A few West Virginia items

There's a new state highway designation in West Virginia, WV 817. It will replace a former alignment of US 35 as it moves to a new four lane alignment from I-64 in St. Albans to the Ohio River near Point Pleasant. HT: Jennings Starcher.

I've also been updating the West Virginia Pages at gribblenation.

• I've added five photos of my own in my sign gallery.
• Added three photos to the submitted photos gallery. Thanks to Dan Garnell and Pete Zapadka.
• WV State Highway Ends includes photos from: WV 12, 16, 31 and 72. Photos from Jeff Turner, Brian Powell, Mike Roberson, and myself.

I'm still working on more West Virginia Updates - Including updates for Corridor H, A history of Corridor L (US 19), and information on the King Coal, Tolsia, and Coalfields Highways.

When you're 18 months behind schedule...what's another two months?

Well the other day, I blogged about how Interstate 485 won't open on Halloween.

How about New Year's Eve.

Why I am not surprised.

A Sunday Fall Drive

Last Sunday was a great Autumn afternoon, here in Central North Carolina. So I took a small road trip into Granville, Person and Caswell Counties. I also got into Virginia a little bit as well.

Route: NC 50, NC 56, I-85, US 15, US 58, VA/NC 49, NC 57, NC/VA 119, US 58/360, VA/NC 62, I-40, I-540.

This zig-zag trip picked up some new miles in North Carolina (NC 49, NC 119, NC 62) and Virginia (VA 49 and 119). Over 60 photos on flickr.

My first stop was a small town on US 15 north of Oxford...called Stovall.


That's the rail sign for Stovall on the abandoned (not sure which line) tracks through town. There are a number of small churches in Stovall...and this one is across the street from the Stovall United Methodist Church...but there's nothing to say what it is. Anyone know?

In Virginia, I grabbed the small piece of the US 58 Clarksville Bypass that I hadn't been on. It's 60 mph...but the section west of US 15 does have two at grade intersections. But so it doesn't seem like I ignored the Commonwealth on this trip...here's a photo of US 58/VA 49 just west of US 15.

(Yes, I get out of my vehicle a lot to take photos.)

Along NC 57, I stopped at the tiny crossroads of Concord. There's another church (Concord United Methodist) and cemetery, and it allowed for some great photos.



At Semora, where NC 57 meets NC 119, I took some sign shots...and here's the result of a framing experiment I did.


Which one is better...and I know I need more work on this type of photography style.

Stopped along NC 62 at the crossroads of Hamer. I really like this shot...the sign was slightly higher than eye level.


Finally, I got the chance to walk around the Caswell County Seat of Yanceyville. It's just off of US 158 on the old alignment through town. It also includes a courthouse square, and one of the more visually pleasing courthouses in the state.




Here are a few other views of Yanceyville..and yes in Caswell County they use Clearview on Street sign blades.

Big Surprise!...I-485's opening....has been delayed.

Don't say I didn't tell ya so.

But the recent cold and rainy weather in and around Charlotte has delayed the opening of Interstate 485.

An updated opening date has not been announced.

Hey, after 18 months behind schedule...what's another few days...(or weeks).

AASHTO's Latest Response to NCDOT's Route Numbering Requests

AASHTO SCOH has posted their responses from their October meeting of the Special Committee on U.S, Route Numbering in Hartford on a single Word document, link below. They have not yet posted the documents with specific responses to each application, however. Hopefully these will be posted soon so a better understanding for the decisions can be deciphered.

For NC, the results are mixed. They approved the applications for I-440 (dropping it from the I-40 portion of the Beltline) and the application for the US 17 Windsor Bypass. They approved the I-540 and I-140 applications though conditionally, citing the need for a revised application for both, requesting that I-540 be marked Future and possibly a spur (?) and I-140 be revised to designate that route a spur(?). They conditionally approved the I-73 application but also want the application resubmitted to have the route designated Future I-73 'since it is not complete.' They again disapproved the US 117 move back to its original alignment from the I-795 freeway and the elimination of Alt US 117 because 'information submitted appeared to be conflicting and inconsistent'.

