Largest cities without multiple interstates

[LA21st]

Also connects Long Beach airport and the Irvine/Costa Mesa/Newport Beach employment areas. The Sherman Oaks/Encino job corridor. (kind of)

[JManc]

Rochester has 390/490/590 that are all kind of bunched into one another.

[Obadno]

Yeah I guess Phoenix is pretty good, it really has only 2 interstates though plenty of highway.

The I-8 is about 45 minutes south of where the sprawl stops, and the I-11 is currently just a US 60/93

[SFBruin]

I'm assuming that this refers to major interstates, and not derivative interstates. In which case the Seattle metro has two, I-5 and I-90.

[rsbear]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

I'm assuming that this refers to major interstates, and not derivative interstates. In which case the Seattle metro has two, I-5 and I-90.

If the OP had stated "fewest two-digit interstates" your statement would be accurate. They didn't, however, so the debate (and fun!) goes on...

By the non-derivative two-digit identification measure, Portland has two - I5 and I84. However, I205 crosses the Columbia from Oregon to Washington so it is a derivative Interstate that actually is an interstate freeway. Ha!

[MolsonExport]

The ones with the most downtown interstate highways are often the ones that suffered the most residential flights and 'urban renewal' disasters. Places like Albany have an insane amount of freeways given its size. No pedestrian ever liked a freeway. They belong as interstate highways, not inner city highways.

Spending billions to ruin cities (or maybe just to cut a few minutes of travel time for a few truckers/commuters). Makes no sense.

[Crawford]

Yep, the U.S. had insanely stupid "urban" planning in the postwar decades, spending megabillions to destroy cities. It would have been much better to just flush the wealth down the toilet.

And, even today, too many highway departments still have the "expand no matter the context or consequences" mentality.

I have no idea why people are trying to parse out interstates and non-interstates, though. There's zero functional difference. The conversation is obviously around limited access highways/freeways/whatever you want to call them, not whether the feds or a state took the initial lead on highway planning.

[hipster duck]

Is it true that the Feds could withhold federal highway funding to metropolitan areas (I'm guessing to MPOs?) that failed air quality tests?

My knowledge of this is fuzzy, since I don't live in the US, but I recall reading about things like this in the past.

Might explain why cities in AZ and TX build a lot of state freeways but have relatively few interstates.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Is it true that the Feds could withhold federal highway funding to metropolitan areas (I'm guessing to MPOs?) that failed air quality tests?

My knowledge of this is fuzzy, since I don't live in the US, but I recall reading about things like this in the past.

Might explain why cities in AZ and TX build a lot of state freeways but have relatively few interstates.

I think in Arizona's case, we were too late to jump onto the massive interstate construction binge of the 1950s/60s/70s. For a long time, Phoenix lived in fear of becoming "another LA" and the city's (and metro's) population boom began in earnest during the 1960s and onward. A massive freeway expansion plan was voted/approved by Arizonans in 1985. Most of the 101, the 51 (north of Phoenix Mountain Preserve) and the 202 San Tan and South Mountain freeways were all constructed after the turn of the millennium.

Hell, I-10 didn't even fully connect the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean until August 1990, when the last segment of the transcontinental interstate opened in Central Phoenix (under Hance Park/the Deck Park Tunnel).

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by chris08876

I think Anchorage Alaska has three interstates but they don't directly connect to the city, but feed onto a local highway (non interstate). I think...

Yet again, the city is almost 2,000 square miles, so maybe it counts as having 3 interstates.

Honolulu looks like it has one.

Anchorage has two: the Glenn Highway coming in from the north (A-1) and the Seward Highway to the south (A-3). A-4 (the Parks Highway) comes within a few miles of the city limits, but still over 30 miles from the urban core. In between the freeway portions is around a mile of surface streets.

Most Alaskans aren't even aware of the interstate status of the highways, since they're unsigned and outside of the Anchorage bowl, they're at grade (and usually two lane). While the *state* highway numbers are signed, everyone uses the names for the highways. The names also don't align with the numbers. The Richardson Highway from Fairbanks to Valdez has three different numbers along its length, while Alaska State Highway 2 runs on four different named highways.

Ironically the one freeway in Fairbanks (Johanson Expressway) is not part of any Alaska Interstate, as both A-2 and A-4 run on the at-grade Mitchell Expressway to the south and west of town.

