the worst spin is the old PA turnpike where instead of sending the drone over to the other end of the tunnel, there is only spin footage :( otherwise great!
Thank you. Maybe also use a different micro or a different room? There is some echo in your voice. But it is a great source of information, direct to the point.
This is the type of content that I love, and this channel is the only place I can get it. I Just spend my night switching back and forth between this and Google Earth
@@ryanrundell2934 idk I kinda just know what to look for… sometimes I just look at highways that end, and search all over the world. And went looking for abandoned stuff I just look for new growth areas. Hard to explain…
If you like this kind of content, you should take a look at the "Secrets of the motorway" series here on UA-cam, which has lots of stories about old roads in the UK.
Amusingly, Baltimore's highway-to-nowhere was built with the intention that the extra-wide median would support the long-planned/never-built east-west subway. The controversy over its construction was a key story in the Freeway Revolts, and propelled a whole generation of political leaders into power in Maryland. Another remanent of this project was the ridiculously oversized interchange where I-70 meets I-695. The highway stub east of the beltway was intended to ultimately connect to the highway-to-nowhere, but has been transformed into a park-and-ride.
The I-70 thoroughfare was originally planned to go all the way through. I don't remember if the plans were before or after it, but it was ultimately stopped due to the existence of I95 and 895 already being in-place and the city didn't need or want a third highway. It is kinda funny to see the massive I70 suddenly fizzle out into a funky shape park and ride but I'm glad they didn't go through with building it
Regarding the I-70 Park-n-Ride terminus... Occasionally, if there is too much traffic congestion at the 695-N ramp (from 70-E), my GPS will tell me to take 70 to the very end and follow the U-turn around to get on 695-N from the exit ramp at the Park-n-Ride. Guess it saves a few minutes! And I always wondered why there are roads/exit ramps to nowhere near the 95 and 695 interchange (actually, just north of the Caton Ave exit off of 95). I see that every time I'm heading up 95 to points north of Baltimore. Seems likes it been like that for ages.
They even built stub ramps at the I-695/MD-702 interchange, because they were going to align it into there. They were only like 100 feet long and were removed relatively recently, with the exception of one on the south/eastbound side of 702, which continues to exist because it's built into a bridge.
@@EyeMWing And check out where Desoto Road passes under 95 -- just north of the Caton Ave exit off of 95. There seem to be exit/entrance ramps that were never finished. The one at the north end (near Georgetown Road/Bernard Drive) abruptly ends directly underneath 95. The street view of that area is pretty amazing -- looks like the 95 bridge was build right on top of the raised unused exit ramp.
@@2dollarbill650yes, I suspected from the thumbnail that was the stacks, but who knows, there could be another somewhere. I wandered around on it just before they connected up a couple of them.
CT 384 as well! Goes from Manchester to Bolton Notch. It was supposed to be I-84 and go to Providence. Rhode Island decided to not fund their part and CT stopped building at Bolton Notch.
I remember "the stack" in Connecticut from when I was a kid back in the late 1960s. The family would drive thru there when we were visiting relatives in western Connecticut. It was the "almost" there landmark. After awhile I came to realize that no other roads were using the other levels.
Years ago, in San Jose CA, the over pass of I280 at Hwy 101 was a third level bridge to nowhere as the surface portion stalled. In the middle of the night, some one placed a VW Bug on that span, causing major embarrassment to officials as they struggled to figure out how to get it down.
Don't forget the Lighted Tree every December that was placed on the top bridge. Side note, Mad Magazine put the interchange on their cover that featured the great blunders of the world.
A fun one to add is the Lake Ontario State Parkway in NY. It was intended as a lakeside link between Rochester NY and Niagra Falls, with plans to continue extending all the way to the Robert Moses parkway in Buffalo. The highway was ultimately about half built before the federally funded NY state thruway was constructed to the south. Enthusiasm for the project died off and so did funding leaving a 4 lane highway out to a pair of state parks that ends in the middle of farm country.
Just looked it up. Wow that parkway is way over built. I don't live too far in Southern Ontario, Will check it out next time taking I 90 east from Buffalo. thx for mentioning.
I was waiting for the Lake Ontario State Parkway to show up on this list... maybe even the Robert Moses... now renamed "Niagara Scenic Parkway". @JKSSubstandard the western part of the Lake Ontario State Parkway was built well after the Thruway - early 70's maybe? @BuildingTales did you consider either one?