Go to the AASHTO Document

Commentary: My initial reaction to this is 'huh?'. The I-540 extension application was for the extension from US 1 to the current end at US 64/US 264. Aren't those NHS routes? Why does AASHTO want Future signage? Also, what is this about a spur designation? Doesn't the odd numbers 140 and 540 indicate that already? Or have they forgotten how 3-digit interstates are numbered?

As far as I-73 goes, it is signed on an interstate standard freeway that begins at an interstate (I-85) and ends at another interstate (I-40) for now and could be extended to a expressway elevated to NHS status (Bryan Blvd.) as approved by the FHWA. So why does it need a future banner? Yes, its not 'finished' and won't be in NC for many years to come, but there are other segments of I-73 signed as an interstate elsewhere despite the whole road not being complete. Maybe some at AASHTO resent that the road was legislated into existence without their consent? The I-73 signing is important for traffic using the southwestern part of the Greensboro Loop since I-40 is being taken off the Loop (NCDOT never applied to change I-40's route to the Loop in the first place, so that's why that wasn't included among their applications). Since all of NCDOT's interstate applications have already been approved by the FHWA or through legislation, I believe there's little AASHTO can do anything about changing the signs that are already up. It may though cost NCDOT time and effort to have to reapply for these various routes in order to remind AASHTO of this and have them finally agree to the changes.

As for the US 117 application, the later one was clearer than the first. NCDOT expanded its explanation including the history of the building of the US 117 freeway, reminding them AASHTO approved the move of US 117 to it and the creation of Alt US 117. They then indicated the history of I-795 approval and the wish to revert US 117 to the route it had run on for many decades. They even included the history of the application to AASHTO that they approved of extending US 117 to I-95 and the wish it be truncated back to its original terminus. From my reading of all that, I don't see anything that would be too confusing, especially since they had a previous application to build on. Do these two organizations speak two different languages? Would it be possible for someone at AASHTO to call NCDOT to clear up any confusing issues? From all appearances, they seem to just mail memos back and forth to each other and no one on either side takes it upon themselves to clear up any misunderstanding.

In any case, NCDOT and AASHTO always make the designation of new routes interesting.

I'm Back And I'm Beautiful!

I'm on holiday this week; and since I have no $, it's a stay-at-home holiday. That's fine. It gives me time to do things. Like UPD*TING my new IPOD with all sorts of spiffy music; uploading the snaps from the latest show, housecleaning(better than the usual weekly sweep and swab) and posting road snaps on Gribblenation. Yes, friends, I'm back in the fray-the 'competition' is afoot and all that.

I had to step back from it for a bit, mostly to assess my situation: I've decided to be as active as possible in the music end of things; going to and photographing as many shows as I can.That's been working out pretty well for me: translating into tangible benefits, I just love going to shows, anyway. However, even with the addition of videos, posting show photography takes up very little time-I have like maybe a 2 day turnaround on that; even with my average of 500 photos per show.

I've been doing some editing on Open Street Map, reading and suchlike; but I've been looking at some photos I have stashed on my hard drives, and figured they needed a new online home. But I wanted to avoid the dreary page writing business and costs associated with my old website. Enter Digikam, Simpleviewer and Gribblenation.

I run SUSE Linux and have since 2004. One of the aps that come with my distro is Digikam; which is a photo organiser and a fairly powerful image editor; and integrates with flickr. I like that-it simplifies things greatly. Another feature integrated with Digikam is Simpleviewer, which generates Flash photo galleries. You can caption photos with Digikam; and use Simpleviewer to generate a gallery. Some minor modifications of the code on the resulting html page, and you have a Gribblenation-specific page in a fairly short amount of time. It's not as fast as flickr posting would be, but it beats the hell out of hours editing and watermarking photos in the GIMP, then generating/rewriting a photo gallery page. we're talking 2-3 hours vs 16-20.

Besides the time savings, the results are neat and consistent-which suits the nature of a site like Gribblenation. Fans of my old site may miss the wackiness of it; all the different backgrounds and little comics and whatnot; but that stuff takes a lot of time; and honestly, even though you'll still be able to tell one of my pages from the other contributors, I think some of the stuff I was doing was off-putting for some.