[ardecila]

This thread seems to take for granted the idea that the Interstate system is a grid and every major city should be located at the junction of two or more main (2-digit) routes.

But that isn't always possible or desirable. Geography isn't always cooperative, not every city pair needs an Interstate connection, and major cities are not dispersed on the map in an even grid. Some highways are state priorities and not Federal ones, so they end up as a freeway built by the state DOT but not an Interstate, signed as a US Route or a state highway. Sometimes "state priority" highways get funded by the Feds anyway with an Interstate designation because politics. It's all a very messy system no matter how rational it may seem.

[rds70]

Surprised no one has mentioned Pittsburgh. Only one mainline Interstate runs close to the city - I-79, but it does not enter the city limits.

[edale]

Originally Posted by rds70

Surprised no one has mentioned Pittsburgh. Only one mainline Interstate runs close to the city - I-79, but it does not enter the city limits.

Good point. I've always found driving in Pittsburgh to be completely confusing and the road network severely undersized. Main 'freeways' are like 2 lane roads. I've definitely sat in some pretty awful traffic there. Some of the little freeways in Maryland and just outside DC are like that too.

[bilbao58]

OK. How about, city with MOST interstates? Houston has three. I-10. I-45. I-69. Dallas also has three but I never talk "positively" about Dallas.

[jd3189]

I wonder how things would be if the interstates never intersected cities but rather end at the city Pepper's peripheral reaches will a perimeter highway surrounding the city and some inner suburbs. Major avenues/parkways/through fares would connect the perimeter highways to the central city/ downtown areas. I'm guessing this is how many European cities work, but probably would have been perfect for American cities.


Wonder what "urban renewal" planners were thinking when they considered building highways through city centers. Did they think it was cool to do that at the time? So much wasted land and potential. If it wasn't for that, most of our cities, especially those in the Sunbelt, would have a largely intact urban layout radiating from the CBD.

[urbanactivist]

Depending on your classification of interstate, you may consider Houston in this category.

I-10 is the only one of 3 interstates which passes through Houston to a different state. I-45 connects Houston and Galveston but ends abruptly at Dallas. I-69 is currently at various stages, with a small chunk of it co-designated as US 59 through Houston.

[KevinFromTexas]

Austin only has I-35 running through it. The next nearest interstate, I-10, is 50 miles away in Seguin, Texas. I-10, of course, runs from the east coast to the west coast and through Houston, San Antonio and El Paso, but that's the closest it gets to Austin.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I have no idea why people are trying to parse out interstates and non-interstates, though. There's zero functional difference. The conversation is obviously around limited access highways/freeways/whatever you want to call them, not whether the feds or a state took the initial lead on highway planning.

I took it to mean, how many inter-regional freeways reach your metro area. Since many metro areas are at the confluence of two or more major freeways (or rather, many major freeways were built between existing metro areas).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

OK. How about, city with MOST interstates?

As far as 2-digit primary interstate routes go, Chicagoland might have the most with 7.

I-55 (a major N/S trunk connecting Chicago to New Orleans)
I-57 (a rural Illinois interstate of no particular importance)
I-65 (a major N/S trunk connecting Chicago to Mobile, AL)
I-80 (a major E/W trunk connecting NYC to SF)
I-88 (a rural Illinois interstate of no particular importance)
I-90 (a major E/W trunk connecting Boston to Seattle)
I-94 (a major E/W trunk connecting Detroit to Billings, MT)

Some of that is due to the presence of the great lakes/canada, which force both I-90 & I-94 to bend south to get around them. In fact, I-90 routes concurrently with I-80 from Cleveland to Chicago specifically because the great lakes/canada get in the way (the longest route concurrency on the entire interstate system).

And some of that is also due to the fact that Illinois built some rather dubious rural interstates radiating out from Chicago with questionable utility, like I-57 and I-88.

[KevinFromTexas]

Dallas - 4 - 20, 30, 35, 45

Houston - 3 - 10, 45, 69

Fort Worth - 3 - 20, 30, 35

San Antonio - 3 - 10, 35, 37

Amarillo - 2 - 27, 40

Austin - 1 - 35

El Paso - 1 - 10

Corpus Christi - 1 - 37, but 69 originates in the western part of the metro before ending and turning back into US 77 before exiting the metro.