The abandoned PA Turnpike section is unique among these 8 in that it was actually a working highway that was abandoned rather than a never completed highway. Another famous abandoned highway is the stretch of PA 61 south of the near ghost town of Centralia, PA. Due to subsidence because of the mine fire underground, the highway was closed and PA 61 was rerouted onto a parallel local road. I recently saw a video that the abandoned roadway was covered over with dirt sometime in the post-Covid era to discourage graffiti artists and explorers as sinkholes had developed and poisonous gas was coming from the holes. Many states have partially completed highways and both PA and OH are chock full of them. Occasionally, they do get completed. US 30 across Ohio from Canton to the Indiana border back in the 1970s was a series of partially completed bypasses around many of the towns and cities where one or both ends of the bypasses ended in ghost ramps or "temporary" ramps. Eventually, sometime after the turn of the century, the segments were connected and US 30 is a four line highway or freeway for this whole stretch. Just east of Canton, US 30 still has an abrupt end and is mostly two lane until the WV border. In north-central PA, the Central Susquehanna Valley Thruway is under construction and will finally use the ghost ramps that currently exist at the north end of the US 11/15 Selinsgrove Bypass where the routes currently return to surface streets. It's been somewhere between 40 and 50 years since that short freeway stretch was completed. I grew up in that area and I honestly thought it would never be complete.
Good stuff!! Appreciate all those other ones, it’ll definitely be cool for me to look into those ones further And you’re totally right about the pa turnpike … I was on the fence if I should include it or pick a different one … but I had just hiked it, so figured I’d throw the video clips in there 😂
I know that US Route 30 is the Lincoln Highway and goes through Dekalb Illinois and also goes through New Lennox Illinois and Joliet Illinois where in Joliet Illinois that it crosses another famous highway known as Route 66. That intersection has marker signs saying both Historic Route 30 Lincoln Highway and Historic Route 66. I know about the Joliet area since I have family who lives in the Joliet Illinois area.
Connecticut has a really bad track record of failed highway projects. Another one is the Oak Street Connector in New Haven, which was supposed to connect the junction of Interstates 91 and 95 to Route 8 in the Lower Naugatuck Valley. In an attempt to achieve this, the city government tore down entire neighborhoods all the way to the West River and isolated The Hill neighborhood from downtown. They only completed about half a mile before canceling the project. Currently, they're paving over the only existing section of the Connector with new roads, walkways, and buildings in an effort to reconnect the city and undo past mistakes.
humm i ponder if someone/group controlling the purse strings has a stake in the company/companies building the roads.... better get Scooby-Doo and friends in to investigate 🙃
The top photo of the Amstutz look to be the highway scene in Groundhog Day. The Amstutz was originally to be a lakefront connection between Chicago and Milwaukee, but the much more wealthy towns to the south of Waukegan and North Chicago did want a highway through their towns. And as well all know.... money talks.
For ones outside the US, there's quite a few good ones around where I live in the Southeast of the UK. Most famously there's the London Ringways project which has multiple abandoned junctions around the London Suburbs (Jay Foreman has an excellent video on it too), some of which are (or were intended to be) absolutely huge! Perhaps less well known is a bit of road I drive quite regularly: the A27 near Arundel, which has a very obvious abandoned junction where the road just stops like many of the examples shown in this video! In fact now I think about it there's a UA-camr called Auto Shenanigans who's made many videos on some of the oddities of our highway network, so well worth a watch!
There were several highways to nowhere in Pottland, OR. They were canceled and money spent instead on the MAX light rail and to upgrade several surface arterial streets
Parts of the PA Turnpike are built over another abandoned road, the South Pennsylvania Railroad, an attempt to build a competing southern rail passage across the state which was canceled after much of the grading had been done. The rights-of-way were then used for the trunpike.
Some of the tunnels had also been constructed hence why the turnpike narrowed from 4 lanes to 2 lanes as they entered the tunnels. They didn’t spend money widening them.
The RT40 "road to nowhere" was originally to be called I-170 and would have been a spur from I-70 into downtown Baltimore. I-70 stops in a park and ride at what would have been the Security Blvd. exit. It would have linked to I-95 where the exit for O'Donnell St. is now. Part of the intended ramps are still there.
There’s also the Richmond Parkway/Korean War Veterans Memorial Parkway in Staten Island NY. The southern part was built along with a full interchange at what would have been the northern end at the Staten Island expressway, but the part that actually would have connected to the Expressway was cancelled because of environmentalist opposition, and the interchange to nowhere was removed when the SIE was widened in the 2010s.
It's also why the Willowbrook Expressway ends suddenly at Victory Boulevard/College of Staten Island (then Willowbrook State School). The expressway was supposed to run down to Hylan Boulevard (and along the west side of that college), ultimately crossing the Richmond Parkway. To fill in the gap, the West Shore Expressway was built in the 1970s; prior to that point, Richmond Avenue carried NY 440.