Why Gribblenation? It has a good 3 times the traffic of my old site, not to mention it's a great deal cheaper to pay part of the hosting cost than all of it. The organisation is better. You don't have to scroll forever to find a Vermont or a New York page. You go to the specific part of the site, and there's what you want. Things are pretty well set. There's no massive amount of writing, just plug in the new links, and there you go. I've actually been thinking about going over to GN for a couple of years now-it didn't seem to make sense to me have two different sites obstensibly covering the same ground, where Doug Kerr, Adam Prince and others were collaborating with me in pretty much everything else.

A small piece of fame

Bridges BBQ - Shelby, NC
Originally uploaded by Adam's Journey

This past spring on a small early Sunday roadtrip around Gaston County, NC, Steven Duckworth and I stopped at Bridges BBQ on US 74 in Shelby.

We stopped to take photos just as the restaurant was opening. The owners of the restaurant invited us in and gave us a tour of how they make their famous bbq. And of course, I took photos.

Well the photo you see above from inside Bridges kitchen has been published on a small write up of the restaurant in Trazzler.com.

New SmartFix40 Construction Photos!

On Saturday, October 11th, I had the opportunity to tour the SmartFix40 construction site in Knoxville, TN. The tour was arranged by Billy Riddle and HB Elkins as part of the Fall 2008 Knoxville Road Meet.

For all 53 photos from the tour of the project, I have a flickr set (surprised?).

The group was able to tour the entire construction site and it was certainly an unbelievable project to see up close and personal. The SmartFix40 project began May 1st and is scheduled to be completed on June 30, 2009. A little over one mile of I-40 in the heart of Knoxville has been completely shut down, as TDOT rebuilds from the ground up the over 40 year old freeway.

In the photo above, I am looking Eastbound towards I-40 (in the far left). I am standing on the onramp to I-40 East from James White Parkway . The ramp on the far right is the onramp to I-40 East from Hall of Fame Drive.

The entire I-40/James White Parkway interchange has been redesigned and completely rebuilt to modern safety and interstate standards. The onramp to I-40 East (which I have above) from James White Parkway will actually tunnel under Hall of Fame Drive. (photo below)

All of this action occurs at the centerpiece of the project, the Hall of Fame Drive bridge over Interstate 40. This bridge is the landmark piece of the project and has been featured in many posters promoting the SmartFix40 project.





The total redesign of the James White Parkway exit is massive. The redesign has eliminated left exits and entrances...expanded accel/decel lanes...all in the same right of way space that the highway originally had.

The exit ramp from I-40 West to James White Parkway is a great example. Because TDOT could not purchase additional right-of-way, the exit ramp begins east of Hall of Fame Drive and parallels I-40 West for close to a half mile if not longer. A massive over 700 foot retaining wall was built as part of the ramp system. This retaining wall (built with technical engineering I won't pretend to understand) is only second in the state. The design of this structure has piqued the interest of numerous DOT's throughout the country that are studying the engineering for similar projets in their respective states.


The outdated James White Parkway Interchange is being replaced by a safer high-speed three-level directional interchange.



In addition to the interchange improvements, total bridge rebuilds, I-40 is being widened to six lanes. One of the larger bridge projects is rebuilding the I-40 viaduct through the heart of Knoxville's historic 4th and Gill district.

This is an amazing project...something that has been in planning for over 25 years. Being able to see this construction site up close and personal..and to be able to ask the engineers involvedquestions about it...really made this tour worthwhile. TDOT has been very involved with the local residents during this project, and their field office averages a number of visitors per day.

Thank you again to Billy and HB for coordinating this opportunity to take a look at one of the most talked about projects in the United States.

Of course, finally here's the group photo...I'm the fool with the long sleeved t-shirt in a bright sunny 84 degree day. (Didn't help that I started to catch a sinus cold the night before. :-p)

Could it be true..I-485 to finally open in two week (aka The News 14 Carolina Story I could have been on)

We've been waiting for oh...over a year and a half now ...but there's light at the end of the I-485 Construction Tunnel! Yes, the infamous, Charlotte construction project is almost done and ready for traffic. I-485 from NC 16 to I-77/NC 115 in Huntersville might open by the end of this month!

Yes, I said that the next segment of I-485 (NC 16 to I-77/NC 115 in Huntersville) could possibly open by the end of the month.

