Highway Design

America’s Freeway Exit Mentality

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Many Americans are of the belief that if something does not have a named exit off a freeway it must not exist. After all, the logic goes, all the best places must have freeway exits otherwise they wouldn’t exist.

There is a map in many people’s heads of the world that looks like a freeway map with nothing else on it. If there is 30 miles between freeway exits, then their must be nothing for the next 30 miles.

One Car

That logic is faulty. There are many beautiful small communities and great places not serviced by freeways. Freeways are very expensive to build and even very basic rural exits can cost several million dollars to construct. Many good places are far removed from the freeway.

Indeed, especially when your a toll highway with toll collectors at every exit, don’t expect every an exit for every town or place you’d want to neccessarly go. And just because a super-highway “flies” past hundreds of small towns, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Your just bypassing them.

US Highway System

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US Highway System

 
You could think that US Highway System is an obsolete with the Interstate System. But especially in the Midwest and the South, a lot of the roads are designated US Highways rather then state highways.
 
Not that there is much of a difference, many US Highways are two-lanes at-grade and are maintained by state DOTs. In recent decades, funding is not based on US Highway designation but another set of designations on whether or not a road is an arterial highway. California and New York have a notable lack of US Highways.