Another good one is i-180 in Illinois. I believe it's the country's least traveled interstate. Built to connect I-80 to a steel mill that shortly thereafter went out of business.
The Baltimore US-40 segment was constructed with provision for rail transit in its median. The rail transit provision was originally planed to be used for an east west subway line proposed in the 1970s. An east west light rail line is presently being proposed to make use of it.
390, elgin ohare expressway. Built a bridge abutment and bridge for overpass to what i believe was a parking lot ,field upgraded. Didn't know much about this eway till i worked on it . Legitimately connects two hubs, but never was fully realized. Im from chicago, lifelong resident. The funny thing was asking the engineer about completion and anticipated openings. There answer was in 5-10 years. It felt like the build it ,they will come mindset and of course the build America money was there 😮
The infamous Amztutz at least got used for some movie scenes. Plus they repaved it about 8-10 years ago, so it's much smoother to go like hell on for 2 miles.
Me too! I've even driven on the new portion there in Greenfield. At the terminus there's a roundabout for parking and a walking/biking path as well as leading to the Greenfield Rd light. In the middle of the roundabout is a piece of art depicting goat silhouettes.
@daffers2345 I have driven the new portion several times. Just last week as I was going into the roundabout I took notice of the goats. It gave me a chuckle.
You might also add WI 145, the Fond du Lac Freeway in Milwaukee. Originally part of Milwaukee's grandiose freeway planning in the 1960s, it was built through half of its route, and is now an underused freeway that starts at I-41 and sputters out around Capitol Drive.
Take a look at the Samuel Clements Highway in Elmira, New York. My dad always called it "The Highway to Nowhere." Apparently there was never a successful connection to any other main highway and now it is just a road to cross Elmira from one end to the other.
Elgin-O’Hare highway in Chicagoland. They’re currently working on completing the “O’Hare” end from the current end on that side (after at least 25 years) but nothing even planned for the Elgin end. When you get to the end on that side you can see right where it was planned to go as it’s a long path of empty land, but there isn’t any highway there lol.
The goat path in Lancaster Pa. was not abandoned because of a lack of funds. It was halted by politicians who were swayed away from the project to pay favor to the Pennsylvania Dutch tourist industry. You see the extension of 23 to meet route US 30 at Gap Pa. would take traffic off business route 30, the Lincoln Highway the home of 300 motels, all you can eat buffets, and the infamous Dutch Wonderland the castle amusement park in the center of the Amish vacation paradise. (What a castle has to do with the plain farm life of the Amish is a mystery to me). The citizens who live here have to deal with the traffic nightmare of business route 30 because the tourist industry thinks that a bypass would cause them to lose a nickel to the New Yorkers looking for some good old fresh air.
I am from Waukegan, glad to see the Amstutz mentioned. The empty land eat of the baseball field used to be Johnsmanville. Many movies used it as a filming location. It was built starting in 1968. The Blues Brother was filmed there.
So cool to see the Goat Path on here! I live very close by and have driven on the new portion. My grandparents lived next to the graded area on Willow Road (the house is gone now). Farther east along the Path, there's even an abandoned area where they started to build ramps and had to abandon it, and a bridge with no highway on top, just grass. It's kind if spooky, especially the abandoned ramp area.
This is super interesting to me. I live near Lancaster and visit sometimes and about a year ago I noticed the beginning of the construction of the walnut street extension, but haven’t seen it until now watching this video. It instantly came to mind when I was just watching your other video about highways to nowhere lol
There is another one in Boston. North bound rt93, on the upper deck there is a stub that veers off to the left. That was supposed to be the start of a highway that would connect to the rt3/rt95 interchange in Burlington Ma.
One that I see a few times per year on my trips is the Pike Road exit "Route 108" on I-85 east of Montgomery, AL. It took 30 years of planning just to get the first phase which is a 4 mile stretch from I-85 to Vaughn Rd, it opened in 2016 and the rest of the planned bypass has stalled. Instead of a bypass for faster access from I-85 to I-65, bypassing the insanity of Montgomery traffic and the current outdated I-85/I-65 intersection, the remaining 3 phases remain stuck in red tape, the old tiny town of "Pike Road" fighting it, and land owners not willing to give up their land.
During WWII the TVA built Fontana Dam, the tallest in the eastern US, which impounded Fontana Lake, which became the southern boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The lake flooded out numerous communities and the road connecting them, and left family cemeteries (now on National Park land) inaccessible. The government promised to build a new 30-mile road along the north shore of the lake, but for many reasons only six miles were ever built, or ever will be. The controversy over whether to finish the road ran into the 21st century. You can drive those six miles down "Lakeview Drive" from Bryson City, NC, called by locals the "Road to Nowhere." (The Park Service still periodically ferries family members across the lake to visit the cemeteries.)
