Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 11:29 am
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe not all freeways are interstate.
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Probably so. Methinks we in the East have always thought of "freeway" as a West Coast word. Several years ago while motoring from Louisiana to the north, my companion flatly refused to take certain roads, sniffing "I'm not going to pay to drive on a freeway!" Only then did it dawn on me that the South holds no truck with toll roads (unless you count marginally-Southern Kentucky), so turnpikes would not be in her experience. Nor does the West have them, to my knowledge. (side note on Tim's last: my mother used to tell my dog to "go play on the turnpike")Is calling it "the interstate" vs. "the freeway" an east/west thing?
I know I always heard it called the freeway in Washington state as a kid--never heard it called the interstate until I came back east for college...
As I use and hear it, freeway and expressway mean the same thing, a limited-access highway (i.e. with ramps).It just occurred to me that freeway must be a term that predates interstates. I'm guessing that freeway is a term for a road connecting two cities or states that is not a toll road.
A few other words that might be more regional in nature are throughway, turnpike and expressway. I think that expressway is reserved for a traffic-light-free road that cuts through a city.
Scroll down in this linked article to see the Davison Expressway, the nation's first urban depressed freeway, which opened in 1942.
Quite right,It just occurred to me that freeway must be a term that predates interstates. I'm guessing that freeway is a term for a road connecting two cities or states that is not a toll road.
Word is that Eisenhower gave us the Interstates after being impressed with the German Autobahns during WWII and their practical application in wartime. As a result, at least one mile in every five on U.S. Interstates must be straight so that planes can land on it.... route 66, (pronounced root,btw, the way we are planning to travel is our rowt)
Say- 'root' and 'rowt' as direct and abstract nouns? Never thought of that!
which was called a hiway, as was any paved road going outside the city. Toll roads were those in horrible repair; we dasn't (not a word we ever used, but it sounds cool, doncha think?) travel too fast upon for fear the 'ticket' at the other end.
Dasn't = dared not? I like it.
They featured the regular Howard Johnson's GAS/FOOD stops on the way.
And HoJo's competitors in the South, Stuckey's.
A freeway was a more than two-lane hiway, no longer in Macadam but built of gleeming concrete. (so impressive were the first freeways with their lovely cloverleafs[sic] that Khruschev remarked that we must have built just a few to impress him as he visited.)But of course this was all before my time
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I'd heard that but always thought it was an Urban Myth,
Word is that Eisenhower gave us the Interstates after being impressed with the German Autobahns during WWII and their practical application in wartime. As a result, at least one mile in every five on U.S. Interstates must be straight so that planes can land on it.
Me too but that's why I opened with "Word is"...