OT. Top Ten Hated Highways

'nuff said.

Man, that article is complete bullshit. Highway US 101 doesn't go anywhere near Yosemite, which is 100 miles and a mountain range away from US101.

But that's what one expects from the daily mail, just a step lower than the national enquirer.

US101 covers something like 700 miles from the border of oregon to los angeles.

There is a stretch of 101 between hollywood and ventura that gets busy during commute times, and a stretch between san jose and san francisco that gets busy during commute times, but the vast majority of highway 101 is just fine 24x7.

Redwood national park is near the oregon border 600 miles from los angeles and has little traffic (and the area is beautiful).

Granted I405 sucks and it has for decades.

It says "the [PA.] turnpike is peppered with toll plazas that often lead to crowding, despite progressive EZ-Pass systems."

I drove on only a small section of I-76, the Pa. Turnpike, a couple months ago, but I expect the whole thing is the same.

Peppered? There used to be a booth that gave out cards when you got on and another when you get off. How much less can there be? Oh, now you don't have to slow below 30mph and a camera takes a picture of your plate when you get on and another when you get off. If you have an EZ pass account, the money is deducted from it. If you don't, they look up who owns the car and send you a bill.

I did complain that I had to wait 6 weeks for the bill, when I should have been able to enter my license plate and pay the bill right away, or within 2 or 3 days. I was afraid I'd lose the letter when it came. I don't know why one can't. The state and license plate number is a unique identifier. It really did take 6 weeks for the bill to come. I wonder why.

But I can see traffic growing, even in Baltimore and suburbs. Some streets are almost as busy in mid day as they used to be in rush hour. I had the chance before I bought this house to buy farther from the Beltway, and I'm glad I didn't. Before I bought this house I went out at morning rush hour to watch the traffic between here and the expressway. I went to a gas station and asked the attendant if the traffic that day was typical. Both things confirmed my hope that the location here was a good one and even with greater traffic, it's still a good location.

Agree with a couple of them. I76 in PA is not all that bad except in one spot. Garden State in NJ is congested on the north end for rush hour but most moves well. I95 and I295 around Washington DC is far worse.

One of my stupider moves was leaving my brother's in Lompoc and going through LA on my way back to AZ. The 405 on a motorcycle really sucks.

Except for DE-1 I've driven all the rest and they're usually not that bad. If I were asked I'd say I-15 through Salt Lake. My theory is s***ty drivers in CA either die young or move to Utah.

Most direct route from Lompoc (near Edwards AFB) to AZ would be 101 to the 10 in downtown LA. 405 is way out of the way.

Best traffic _ever_ in the entire basin was during the 1984 olympic games - the locals had been warned for months about bad traffic during the games and everyone stayed home for two weeks.

Back in the 80's, when all the freeway shootings were in the rage, drivers in LA were the most polite they've ever been.

I suppose you could say Lompoc is closer to Edwatds than Twentynine Palms :) I'd probably say 'near Santa Barbara'. Might have been the 10; it was some stretch of asphalt I was parked on over 25 years ago. The next time I skipped the whole mess and went via Victorville. It wasn't the shortest or the fastest but it wasn't LA.

I drove OTR in the '90s and one of the terminals was in LA. It was in Santa Fe Springs, moved to Anaheim off of State College, and then to La Mirada. I could usually time it to miss the real mess but s*it happens.

ARgh. Vandenberg.

Heh I was just staring at Google maps, wondering what the heck you were talking about, thinking it must be Vandenberg. Edwards is 200 miles east of Lompoc. :-)

To say nothing of FCI Lompoc. I wonder if the shiny new 'Space Force' designation did anything for local prosperity? Losing the shuttle was a setback.

Hard to believe that the Washington D.C. "beltway" AKA I-495 and/or Storrow Drive in Boston aren't on that list. Seems the primary justification of being on the list was congestion around high population areas. Well duh! However, when you have loads of entrances and exits on both the right and left side of the road, sometimes requiring cutting across 4-5 lanes of heavy traffic not to miss the next exit on the other side from which you just merged. now that's a roadway to be hated!

They never really _had_ the shuttle in the first place...

It's been about 20 years or more but they built a road and an interchange somewhere in the Carolinas I think and they forgot some of the ramps. No way to get from one xway to the other. For months people were driving over the grass/dirt.

High hopes. There's that interesting road cut on the way to the beach as a reminder.

I visited the Rockwell facility in Downey in the mid-80s for an L5 society meeting, when they were still planning on launching from Vandenberg. Still have the glossies and promo items NASA was handing out. Also got to see the shuttle mock-up out on the production floor. A couple years later, a friend at JPL gave me a base pass to watch a landing from the bleachers along the runway at Edwards at 0630 (got there the evening before and unrolled a sleeping bag under the stars in the parking lot).