Talk:Interstate Highway System/Archive 8

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Shortest segment

The distinction of "not crossing State boundary" does not make sense to me:

• Shortest segment not crossing a State boundary: 0.11 mi (0.18 km): I-95 in the District of Columbia, where it crosses the Potomac River on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.[53]

Although DC is not a state, I would claim the particular I95-segment runs from the VA to the MD state boundary.

Dutch-Bostonian (talk) 15:46, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I thought quite a while about how to word this particular one -- how to be brief and yet still accurate. Before my edit, it read 'The shortest Interstate route segment within a state (or federal district)', which seemed a bit wordy. As the boundaries of DC with its neighbors are in fact the state boundaries of Maryland and Virginia, I thought the present wording was both accurate and concise. What about something like this:

• Shortest segment not crossing a State boundary: 0.11 mi (0.18 km): I-95 on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River where it briefly briefly crosses the southernmost tip of the District of Columbia between its borders with Maryland and Virginia.

Or maybe someone else has a better way to express it concisely and accurately. Edit boldly! YBG (talk) 06:31, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

See my edit in the article. Dutch-Bostonian (talk) 22:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

More about extremes

Because N-S routes are generally much shorter than E-W ones and major routes than not-divisible-by-5 ones, the information about I-10 and I-81 added by 76.189.169.77^{T / C} but undone by MPD ^{T / C} seems noteworthy to me. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I'm inclined to restore it. But I am happy with the removal of the bit about grandfather clauses. YBG (talk) 06:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The "not divisible by 5" qualification seems rather trivial to include. There are several major non-divisible-by-5 interstates which are quite a bit longer than others that are. I-30 and I-45 are rather shorter than, say, I-94, I-81, I-59, the eastern I-76, etc. etc. The only major distiction should be between the 2-d interstates and the daughter 3-d interstates. The whole "divisible by 5" thing is a bit too trivial. Ostebsibly, the "divisible by 5" ones are the longest, but there are too many exception in either direction to make it a big deal. Even if this stuff is true, its probably way to trivial to bother noting. --Jayron32 06:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Would you agree that the distinction between N-S and E-W is significant to merit separate categories? YBG (talk) 06:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Possibly. I-95 and I-90 as the longest NS and EW respectively probably bear mentioning, and possibly I-476 as the longest spur, but once we get to "longest not divisible by 5" or "most cars traveled on the third tuesday in may" or other such random trivialities, it can get to be a bit much. --Jayron32 07:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to concede thst longest not-divisible-by-5 may not be very notable ... they seem to be in the denser areas where there aren't as many numbers available. But might shortest-not-divisible-by-5 be a bit more significant, as the assignment x0 or x5 to a short route seems a bit more of a deviation from the plan to assign those numbers to coast-to-coast or border-to-border routes. YBG (talk) 07:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Exit numbers = mile markers

I had thought that changing exit numbers to match mile markers was a US national (federal) standard or guideline. I cannot find this. Can anyone help? Student7 (talk) 18:11, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Distance-based numbering became mandatory in the 2009 MUTCD (Section 2E.31, page 32). Originally, I heard that all states have to comply with the change by 2020; however, the list of compliance dates on page 41 of the Intro and TOC PDF makes no mention of it. – TMF 19:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)