Hartford county resident here, the I-291 beltway was cancelled because the route that was planned had a lot of environmental concerns. The planned route would disturb local water and gas line infrastructure.
For a while, part of SR-30 (the Foothill Freeway) was a sort of highway to nowhere from I-210 to Foothill Boulevard in the Glendora area. There were proposals to extend the freeway through Upland and Fontana to connect with a freeway loop around San Bernardino, but that was not constructed until the 90s. Of course, today this section of road is anything but a "highway to nowhere", but for decades it certainly was considering its abrupt end.
Quite familiar with #1. Frequently went into Baltimore via this as a kid and later. Down 40 from my grandparents house literally on that highway a couple miles down. First off, it’s odd, but it isn’t really nowhere. Both ends connect to regular city street US 40. It became sort of a quick short bypass so you don’t have to stop at all those intersections you see. And don’t blame the bypass highway for problems. Baltimore became a big problem increasingly after the ‘60s, everywhere just about, not simply in this area.
My family and just I traveled to Houston, which has a lot of the 4-layer "stack" interchanges that take up less land area than a traditional cloverleaf. I was thinking about what my father called "The Crazy Mixed Up Bridge" in Connecticut, not knowing it was nicknamed "The Stack" 3:55. We drove under it every year on our way up to Vermont to go camping. I always thought it was 4 layers tall because it was the hypothetical intersection of 4 highways, not knowing what it looked like from the air, and not knowing about the Stack Interchange. Fascinating! Brings back memories. Thank you.
"I was thinking about what my father called "The Crazy Mixed Up Bridge" in Connecticut, not knowing it was nicknamed "The Stack"" No, you father was thinking of the mix-master over Waterbury, CT which connects I-84 to Route 8. Its quite the spectacle.
@@guytech7310 Hey thanks for the feedback, but "The Stack" in Farmington, CT was what I personally remember, especially since the on-ramps and off-ramps all ended in gravel. The mix-master in Waterbury is fascinating because it's a "normal" interchange, bounded by a river, so all the connecting ramps had to be on one bank. But it's only 3 layers deep (two bridges tall) max. If you want a wild satellite view of an interchange, check out Plymouth Meeting, PA (476/276) because it joins three toll roads with one free one, back in the days with human toll takers, thus they had to have a toll plaza for all the possibilities.
7:20 The abandoned Laurel Hill tunnel on the PA Turnpike has been used by Chip Ganassi Racing for wind tunnel testing by both IndyCar and NASCAR teams. No wind, no rain, perfectly repeatable real-world conditions, with no worries about the effects of the moving floor in a traditional test facility.
The amstutz highway was used for a movie back in the early 2010s, Now, it is a small highway that will take you between waukegan and some other place. I live in waukegan so i know all about this.
I live in Alaska and have been to Ketchikan. To go from the airport into Ketchikan (or anywhere) you need to take the ferry between the islands. It takes about 90 seconds to cross, but there's other traffic on the water including fishing boats, pleasure boats, sea planes, and cruise ships. Also, the runway is significantly higher than the terminal. You taxi on a pretty severe incline and the pilots have to add a bit of throttle to make it up to the runway.
I-390 into O'Hare AKA the Elgin-O'Hare. Even among locals it's a mystery sometimes. Happy digging. A lot to unpack between the railroads, aviation industry, trucking industry, and local residents.Then there are utilities that want access to the stretch underground.
I believe now that they're finally constructing I-490 around O'Hare's westside, it will actually be connection to something more than 294. Only problem with it for me is the fact both roads keep getting called western O'Hare access roads yet all they do is connect you around to the eastern access point. If they're going to build these roads they need to have an alternate entry to O'Hare.
The rt40 segment, while not technically a highway to nowhere, as it is still in use and many people use it, is very out of place compared to the rest of 40. Most of the Balto section of 40 is at-grade, slow, filled with stoplights and businesses and housing and it's a regular inter-city road. But then there's this section of lowered highway-style pavement that just looks off and feels weird and I guess now I know why. Supposedly there's plans to put the new RedLine in there between the sides of the street but there's enough other things there that it could prove to be too expensive
You also have the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway(the SOB) on Long Island originally intended to cross the Long Island Sound to Port Chester, NY, where it would connect with I-287. The bridge was never built and the 10 mile expressway(NY- 135) ends in Syosset.
