Interstate Trivia

This might be a fun little topic for those of us who are kind of "Geeky" or "Trucking Nerds."

Captain Terryble commented on my last blog post with some interesting facts about the volume of trucks on interstates, and which ones have the heaviest truck traffic.  He also posed an interesting question about I-81 where it allows you to be in four states in just a short period of time.  Here is a quote of his comment...

Perhaps of interest I've got a government map of Interstates with more than 8,500 trucks per day. I-80 (most of it's length) and I-78 are on it along with I-287 and I-87 up to Newburgh. Then, apparently, the truck traffic splits enough where both I-87 to the north and I-84 to the east fall below parameters. The other two routes on the map in the Mid-Atlantic and New England are I-95 from Boston all the way down to Richmond (and a little beyond) and I-81 from Harrisburg all the way down to I-40. The only other busy truck route on the map is from about Scranton down to I-80 near Mountaintop, PA.

And, by the way, do you know of any other Interstate in the US where you can be in four states in less than an hour than I-81 between VA and PA?

Captain, I found these little tidbits of information interesting since I am on these interstates all the time, and I can pretty much confirm that these are areas of very heavy truck traffic.  I traverse the entire 323 miles of I-81 as it makes it's way through Virginia from Tennessee to West Virginia almost on a weekly basis.  It is weird how it affects me, and it still does the same thing each time I do it, but once I get to West Virginia, after making that long slog all the way through Virginia, all of a sudden it starts to feel like I'm really making some progress because almost immediately I have gotten through West Virginia and Maryland, and then I suddenly find myself into Pennsylvania.  It feels like all of a sudden I have entered some kind of a time warp or something.

Here are some facts about our interstate system that I had stored away, and almost forgotten until you jogged my memory about them.  I looked them up and decided, "Hey this would make for a fun little post of trivial interstate facts and figures."  So, here you go.  A treat for you geeky folks who are fascinated by interstate trivia...

• The Interstate System is officially named: Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and  Defense Highways.

• As of 2004, the Interstate System covered 46,837 miles.

• Spanning 3,020.54 miles from Seattle, Washington to Boston, Massachusetts, I-90 is the longest Interstate.

• The shortest interstate, I-73, runs 12.27 miles from Emery to Greensboro, North Carolina.

• Route I-95 crosses through the most states: 16, including Washington D.C.

• Only five state capitals are not served by the Interstate System: Juneau, Alaska; Dover, Delaware; Jefferson City, Missouri; Carson City, Nevada; and Pierre, South Dakota.

• As of 2004, there were approximately 14,750 interchanges in the Interstate System.

• New York has 29 Interstate routes, which is more than any other state.

• Texas has the most Interstate miles: 3,233.45 spread over 17 different routes.

• There are seven North-South transcontinental interstates: I-5, I-15, I-35, I-55, I-65, I-75, and I-95.

And then one of my all time favorite little facts about our highway system...

What is the only stretch of interstate where you're running both North and South at the same time?

It's near Wytheville, Virginia where I-81 and I-77 run together. You will be running I-77 North and I-81 South at the same time or vice versa.

Oh, here's one more that I just discovered...

The Eisenhower tunnel on I-70 in Colorado is the highest vehicular tunnel in the U.S., the longest mountain tunnel on the interstate system, and the highest point on the interstate system at 11,158 feet.