be some of the most uninformed surveys I have ever seen! I don't think there was ONE map where I thought, "yeah, I can see that"....especially the food consumption maps!
Well are those just interstates/expressways taking people THROUGH rural areas? I mean most interstates are pretty busy.
Some of them are, but OP mentioned MD 404, which is a 2-lane rural road for most of its length, as well as US 50, which is a 4 lane non-expressway for much of its length. DE 404 is a continuation of MD 404 and is also a 2-lane rural road most of the way.
Going with the beach traffic on non-expressways theme, you could add NJ 47, which is a two-laner through South Jersey. It takes travelers from the NJ 55 expressway (mentioned by OP) to the beach. NJ 347 is a two-laner paralleling NJ 47 for a distance and also gets heavy traffic.
Toledo to Columbus, Ohio. Somebody forgot to build an Interstate to connect these cities.
The west side of Michigan on any weekend - all the Chicagolanders escaping Chicago.
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