# Highway Interchanges - Which One do you Like?



## MrFSS (Jul 12, 2007)

We've all been on them, maybe confused, or even lost on one. They come in many shapes and sizes. Here are a few from around the country I've seen discussed on other forums. Tell us your story about ones where you live.

Charleston, WV







Shreveport, LA






A classic cloverleaf, Springfield, VA






One I have been using for years and still get confused, Louisville, KY where I-264, I-65, the airport, and the Fairgrounds all come together.






A type you don't see too often in the US, a round about, Alexandria, LA






Even Hawaii has them.






Five Levels on the beltway in Houston.






The mixing Bowl in Novi. MI., just west of Detroit.






Tom


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## AmtrakWPK (Jul 12, 2007)

Those are some interesting and artistic looking concrete spaghetti piles, Tom.

If I had a time machine, though, I'd take pictures of today's urban congestion areas to the folks that were responsible for planning those cities, and see if I could convince them to put in full cloverleaf interchanges everywhere they possibly could so that today at traffic-light nightmare intersections in major urban and suburban venues that we are collectively wasting perhaps millions gallons of gasoline and diesel every day, traffic would instead flow much more continuously.

If you think about it, traffic lights do allow traffic to flow at discontinuities (intersections), but they also require half the traffic to sit, stopped, with all those gas and diesel engines getting ZERO miles per gallon, sucking up fuel, and generating exhaust and greenhouse gases, while the light is red for them. Those traffic lights collectively waste millions of gallons of fuel daily, probably dump hundreds of thousands of tons of additional exhaust and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and there is no attempt to do anything about it. Same deal with the stop signs placed in residential streets to keep traffic slowed down. You can applaud the safety concern, but each one of those stop signs is responsible for a substantial waste of gasoline, and a substantial waste of brake linings, collectively. But nobody seems to think about these things. Any time you have to accelerate a mass up to speed, it takes energy. Every time you have to slow it back down, you waste brake linings and generate heat. Hopefully, of course, hybrid cars will be more and more prevalent, and instead of brake shoes they will use more dynamic braking, which converts the momentum back into electricity and charges the batteries with it. But even so, no such conversion is without lost energy wasted as heat.


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## stlouielady (Jul 14, 2007)

The 'spaghetti bowl' in Las Vegas, NV has got to be one of the worst I have experienced. Here's a picture (hope the link works); not the best picture, but, the best I could get. Click here: Spaghetti Bowl There's a much better picture from Google Earth, but, I don't know how to post it here. Just do a search for 'spaghetti bowl, Las Vegas, NV', and it should pop up.

It's not so much the number of roads that intersect here (it's really only I-15 and US-95), but it's the major route into and out of Sin City, and it's the sheer volume of traffic that makes it so difficult. None of the roads can efficiently handle the numbers of vehicles that travel it on a regular basis. They're working on improving the roads, but, it is ALWAYS a nightmare. Not difficult, but make sure to pack your patience...

Another area that is a hassle is in Memphis, where all the interstates in and around the area merge together. I can't remember the interstates and roads, as I haven't been there in ages, but my friend that lives there fondly refers to it as 'malfunction junction'.

In St Louis, we have several tricky interchanges around, but, really, they're not all that bad. Having intersates 70, 170, 270, 64, 44, and 55 in the area, as well as highways 370 and 40, they all have to meet somewhere! The worst one I deal with is the I-170, I-64, Highway 40 interchange(s), which are currently under 'de-struction' to improve them. The whole highway is being re-done, which will make for a smooth ride, but, it's scheduled to be quite a long term project. I can't remember the exact length of time, but, I believe it's somewhere in the 4-5 yr range.

I just thought it would be fun to mention these....


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## Guest (Jul 20, 2007)

stlouielady said:


> Another area that is a hassle is in Memphis, where all the interstates in and around the area merge together. I can't remember the interstates and roads, as I haven't been there in ages, but my friend that lives there fondly refers to it as 'malfunction junction'.


"Malfunction Junction" is on the south "loop" where I 55 comes in from the west and leaves to the south and I 240 comes in from the north and leaves to the east. Thereby the straight through roadway is a no number roadway in both north-south and east-west directions. It was actually planned that way from the beginning. In reality, there is a lot of straight through traffic in both directions so it is not a silly as it sounds. In fact, it is really not that bad in my opinion. A worse acting one, which has had some changes in the last few years is on the east side where I 40 comes in from the north and leaves to the east and I 240 comes up from the south and ends. To the west is "Sam Cooper Blvd" which was in the original 1950's planning was supposed to be I 40 through the city. This concept got killed off by the political powers of the time that lived near Overton Park, by using the fact that the highway was supposed to go through the park as an excuse. Therefore, Sam Cooper Blvd is a nice limited access 6 lane road that goes about half way into the city and ends. Never has carried a lot of traffic.

George


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## CA Amtrak (Jul 22, 2007)

There is also the MacArthur Maze, one of the busiest interchanges in the SF Bay Area. It connects I-880, I-580, and I-80. It is the way onto the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. There is usually a lot of traffic here during commute hours. One time, however, a tanker truck smashed into the guard rail and ignited, and the heat was enough to melt the structure and make it collapse. Nobody was hurt, but traffic on the side road detours was terrible, especially on Grand Ave. It showed an example of how vital this connection is. This is personally my favorite, because of the large overpasses that gives a view of the surrounding railroad.


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## GG-1 (Jul 26, 2007)

Aloha

Gee no one has mentioned the LA Stack where 5 freeways come together, and rumor has it that some one got lost in the interchange over 5 hours.


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## awalker1829 (Sep 14, 2007)

There's Spaghetti Junction in Atlanta. It's a tangle of flyovers and ramps where I-285 (the Loop) meets I-75N. If you don't pay careful attention you will get royally screwed up.


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## gswager (Sep 14, 2007)

It may be slightly off-topic, but there's interesting with the ramp. I rode from LA Union station to LAX on a FlyAway bus, it uses the bus only lane/carpool lanes on freeway. One of the ramps is very high, too high that my mind was running, what if the earthquake shook when I'm on top of the ramp? It's on the intersection of I-110 & I-105. It starts on southbound and it goes on the bus lane ramp to wesbound I-110. There's a station for the Green Line almost right at the intersection, exchanging with the Blue Line.

Google Map


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