When rout 128 was being built it was called a highway from nowhere to nowhere which to be fair is true as it connects no major cities but it still ended up being among the most valuable and used highways in the nation.
There is the original I-40 through Memphis. Also a unused I-755 in St. Louis, the stub ramps are gone now when a soccer stadium was built. Shreveport may end up having a highway to nowhere where ghost ramps are a permanent feature for I-49. It depends if they build that connector or not.
The section of North Second Street between Rockford Illinois and Loves Park Illinois was part of an never finished highway project hence it having ramps and overpasses / underpasses in some sections and some streets connect to it. Also two road bridges over the Rock River via ramps ( Whitman Street and Auburn Street / Spring Creek Road ) Also the former CN&W ( UP) Chicago to Janesville Wisconsin line crosses Auburn Street / Spring Creek Road also the connecting ramps to North Second Street then into Loves Park the tracks make an curve crossing North Second Street.
Down the road on the lowest bridge level of the stack there, at the northern end of what was built, is a giant stack of wood. You can see it is overgrown with trees now (it also looks like some of it was cleaned up), but 25 years ago it was just a giant pile of logs. On more than one occasion did people try to get it going into a massive bonfire. Though none that I saw lasted very long. Note that by "logs" I really mean "entire trunks of trees" and there were some big trees there.
The baltimore highway to nowhere was a resounding success - it divided a neighborhood, ruined the surrounding property values and drove masses of people to flee to the suburbs exactly as intended.
The Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee, WI is an interesting story. It was paid for using federal funds as part of the Lake Front Freeway project that was eventually cancelled. The bridge was built in 1972 but it stood unconnected to anything until 1977 after the Federal Government threatened to bill the state for it's construction costs unless it was put into use. Simple on and off ramps were constructed to local roads but the bridge still was under utilized until 1998 when it was finally connected to a highway. Despite this connection, the bridge is highly unused and there have been discussions on removing it in favor of a surface road which would be much cheaper to maintain. Fun fact - The Hoan was used in the filming of a major car chase scene in the movie The Blues Brothers.
You could also do one on unending projects, like the Philadelphia side of the Betsy Ross bridge. I think it was completed in the late 70's or early 80's and they're still working on the ramps to connect it to I-95.
Add NY Rt 219 Expressway, from Buffalo to Pennsylvania...but never made it past Springville NY, and was extended 4 useless miles to absolutely nowhere, putting motorists back onto the original old Rt 219.
I'm not surprised to see CT mentioned twice. My parents moved from CT to upstate NY when I was around 3. We would go back mutiple times a year to visit relatives and we started to notice a something, it would take CT 3-5 years to complete a road project that would take 1 year back in NY. I'm not even talking about big projects either, whatever they were doing as far as road work took forever for them to finish.
Cool video. I live in lancaster pa so the goat path with its ghost bridges and ramps always fascinates me. I also been on the new extention a few times which seems almost pointless. In fact it looks like they use it more as a dragway with all the tire marks. I also been to the abandoned turnpike many times. And also PA 61 in centrailia which was not mentioned before they covered it in dirt piles.
The failure of Baltimore to complete the I-70 to I-95 connector has resulted in exceptionally and legendary high traffic on the Baltimore Beltway. Few people understand why the beltway traffic is so bad, and it is in large part because that connector - which would have taken a lot of pressure off the beltway - was never constructed. You can still see the ramps on I-95 that were created for this stretch of road.
Another "highway to nowhere" is the planned extension of New Jersey 18, which ends at exit 6 in Wall Township. Originally planned to continue south from NJ 138 to Point Pleasant (5 1/2 miles south), political issues - namely its proximity to land owned by an influential politician who didn't want it disturbing his plans for developing his property - caused the cancellation of the remaining distance. And while the highway as it exists is still very useful from 138 all the way to New Brunswick (divided expressway from Wall to exit 30 and then non-expressway north until its termination at I-287 in Piscataway) it would have helped significantly reduce traffic south of Wall headed to the beach south of Belmar, instead of forcing it all onto the badly overcrowded route 35.
There are a number around the Sacramento area. One overpass for an unbuilt freeway is now used for a light rail train route, while the one for the opposite side of the freeway is unused. There are also offramps that were supposed to be interchanges but now just dump out onto regular streets.
I remember going under a double decker bridge in central Illinois that lead to nowhere. They built the bridges in the early 80s for an expressway that wasn't built until the 90s I believe.
