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Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,743 posts, read 23,798,187 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Seattle4321
What about seattle freeway infrastructure how does it compare?
Certainly not among the best, and not among the worst either. The topography hinders a lot of freeway building there. That part heading into Seattle on I-5 north where it merges with the I-90 collector lanes where I-5 has only two lanes of thru traffic, that was very poorly designed. Seattle has bad traffic but so does nearly every other city of its size. I-5 also has crappy pavement in spots, especially south of town, they need to resurface it.
That dismantling of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and new tunnel construction for WA Hwy 99 sure does seem like a fiasco, right up there with Boston's big dig.
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 03-14-2015 at 01:27 PM..
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia both have highways that were grandfathered into the Interstate system, and no other parallel options nearby. If you want to enter Pittsburgh from the east or west, you have no choice but to use I-376, which is a set of cattle chutes in both directions. If you want to enter Philadelphia from the northwest, you have no choice but to use I-76, which is a set of cattle chutes as well. Not every highway in either city is antiquated, though. I-279, which enters Pittsburgh from the north, and I-95, which enters Philadelphia from the southwest and northeast, are nice Interstates designed to modern standards.
Yeah, Gallup is just a tiny blip on the radar. Get out of the desert into some older cities around the country and you'll understand just how bad freeway infrastructure can get.
Perhaps someday. I've lived a while in the Metroplex, but I wouldn't describe the infrastructure there as "bad".
I just thought it was anomalous that such a "blip" could have such bad jams.
Seattle's I-5 freeway (the downtown portion of the freeway) is definitely pretty terrible. Seattle's hilly topography makes designing a freeway difficult, but despite this, I-5 could definitely be planned better. I'm sure city planners would love to tear it down and redesign the whole downtown freeway system in order to make it more effective to handle traffic, and then place a lid over it for a city park, but unfortunately too much traffic relies on I-5 to ever close that freeway down.
Speaking of older cities with bad infrastructure, no one thought Albuquerque would ever get as big as it did. Consequently, when the southwest boomed, a lot of the city developed west of the river atop a mesa and on the other side of a farming community (South Valley, NM). This makes building anything wider than a two lane road particularly challenging. This is compounded by the city's lack of funds, and the fact that the west side's grid looks like someone threw a wad of spaghetti on the floor.
Now with a metro estimated at over 1 million, the Interstates and surface streets alike get all chocked out (stop and go freeways, 3 or 4 cycles to clear an intersection, etc.). The city lacks a loop, and between the river, mesa, mountains, reservations, and the Air Force base, there isn't a lot of places you could put one. The city did manage to put a "spur", an extremely poorly-built freeway called Paseo del Norte (left-hand exits, at-grade rail crossing, missing exits, no full interchange with the Interstate). They recently tried to rectify the latter, but could only afford to shoehorn in a dollar-store flyover. It still jams itself and the Interstate due to a complete lack of any approach to the flyover.
I'm going to second Tucson. I-10 and I-19 just skim the outskirts of the city.
Otherwise, New York City is the obvious answer. However, since most New Yorker don't drive, it doesn't really need freeways like other cities do.
Ithaca, albeit a small city, is not served by an interstate at all.
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