I was so shocked I had to type it twice...just to believe it.

The contractor has a target date of opening of Halloween (October 31st) for completion of the often delayed, often bungled 5.5 miles of highway.

Of course if it decides to rain a bit over the next few weeks...that could be pushed back. (Not like we haven't seen that before.)

News Stories:
I-485 closer to completion ---News 14 Carolina (Includes video)
Another stretch of I-485 close to completion ---Charlotte Observer

Commentary:
Well, RickMastFan67 picked November 1st. So if it opens the 31st or the 1st, he'll win a prize.

All I can say it's about time, there have been so many issues with building this highway...it was hard to keep track of (amazingly the last six months went along quietly...amazingly and thankfully that is).

This is big piece of the I-485 as this now offers traffic from I-77 North of Charlotte (Statesville, Huntersville, Davidson) a quicker option and bypass to get to I-85 South (or west of Charlotte) to places like Gastonia, the Upstate of South Carolina, and Atlanta. It will make a huge local and long-distance traffic shift after it opens.

Oh, I'm visiting friends in Charlotte the weekend of November 14th...so as long as the road is open...I'll get photos of the new highway at that time.

As for the other part of the title, I received an e-mail yesterday morning from the News 14 Carolina reporter, Shannon Paluso, asking to possibly interview me about the project specifically all of the delays in construction and the funding issues that have pushed finishing the entire loop back a number of years. Unfortuanately, I didn't get to the e-mail last night...and of course I live in Raleigh...which is about a 2.5 to 3 hour drive from that part of Mecklenburg County. Oh well, it's still nice to be considered for inclusion as part of the story.

Columbus Day I-74 Road Trip Discoveries

I took a trip back to the completely open I-74/US 74 freeway to check out the westbound side, which was closed before, and to see what they had done to solve the exit number problem.

I approached the new freeway via I-95. The new Exit 13 signs start out 2 miles in advance.
They have completely demolished the former US 74 (Exit 14) ramps as you can see just before the ramps for the new exit begin. The closeness of the 2 ramps shows why they could not keep the old ramp in service...
The ramps lead to, depending on your point of view, some of the most unique or most confusing BGSs ever to appear on an interstate. Here are photos from both north and south off ramps...
These are taken from the C/D ramps heading southbound on I-95, the only destination I-74 currently goes to is Laurinburg.

I took the eastbound ramp to see how close to completion the freeway was east of I-95.

Coming back, I did a quick 180 to show the signs from the C/D ramps going northbound for those who may be coming to investigate from points south.

This is from the on ramp to Alternate US 74. As you can see there still doing work there, though all the signs are up. Again, these signs may be confusing to some. They have not finished putting the final coat of pavement on the last 2 miles of the freeway and there are no I-74 signs or mileposts past the Alternate 74 exit. Here's a closeup of signs going further along Alternate 74...
For those wondering what the control cities at the various exits east of I-95 are, this should satisfy your curiosity...
Laurinburg is used in place of Rockingham at on ramps closer to that city.

I took the following photos to show how the interchange at NC 710 had changed, formerly the end of the freeway....
This is the NC 710 exit westbound. First, you'll notice the old exit numbers are used. They have started the process of removing the original mileposts that are wrong between what is now Exit 203 (Dew Rd) and is still Exit 220 (Alt/Bus US 74) to the west, but the none of the exit numbers on the old stretch have been changed to back the new. This will probably be Exit 199.

The previous version of the photo you may have seen had the east 74/74 signs covered up. This ramp design is unique in that the entrance is to the left due to the existing road the van is parked on to the right.

I continued on to Laurinburg to see if they had switched out the previous 55 mph speed limit signs. Not only is the speed now 70 for all of the new freeway, the 70 mph limit continues all along the Maxton Bypass until the Scotland County line where it is reduced to 60 mph. The 70 mph stretch is still not up to Interstate standards, as this photo will attest...
Exit numbers have not changed along the Laurinburg Bypass, but they have been covered over for what was Exit 207 (Business US 74) and Exit 209, since these match numbers further east, they also need to cover Exit 210 and Exit 212, since these will be repeats as well. Here's one of the exit signs along the Bypass...
This exit number will be changed to something around 186. For a complete list of current numbers and probable future ones, see my I-74 Exit List.

