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The only one I can think of offhand is the West Seattle Bridge. It's just the West Seattle Bridge, it's not WA Route (some number) or anything. I'm sure there have to be others.
Harbor Drive in downtown Portland is a former example. It was torn down in the '70s.
I'm defining "freeway" here as "a highway with a higher speed limit than neighboring major streets, and no intersections, only on/off-ramps". Doesn't need to have multiple lanes on each side.
Long Island (NY) has a many longstanding limited-access high-speed parkways that have no signed* numerical designation and have never been known by numerical designation: the Northern (aka Northern State), Southern (aka Southern State), Meadowbrook, Wantagh, Sagtikos, Sunken Meadow, Heckscher, Bethpage, and William Floyd - and NYC has a ton likewise though I can't recall which NYC parkways might have some parts that are numerically designated connections.
* NY State later assigned numbers for what might be broadly called bookkeeping reasons, but that would come as a shock to most users if they were to encounter them on the road or on maps.
I'm defining "freeway" here as "a highway with a higher speed limit than neighboring major streets, and no intersections, only on/off-ramps". Doesn't need to have multiple lanes on each side.
Does a freeway have to be a free limited access highway?
Because all three of New Jersey's toll highways are non-numbered: the entirety of the Garden State Parkway, most of the Atlantic City Expressway, and the New Jersey Turnpike from the Delaware border to Exit 6 just south of Trenton.
Does a freeway have to be a free limited access highway?
Because all three of New Jersey's toll highways are non-numbered: the entirety of the Garden State Parkway, most of the Atlantic City Expressway, and the New Jersey Turnpike from the Delaware border to Exit 6 just south of Trenton.
The Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, turning into the Hutchinson River Turnpike in New York. Bronx River Parkway in New York City. Cross County Parkway in Westchester County NY. Northern State Parkway and Southern State Parkway on Long Island NY. The Natchez Trace Parkway from Natchez, MS to Nashville TN. The Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago, in contrast, has I-290, as well as I-90 and I-95 designations on separate stretches.
There were big plans, but not fulfilled, for a 4 lane divided highway along the shore of Lake Ontario, in western NY State, aptly called the 'Lake Ontario State Parkway' (no route number). The roadway was planned to begin in Niagra Falls, NY and travel east, to Watertown, NY. Construction began in the late 50s, in Rochester, the midpoint of the road, with the idea of crews going in each direction, with the completion happening in 5-6 years.
Long story short, the crews went west, but not east, from Rochester, but for some reason the project stalled, after about 16-18 miles, I think, of road was complete. Construction initially terminated around Hamlin Beach, around the mid-60s, and then several years later, another few miles were built, before the entire project died.
I'm not sure about this one, but a number of years ago, the first time I drove to Myrtle Beach, as I was heading east, through North Carolina, I came across a 4 lane roadway called the 'Faircloth Freeway'. I might have missed it, but I don't recall seeing a route number attached to it.....
The Palisades Parkway in NJ and NYS. On a somewhat related note NYC has a ton of "the" named parkways, probably quite a bit more than any other city in the country. The FDR, the Harlem River Drive, the Cross Bronx, the LIE, the Grand Central, the BQE, the Hutch, the West Side Hwy, the Henry Hudson, the Belt, the Bruckner and so on. Off the top of my head a few of them are numbered roads as well but the majority are not.
There are several in the Washington, DC area. The George Washington Memorial Parkway is a limited access parkway that follows the south bank (Virginia side) of the Potomac River through the Washington, DC area. On the Maryland side of the upper Potomac is the Clara Barton Parkway, named for the nurse that founded the Red Cross. It goes from Washington, DC out to Glen Echo Maryland where the Red Cross is headquartered. Both parkways have no numbers, are known only by those names, and are managed by the National Park Service as they connect several parks, including George Washington's Mt Vernon estate.
Another parkway in the area that was built about the same time (in the post WW2 boom) and managed by the National Park Service is the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. It is a four lane limited access road that connects downtown Baltimore with downtown Washington, DC. When driving on it, it feels like you are in a national park because all of the road signs are brown and the bridges are made of stone, and the newer bridges are made of moulded concrete made to look like real stone. No billboards are allowed and all you can see is woods, because it is protected parkland. There was a state proposal a few years ago to widen it to six lanes, but it was defeated because they did not want to destroy the scenic character of the road. The road never had a number, but in recent years they gave it the number 295, but not interstate 295, probably to make it easier for visitors to the area to see that it is an alternative to I-95 which pretty much runs parallel.
Last edited by james777; 05-15-2024 at 09:44 PM..
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