Rant: Naming interstates

[Freed Roger]

It's a stupid Chicago thing. Thankfully GPS and apps are helping alleviate the dumb.

[GeddyWrox]

The closest we come to that in StL is calling I-64 "Highway farty". That, and Lindbergh Rd magically becomes Kirkwood Rd for like 2 miles and then switches back to Lindbergh.

[MrCrowesGarden]

No real issues like that in Kansas City, but they have this weird way of referring to the highways where the number comes first. It's not Highway 71, it's 71 Highway. It's not the case with interstates (they don't say 70 interstate), and it's only on the Missouri side of the state line.

[Donnie Ebert]

Phoenix also does this, and when you're new to it, it's confusing and therefore annoying.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I've noticed that and hate it in Chicago. Luckily any time I've spent there haven't much included driving around. The trains are awesome.

[wart57]

Phoenix also does this, and when you're new to it, it's confusing and therefore annoying.

If you are in Phoenix, just avoid Indian School road - I think 80% of the crime in Phoenix happens on Indian School road.....

[jim]

I know some of your interstates change names after a toll booth. For example I90 is called the Kennedy I think until it hits a toll booth, and then it becomes something else. It's so [expletive] stupid, it's the same god damned stretch of road. I think that sort of thing happens all over the place around here - a new name for the same stretch of highway.

It would be one thing if it were some honorary name that is not in use but it's actually the norm - that's how locals refer to it. I don't think I will ever get it straight.

[Jocephus]

Michael Scott: Why? Because Martin Luther King is a hero of mine. There's this great Chris Rock bit about how streets named after Martin Luther King tend to be more violent. I'm not going to do it but it's...

[stlouie_lipp]

Spot on, jim. I know the Regan is I-88 but only because is was named that not too long ago. Then I think it becomes the Eisenhower "at the merge" but I'm not totally sure about that.

Those traffic reports go so fast that unless you know exactly what you need to hear no one can understand. I was going to the Blackhawks game on Tuesday and put on WBBM for a traffic update. After they did one I just had to laugh at myself and ask what I thought I was going to get out of it.

[heyzeus]

In Houston it's crazier, because the highway system is shaped like a gigantic bicycle wheel with spokes. There are FOUR concentric loop roads. Each highway changes unofficial "name" as it passes through downtown. Thus, Interestate 10 is the "Katy Freeway" if you're west of downtown, but becomes the "Baytown Freeway" the second you're east of downtown.

Thus, a traffic report might sound like:

"Traffic is backed up on the west loop northbound from the katy freeway to the northwest freeway, and on the North Loop eastbound from the North Freeway to the Eastex Freeway south." It's madness.