Post
by Kellemora » 12 Oct 2017, 12:59
People find a route they like to take, often with several turns, and after it becomes popular and more heavily traveled, they change the road marking to facilitate the traffic flow. It's like that here too! Going over to my wife's sisters home, although it is a straight shot as far as the roadway itself is concerned. At one time it was several turns onto different streets. It still is actually, however, their are no more turns, per se. The road you are on by a certain name used to go right, and you had to make a left on another road. Now the main road goes to the left, and the original road is now a turn.
But yes, a lot of streets that did not get a new route, still had different names as they passed through certain areas. Like Lindbergh Blvd. become Kirkwood Road while going through Kirkwood.
Some of the time, this is because two roads were joined later on. Like our Henley Street and Chapman Highway. On the north side of the Tennessee River it was named Henley Street, and on the south side of the River it was Chapman Highway. Then they built a bridge across the river joining the two streets.
I worked in Highways and Planning when the secondary Interstate Highways were built. Namely the 100 and 200 series Interstates. Both the 100 and 200 series Interstates were designed as CIRCLES, although not all of the circles would be built as circles. They came up with the most logical numbering system anyone could imagine, but for many who didn't understand it, it was too complicated for them. The government failed to provide instructions for the numbering system.
As an example, I'll use the 200 Interstate System. The number TWO was most significant, and could be replaced with the word TWO... If you were ON Interstate 244, it meant you were going TOWARD Interstate 44. If you were ON Interstate 270 in meant you were going TOWARD Interstate 70. This of course caused either side of the 200 Interstates to have different names.
So somewhere along the line, after the Interstates were built, they gave both sides the same name. Then later on they changed again to give each full arc the same name, regardless of how many different Interstates they crossed.
Because cities are comprised of some very odd shapes, and the 100 series was supposed to be as close to a circle as possible, they had to average the suburban fringe around the city and then install the 100 series Interstate. Technically, if you were on a 100 series interstate, you knew the city was inside the circle and the county outside the circle.
The 200 series was also arcs of a circle, and centered in the counties around a city.
The 300 series was also supposed to be small arcs of a circle, and on the edge of two different counties where possible, and only constructed where traffic congestion dictated such an Interstate was necessary.
However, the original plans for the 300 series fell by the wayside, and many 300 series Interstates became more like spokes of wheel leading from city to city, which was never the intent of the 300 series numbering at all.
Interstate 370 is a good example of a great plan gone wrong.
Links between Interstate highways, that were not a 100, 200, or 300 series circles, were not supposed to be Interstates at all, but simply State Roads with a Federal Route number, and were never supposed to get a name.
However, we all know, some existing roads with names became Interstates, and some Federal Routes also became Interstates. Route 66 for example, covered many different routes over the years, but is now replaced by Interstate 44 and Interstate 66 I think. Been a long time since I've lived in the area, so who knows what they call them now, hi hi...
I lived on Manchester Road, back when it was Route 66, before they moved Route 66 further south to go through Crestwood.
