Travels thru cities or around them?
Hi all, Is there an easy way to find out if it is a good idea to travel through a city with a travel trailer or if going around the city is preferable? I grew up in Boston MA and although it is a g...
Forum Discussion
Sometimes loops are worse than going through the middle of the city, because of the suburban traffic they carry. West side loop for St Louis, I-610 for Houston being cases in point. So there is no general principle, it is more about knowing the local problems.
Being familiar with Indianapolis and St Louis, I would take the south loop around Indianapolis if going to I-40 W from any place on the east side, and for St Louis I would take the loop on the north side if going to I-40, around the east and south sides if going to I-44, although if headed to I-44 I sometimes just go through.
If headed down I-44 and further west, I would use 244 to get across Tulsa. OK City, I-240 used to be better for going through, but now that it has been built up around, it can be worse than following I-40.
Kansas City, loop around the west and south if connecting with I-35 south from an eastern approach, or go straight through if staying on I-40.
Being not in a hurry most of the time, I stay off of much of the Interstate system to avoid the cities entirely, using rural segments of the U.S. highway system to connect between rural segments of the Interstates. In the Midwest, speed limits are almost as high and the roads are often in better shape and always less crowded. This is probably quite different from your experience with numbered U.S. and state highways in the Northeastern Megapolis where suburbs and smaller cities tend to fill in almost all the space.
From where to where? I can probably get from east central Ohio to anyplace east of the Rockies without routing through or near a city of more than 500,000 but east of that and in the urban West this is much harder to do because the alternative roads tend to go through almost contiguous medium-size cities, rather than farmland, grasslands or empty desert.
Being familiar with Indianapolis and St Louis, I would take the south loop around Indianapolis if going to I-40 W from any place on the east side, and for St Louis I would take the loop on the north side if going to I-40, around the east and south sides if going to I-44, although if headed to I-44 I sometimes just go through.
If headed down I-44 and further west, I would use 244 to get across Tulsa. OK City, I-240 used to be better for going through, but now that it has been built up around, it can be worse than following I-40.
Kansas City, loop around the west and south if connecting with I-35 south from an eastern approach, or go straight through if staying on I-40.
Being not in a hurry most of the time, I stay off of much of the Interstate system to avoid the cities entirely, using rural segments of the U.S. highway system to connect between rural segments of the Interstates. In the Midwest, speed limits are almost as high and the roads are often in better shape and always less crowded. This is probably quite different from your experience with numbered U.S. and state highways in the Northeastern Megapolis where suburbs and smaller cities tend to fill in almost all the space.
From where to where? I can probably get from east central Ohio to anyplace east of the Rockies without routing through or near a city of more than 500,000 but east of that and in the urban West this is much harder to do because the alternative roads tend to go through almost contiguous medium-size cities, rather than farmland, grasslands or empty desert.
