U.S. Route 20 or U.S. Highway 20 (US 20) is an
east–west United States Numbered Highway that stretches from the Pacific
Northwest east to New England. The "0" in its route number
indicates that US 20 is a major coast-to-coast route. Spanning 3,365 miles,
it is the longest road in the United States. In the eastern U.S. the
route is roughly parallel to Interstate 90 (I-90), which is the longest
Interstate Highway in the U.S. There is a discontinuity in the official
designation of US 20 through Yellowstone National Park, with unnumbered roads
used to traverse the park.
The highway's eastern terminus is in Boston, Massachusetts, at
Kenmore Square, where it meets Massachusetts Route 2. Its western terminus is
in Newport, Oregon, at an intersection with US 101, within a mile of the
Pacific Ocean.
In 2017 Chisumle-Demchok Road was constructed in Ladakh, India
between Chisumle and Demchok villages passing through Umling Pass in the
Himalaya Mountains. As the road ascends to a height of 19,300 feet in the
vicinity of Umling Pass, it becomes the world’s highest motorable road.
Of note is that Chisumle-Demchok Road is at an altitude that is
higher than the Mount Everest Base Camp.
The Karakoram Highway, known by its initials KKK is an 810-mile
national highway which extends Hasan Abdal in the Punjab province of Pakistan
to the Khunjerab Pass in Gilgit-Baltistan, where it crosses into China and
becomes China National Highway 314.
The Karakoram Highway is the highest paved
international road in the world. It is also the highest border crossing in
the world, at an elevation of 16,000 feet. For comparison, Mont Blanc,
the tallest mountain in Western Europe, is 15,780 feet and Mount Whitney, the
highest point in the 48 contiguous US states, is 14,468 feet.
The Buster Boyd Bridge is a four-lane
automobile bridge spanning the Catawba River/Lake Wylie between Lake Wylie,
York County, South Carolina and Steele Creek, Mecklenburg County, North
Carolina. The bridge carries/connects SC 49 and NC 49.
The Buster Boyd Bridge is the only
bridge in which North Carolina is on the southern end and South Carolina is
on the northern end. In other words, if you are travelling across the bridge from
South Carolina into North Carolina, you are travelling south and if you are
travelling from North Carolina into South Carolina, you are travelling north.
The Huangjuewan Interchange in Chongqing,
China, also known as Panlong Interchange connects Chaotianmen Bridge,
Cimushan Tunnel, Inner Ring Expressway and Chongqing Jiangbei Airport.
The Huangjuewan Interchange consists of 5
levels, with the highest-level towering at a height of 12 stories. The
interchange spans 10 miles, has 15 ramps and 20 lanes all leading in 8
different directions.
Although the structure is more complicated, it is not difficult
to distinguish the direction. There are many ramps, but each ramp has only
two junctions, the direction is either left or right, and the traffic
direction is very clear.
Reaching
a final elevation of 14,130 feet, the Mount Evans Scenic Byway is the highest
paved road in North America.
The
byway begins at the Idaho Springs Visitor Center and ends near the summit of
Mount Evans. The byway is 28 miles in length and gains over 7,000 feet of
elevation.
The Mount Evans Scenic Byway approaching the summit
The
Laerdal Tunnel is 15.23-mile-long road tunnel connecting Laerdal and Aurland
in Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. It is the longest road tunnel in the world.
The
tunnel carries two lanes of European Route E 16 and represents the final link
on the new main highway connecting Oslo and Bergen without ferry connections
and difficult mountain crossings during winter.
The
design of the tunnel takes into consideration the mental strain on drivers,
so the tunnel is divided into four sections, separated by three large
mountain caves at 3.7-mile intervals. While the main tunnel has white lights,
the caves have blue lighting with yellow lights at the fringes to give an
impression of sunrise.
Enters
the state northbound at Jeffersonville (across the Ohio River from Louisville,
Kentucky) to its northern terminus in Gary, 1/8th of a mile north
of the Indiana Toll Road.
Longest
Active US Route
US
41*
277.01
Enters
the state south of Evansville and runs north to Hammond where it exits into
the south side of Chicago
Longest
Active State Road
SR 3
212.65
A
discontinuous highway running through eastern Indiana from near the Ohio
River to near the Michigan state line. (Charlestown to Brighton)
Longest
“Old State Road”
OSR
63
9.86
No
other information available
Longest
“Old US Route
OUS
50
6..74
No other
information available
Shortest
Interstate within the State
I-275**
3.29
I-275
aka the Cincinnati Bypass forms a complete beltway around Cincinnati. Enters
Indiana from Kentucky over Ohio River and extends to Ohio state line.
Shortest
US Route
US
131
0.064
Elkhart
County between the entrance to the Indiana Toll Road, a few hundred feet
north of the Toll Road overpass, and the Michigan state line.
Shortest
State Road
SR
520
0.26
A
four-lane connector, it exists solely to connect US Route 12 and U.S. Route
20 in Pines, about 3 miles west of Michigan City.
*Fun
Fact 1: US 41 in Indiana was featured in the famous crop duster scene in the
1959 Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest, although the scene was
actually filmed in Bakersfield, California.
**Fun
Fact 2: Prior to 2018 I-275 was the only auxiliary interstate that entered 3
states. However, I-275 lost that designation in 2018 when I-295 in Delaware
and New Jersey was extended into Pennsylvania.
**Fun
Fact 3: I-275 is the longest beltway with an Interstate highway designation.
It is the third longest beltway behind the Sam Houston Tollway and the Grand
Parkway encircling Metro Houston.
THE ENTIRETY OF SR 520 LOOKING SOUTHBOUND FROM ITS INTERSECTION WITH US ROUTE 12
U.S.
route 12 is an east-west highway running from Aberdeen, Washington to
Detroit, Michigan, for almost 2,500 miles.
