Highway Design 📍

📽️ Videos

America’s Freeway Exit Mentality

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.

Map: Dunkin's Reserve State Forest

Crouse Hinds PCE-3000 Traffic Controller- Dials And Cams – YouTube.

Albany has a lot of the circa-1950 Crounse-Hinds of Syracuse Traffic Signals and controllers. Quite reliable, they don't always work properly in cold weather.

The controllers (shown in this video) are prone to malfunctioning in cold weather due to the grease binding up and causing 5 minute yellow lights and 20 minute red lights.

Here is some of the old traffic signals, as shown on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jryVhVsYV_s

Map: Empire State Topography