With today's burgeoning traffic and massive congestion on our streets, many of these projects should be revitalized and brought back onto the table, perhaps even at smaller scales than had originally been planned. Population never decreases, and it is kind of myopic to cancel projects when there are great chances that increasing traffic will occur in the near decades. Additionally, it's always better to build incrementally than to start with nothing and then build out a grandiose, multi-billion-dollar public works project. Start with a small, rural highway, and then upgrade it to a Super-Two as necessary. Then later on that Super-Two can be converted to a real 4-lane limited-access highway.
I'm very familiar with that Stack in Connecticut. At least part of it was put to some use. On the abandoned PA Turnpike, Rays Hill tunnel was the shortest of the original seven tunnels at 0.7 miles while Sideling Hill tunnel was the longest at 1.3 miles.
Look at the Route 7 Connector in Connecticut it was supposed to go all the way to Danbury but wealthy people with money stopped it from going through their town
One good example, on Long Island, New York, is Suffolk County Route 46, also known as the William Floyd Parkway. While the road does connect to a park in the south, the north/south highway was originally created as a connection with a proposed bridge to Connecticut which was eventually rejected by Connecticut. It ends abruptly at NY State 25A.
Great video! Here's another entry: the Tri- Borough Road Cloverleaf Interchange in Florham Park NJ, over Route24; listed as a "historical site" by google maps. It was supposed to connect to the never-completed Eisenhower Pkwy extension.
I think it is Schaumburg, Illinois. What do you think of Elgin-O'Hare Exspressway? In a another video, the person felf an exspessway near Quincy, Illinois is silly. what do you think?
@@BuildingTalesAnother one: Universitätsstrasse in Dortmund south of the TU Dortmund. Does not look built through. Looks like an Autobahn, but feels oversized just to bring people to the University of Dortmund.
We have a few in my state in Australia, but it was other improvements that caused them to become redundant. In 2 cases, they reworked the roads into future road planning, and put them to good use.
Personally I would like to know the story behind Hammersley Avenue in the Bronx. It's only about six blocks long, and wider than all of the main thoroughfares around it. It seems almost as wide as the New England Thruway (I-95) at its east end.
I think the PA Turnpike gets an unfair treatment from these types of videos. It was connected and useful as intended, not partially completed to nowhere.
While it did eventually get built, I-35 north from Kansas City used to be a "highway to nowhere" in that in the late 1960s and early 1970s the completed section of it ended somewhere near Winston MO (if you've never heard of Winston MO, that's kind of the point). If you wanted to continue north from there, you had to switch to US Route 69.
Thanks! And it’s definitely a work in progress as you can see, but the last month or so I’ve started to make a real effort to learn the editing side of things … so hopefully it will only get better from here on!
The Gravina Island connection will probably be feasible someday when the community grows larger, especially since the highway section is already there.
@@francissullivan5900 that had nothing to do with why that section was abandoned. The tunnels were not tall enough for commercial truck traffic. Look it up if you don't believe me. The two way traffic was a common thing before the 1970's
It's an everywhere thing indeed. Close to where I live in the Netherlands is an abandoned stretch of highway, built in the seventies, which ends at the border of the next regional authority. That one did not want that road. In the end a two-lane part was opened with a strange sharp curve at the end to connect it to a regional road.
For the Baltimore one they already put in the on/off ramps to I-95 for it before it got stopped. After 20 years of a ramp that just went out and stopped 100 feet off the ground the Fed gov passed more funds to tear it all down. You can still see parts of what's left of it between the Washington Blvd and Caton Ave exits on I-95.
My bad, didn't realize the spinning was so disorienting to so many people... future videos will be less vertigo inducing!
I didn't even notice!
the worst spin is the old PA turnpike where instead of sending the drone over to the other end of the tunnel, there is only spin footage :( otherwise great!
Thanks. Yes the spinning was making me dizzy.
You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round...
Thank you.
Maybe also use a different micro or a different room? There is some echo in your voice.
But it is a great source of information, direct to the point.
This is the type of content that I love, and this channel is the only place I can get it. I Just spend my night switching back and forth between this and Google Earth
Thanks, glad you're liking the content! And I definitely agree about Google Earth... so much cool stuff to see on there!
How do you find cool stuff on google earth?
@@ryanrundell2934 idk I kinda just know what to look for… sometimes I just look at highways that end, and search all over the world. And went looking for abandoned stuff I just look for new growth areas. Hard to explain…
Same!
If you like this kind of content, you should take a look at the "Secrets of the motorway" series here on UA-cam, which has lots of stories about old roads in the UK.
Amusingly, Baltimore's highway-to-nowhere was built with the intention that the extra-wide median would support the long-planned/never-built east-west subway. The controversy over its construction was a key story in the Freeway Revolts, and propelled a whole generation of political leaders into power in Maryland. Another remanent of this project was the ridiculously oversized interchange where I-70 meets I-695. The highway stub east of the beltway was intended to ultimately connect to the highway-to-nowhere, but has been transformed into a park-and-ride.