Lastly, here's a photo of the only triplex eastbound on ramp sign displays in Laurinburg...
Does adding US 501 to the mix make it more or less confusing?

Additional I-73/74 Notes: I returned up US 220 and the I-73/74 corridor. A stretch of the substandard I-73/74 highway north of Candor is signed as a work zone with signs every 1/2 mile warning of 'Low/Soft Shoulder" on both sides of the northbound roadway. The only thing I can think this can be is the widening of the shoulders to Interstate standards. However, according to the latest state TIP this project is supposed to be a couple of years off. Did they get money to do it early, or is NCDOT going overboard in warning of future construction?

Speaking of construction, progress is proceeding on the 2 Visitor's Centers/ Rest Areas near the Randolph/Montgomery county line. The freeway is only 1 lane in each direction around the construction zone. The future northbound rest area can be seen in the distance in the photo below...
Some of the photos above and others will be featured in updated I-74 Segment 15 and Segment 16 pages in the near future.

Two Pennsylvania Decommissioned Routes

I originally wanted to do a daytrip today, but decided to do some much needed web work. Obviously, part of it was starting the Carolina Crossroads project.

One small update I did was with the help of Adam Moss. Adam is relatively new to the hobby, and a lot of his work has been done on Wikipedia. He's from New Jersey, but lives close enough to Northeastern PA to be a great asset there. And that's what he did. Since I am so behind on updates, I suggested that he create pages for the PA Decommissioned Routes pages. So Adam put together pages for PA 945 and PA 962.

Meanwhile, I am starting on West Virginia updates. hopefully, i'll get to Pennsylvania by the end of the year.

Thanks again to Adam for putting together the pages, and also Jeff Kitsko for the map scans.

New Blog - Carolina Crossroads and Small Towns

I am very proud to share with everyone my latest webproject, Carolina Crossroads and Small Towns. This is a project that I have at times rambled about in this blog and also numerous times to my friends. It's a project that I have enjoyed getting together, and hopefully will update with new entries once or twice a week. I definitely have enough material, and instead of waiting who knows how long between updates to add new material, incorporating the project into a blog will make adding new material much faster and won't hit the never ending backlog.

So take a look and enjoy...and come back often if you would.

--Adam

Vacation Daytrip - Hanging Rock State Park

As I mentioned in yesterday's entry, this past Sunday, Kristy and I went hiking at Hanging Rock State Park. I've been wanting to check out the park for sometime, and it is also in a part of North Carolina that I haven't had a chance to really see.

Route: I-540, I-40, NC 68, NC 65, US 311, NC 89, NC 268, US 52, I-40, I-540.

If you were looking for road photos, you're out of luck on this post. The entire flickr set (over 135 photos) is here.

Hanging Rock State Park has over 18 miles of hiking trails, numerous rock outcroppings and scenic view, and at least five waterfalls.

Our first hike was along the Indian Creek Trail to check out Hidden and Window Falls. The Indian Creek Trail is also part of the statewide Mountains-To-Sea Trail which is currently under development. When completed, the Mountains-to-Seat Trail will run nearly 1,000 miles from Clingman's Dome in the Mountains to Jockey's Ridge State Park along the Outer Banks.

Hidden Falls:

To access the Falls from the Visitor Center, you will need to pass through the picnic area and onto the trail.


Window Falls:

A little further down the trail is Window Falls. Window falls has a slightly better open view area. The fact that you can walk under the falls makes it very popular with kids.


You are able to stand on the rocks above Window Falls and have a great view of the surrounding country side.

Hanging Rock Trail:

What it obviously the most popular hike at the park is the Hanging Rock Trail. From the visitor's center it is about a 1.5 mile hike to the top of the exposed rock.


Hiking to the rock can be strenuous at times, but at the end of the trail...the views are more than rewarding.





Upper Cascade Falls:

Our last hike was the short half mile trail to the Upper Cascade Falls. It's definitely worth it.



Unfortunately, we didn't get to the Lower Cascade Falls or hit a couple of other trails. However, we will certainly be back to enjoy what is fast becoming one of our favorite state parks.