As
from the earliest days of its existence, US 12 enters Michigan from Indiana,
southwest of New Buffalo and continues to the old junction of US 12 and US
112 in New Buffalo. On May 4, 2004, the Michigan Department of Transportation
designated 209 miles of US 12 from New Buffalo to Detroit as a Historic Heritage
Route.
NOTE:
Your humble blogger visited the New Buffalo Welcome Center on August 2, 2019.
In the United States, the first documented use of a
painted center line was in 1911 along Trenton’s River Road in Wayne County,
Michigan. The idea of using a painted center line was conceived in 1911
by Edward N. Hines, the chairman of the Wayne County, Michigan, Board of
Roads, after watching a leaky milk wagon leave a white trail along a road.
In 1917, the idea of using painted center lines on
rural state highways was conceived and/or put into action in at least three
states; Michigan, Oregon and California, apparently completely independent of
one another.
“Dead Man’s Curve” along the Marquette-Negaunee Road in
Marquette County, Michigan, shown in 1917 with its hand-painted center line.
Originally created for a Honda commercial in September 2008,
the Civic Musical Road consists of strategically placed grooves that,
when driven over produce the musical notes to the finale of the William
Tell Overture.
Located in Lancaster, California, the original road was
constructed on Avenue K, but city officials paved over it 18 days later due
to noise complaints from the nearby neighbors.
The road was rebuilt on Avenue G in October 2008 and
remains there to this day. The new location is two miles away from any
residential areas, therefore presenting less problems for the locals.
Visitors who wish to hear the musical piece must stay in the far-left land of
the three-lane road. It is said that driving at 55 miles per hour provides the
optimal sound quality.
NOTE: Your humble blogger is a big fan of the Grand Tour on Amazon Prime (video below).
State Road 6563, also known as the Sunspot
Scenic Byway, is a 15 and ½ mile long two-lane state highway in Otero County,
New Mexico.
NM 6563 begins at the National Solar Observatory at
Sunspot in the Lincoln National Forest. It then travels northward to its
northern terminus at NM 130.
NM 6563 takes it number from the wavelength of the Hydrogen-alpha
spectral line (6563 Ầ)
used by scientists at the observatory to study the solar chromosphere and to
locate solar flares on the Sun.
The answer is none. In Paris, cars don’t come to a full
stop at any intersection without a traffic light. Cars on the right have the
right of way, at both regular intersections and in traffic circles.
The Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel, also known
as the SR 99 Tunnel, is a bored highway tunnel in Seattle. The 2-mile double-decker
tunnel carries a section of State Route 99 under downtown Seattle.
Construction began in July 2013 using “Bertha”, at
the time the world’s largest-diameter tunnel boring machine. Tunnel
boring was completed in April 2017, and the tunnel opened to traffic on February
4, 2019.
BACK OF "BERTHA" AND PARTIALLY COMPLETED TUNNEL WITH CONCRETE WALLS IN PLACE IN 2017
It is part of the 400-kilometer highway linking the regional
capital of Lhasa with Nyingchi, in the southeast region.
NOTE: Your humble blogger had to do quite a bit of research to put together this list of world's highest vehicular tunnels. The China tunnels were confusing because of various names given to them and the fact that they both were cited as being the world's highest. It turns out that the Cho La Mountain Tunnel was never the world's highest, despite several news reports stating that to be the case. Here is the most important thing to note: There is nowhere on the world wide web that you can find a correct listing of the order of the world's 6 highest vehicular tunnels, other than on John Smith's Blog.
Longest vehicular tunnel in Peru. Drilling began on May
15, 2012 and ended on February 24, 2013. The tunnel is intended to ease
traffic on Route AN-107, one of the cross roads in the Ancash region linking
the cities of Carhuaz, San Luis and Chacas.
Located within the Huascaran National Park in the Cordillera
Blanca range of the Andes Mountains. The road is mostly asphalted with some
gravel sections.
Cho La Mountain Tunnel AKA Tunnel Mount Que’ershan
Location
Cho La Mountains in western Sichuan Province, China
Year Opened
2017
Height (Feet)
14,363
Distance (Miles)
4.35
Other
Project took 15 years to complete. Tunnel has a speed
limit of 40 kph and takes around 10 minutes to pass through. Before the
tunnel was built, drivers had to negotiate a treacherous mountain route prone
to landslides, avalanches, rockfalls, blizzards, and ice.
Salang Tunnel was built by the Soviet Union. It is largely
unpaved, unlit and has no ventilation system. The billowing dust inside makes
for near-zero visibility at times. Anything exceeding 5 miles per hour inside
the tunnel is nearly impossible. Held title of highest vehicular tunnel in
the world from 1964 to 1979.
The Four
Level Interchange (also known as “The Stack”, but officially named the Bill
Keene Memorial Interchange) was the first stack interchange in the world.
Completed in 1949 and fully
opened in 1953 at the northern edge of Downtown Los Angeles, it connects U.S.
route 101 (Hollywood Freeway and Santa Ana Freeway) to State Route 101
(Harbor Freeway and Arroyo Seco Parkway). The interchange is officially named
in memory of Los Angeles traffic and weather reporter Bill Keene.
LEVEL 1
Curved ramps for those changing
from the 110 to the 101
LEVEL 2
Main trunk of the 110, named
the Arroyo Seco Parkway north of the interchange and the Harbor Freeway south
of it
LEVEL 3
Arcing flyover ramps
carrying traffic from the 101 to the 110
LEVEL 4
Main trunk of the 101, named
the Hollywood Freeway to the west and the Santa Ana Freeway to the east
THE FOUR LEVEL INTERCHANGE AS SEEN FROM ABOVE IN 1959