Now that Baltimore is talking about reviving the Red Line project, maybe one day we'll see that subway eventually get built!
The I-70 thoroughfare was originally planned to go all the way through. I don't remember if the plans were before or after it, but it was ultimately stopped due to the existence of I95 and 895 already being in-place and the city didn't need or want a third highway.
It is kinda funny to see the massive I70 suddenly fizzle out into a funky shape park and ride but I'm glad they didn't go through with building it
Regarding the I-70 Park-n-Ride terminus... Occasionally, if there is too much traffic congestion at the 695-N ramp (from 70-E), my GPS will tell me to take 70 to the very end and follow the U-turn around to get on 695-N from the exit ramp at the Park-n-Ride. Guess it saves a few minutes!
And I always wondered why there are roads/exit ramps to nowhere near the 95 and 695 interchange (actually, just north of the Caton Ave exit off of 95). I see that every time I'm heading up 95 to points north of Baltimore. Seems likes it been like that for ages.
They even built stub ramps at the I-695/MD-702 interchange, because they were going to align it into there. They were only like 100 feet long and were removed relatively recently, with the exception of one on the south/eastbound side of 702, which continues to exist because it's built into a bridge.
@@EyeMWing And check out where Desoto Road passes under 95 -- just north of the Caton Ave exit off of 95. There seem to be exit/entrance ramps that were never finished. The one at the north end (near Georgetown Road/Bernard Drive) abruptly ends directly underneath 95. The street view of that area is pretty amazing -- looks like the 95 bridge was build right on top of the raised unused exit ramp.
As a life long Connecticut resident, I clicked to see if route 11 or the stacks would be included, and you did both!
Route 11 is nearly never patrolled and used by young drivers to see how fast you can go... guilty
I knew from the thumb nail. Never been there but have past under a billion times
@@2dollarbill650yes, I suspected from the thumbnail that was the stacks, but who knows, there could be another somewhere. I wandered around on it just before they connected up a couple of them.
I came here for route 11 also 😂
CT 384 as well! Goes from Manchester to Bolton Notch. It was supposed to be I-84 and go to Providence. Rhode Island decided to not fund their part and CT stopped building at Bolton Notch.
I remember "the stack" in Connecticut from when I was a kid back in the late 1960s. The family would drive thru there when we were visiting relatives in western Connecticut. It was the "almost" there landmark. After awhile I came to realize that no other roads were using the other levels.
I drove under it dozens perhaps over 100 times traveling New York to Boston... good to know about it after years gone by!
Years ago, in San Jose CA, the over pass of I280 at Hwy 101 was a third level bridge to nowhere as the surface portion stalled. In the middle of the night, some one placed a VW Bug on that span, causing major embarrassment to officials as they struggled to figure out how to get it down.
Don't forget the Lighted Tree every December that was placed on the top bridge. Side note, Mad Magazine put the interchange on their cover that featured the great blunders of the world.
A fun one to add is the Lake Ontario State Parkway in NY. It was intended as a lakeside link between Rochester NY and Niagra Falls, with plans to continue extending all the way to the Robert Moses parkway in Buffalo. The highway was ultimately about half built before the federally funded NY state thruway was constructed to the south. Enthusiasm for the project died off and so did funding leaving a 4 lane highway out to a pair of state parks that ends in the middle of farm country.
Great beach at Hamlin, tho.
Just looked it up. Wow that parkway is way over built. I don't live too far in Southern Ontario, Will check it out next time taking I 90 east from Buffalo. thx for mentioning.
I added same highway then saw your post.
I was waiting for the Lake Ontario State Parkway to show up on this list... maybe even the Robert Moses... now renamed "Niagara Scenic Parkway". @JKSSubstandard the western part of the Lake Ontario State Parkway was built well after the Thruway - early 70's maybe? @BuildingTales did you consider either one?
I find the Stack especially fascinating as it has fully-functional roadways intertwined with never-used ones. Quite rare to see that I would think.
Definitely a unique piece of infrastructure!
The abandoned PA Turnpike section is unique among these 8 in that it was actually a working highway that was abandoned rather than a never completed highway.
Another famous abandoned highway is the stretch of PA 61 south of the near ghost town of Centralia, PA. Due to subsidence because of the mine fire underground, the highway was closed and PA 61 was rerouted onto a parallel local road. I recently saw a video that the abandoned roadway was covered over with dirt sometime in the post-Covid era to discourage graffiti artists and explorers as sinkholes had developed and poisonous gas was coming from the holes.
Many states have partially completed highways and both PA and OH are chock full of them. Occasionally, they do get completed. US 30 across Ohio from Canton to the Indiana border back in the 1970s was a series of partially completed bypasses around many of the towns and cities where one or both ends of the bypasses ended in ghost ramps or "temporary" ramps. Eventually, sometime after the turn of the century, the segments were connected and US 30 is a four line highway or freeway for this whole stretch. Just east of Canton, US 30 still has an abrupt end and is mostly two lane until the WV border.
In north-central PA, the Central Susquehanna Valley Thruway is under construction and will finally use the ghost ramps that currently exist at the north end of the US 11/15 Selinsgrove Bypass where the routes currently return to surface streets. It's been somewhere between 40 and 50 years since that short freeway stretch was completed. I grew up in that area and I honestly thought it would never be complete.
Good stuff!! Appreciate all those other ones, it’ll definitely be cool for me to look into those ones further
And you’re totally right about the pa turnpike … I was on the fence if I should include it or pick a different one … but I had just hiked it, so figured I’d throw the video clips in there 😂
I know that US Route 30 is the Lincoln Highway and goes through Dekalb Illinois and also goes through New Lennox Illinois and Joliet Illinois where in Joliet Illinois that it crosses another famous highway known as Route 66. That intersection has marker signs saying both Historic Route 30 Lincoln Highway and Historic Route 66. I know about the Joliet area since I have family who lives in the Joliet Illinois area.
Connecticut has a really bad track record of failed highway projects. Another one is the Oak Street Connector in New Haven, which was supposed to connect the junction of Interstates 91 and 95 to Route 8 in the Lower Naugatuck Valley. In an attempt to achieve this, the city government tore down entire neighborhoods all the way to the West River and isolated The Hill neighborhood from downtown. They only completed about half a mile before canceling the project. Currently, they're paving over the only existing section of the Connector with new roads, walkways, and buildings in an effort to reconnect the city and undo past mistakes.
Connecticut is/was also guilty of having the worst highway maintenance record in the nation.
humm i ponder if someone/group controlling the purse strings has a stake in the company/companies building the roads.... better get Scooby-Doo and friends in to investigate 🙃
@buellb0y
Always thought Connecticut had a ton of tax money for infrastructure
Any idea why everything is so bad?
Corruption laziness stupidity?
Extreme high costs
“Prevailing” wage or Davis-Bacon
And yep corruption too
The top photo of the Amstutz look to be the highway scene in Groundhog Day. The Amstutz was originally to be a lakefront connection between Chicago and Milwaukee, but the much more wealthy towns to the south of Waukegan and North Chicago did want a highway through their towns. And as well all know.... money talks.
7:25 you know you messed up when they are using your roads as a setting for the apocalypse. 🤣
For ones outside the US, there's quite a few good ones around where I live in the Southeast of the UK. Most famously there's the London Ringways project which has multiple abandoned junctions around the London Suburbs (Jay Foreman has an excellent video on it too), some of which are (or were intended to be) absolutely huge!
Perhaps less well known is a bit of road I drive quite regularly: the A27 near Arundel, which has a very obvious abandoned junction where the road just stops like many of the examples shown in this video!
In fact now I think about it there's a UA-camr called Auto Shenanigans who's made many videos on some of the oddities of our highway network, so well worth a watch!
There were several highways to nowhere in Pottland, OR. They were canceled and money spent instead on the MAX light rail and to upgrade several surface arterial streets
Parts of the PA Turnpike are built over another abandoned road, the South Pennsylvania Railroad, an attempt to build a competing southern rail passage across the state which was canceled after much of the grading had been done. The rights-of-way were then used for the trunpike.
Very cool, I didn't know about that!
Some of the tunnels had also been constructed hence why the turnpike narrowed from 4 lanes to 2 lanes as they entered the tunnels. They didn’t spend money widening them.
There's also another "abandoned" Pa Tpk tunnel that's been used by Chip Ganassi Racing for wind tunnel testing!
@@xr6lad In the 60s, the tunnels were either dualized to match the four lanes of traffic, or bypassed, usually as a cheaper upgrade.
The RT40 "road to nowhere" was originally to be called I-170 and would have been a spur from I-70 into downtown Baltimore. I-70 stops in a park and ride at what would have been the Security Blvd. exit. It would have linked to I-95 where the exit for O'Donnell St. is now. Part of the intended ramps are still there.
Ultimately cancelled as i95 and 895 already existed and were functioning alright. I'm rather glad they they didn't build a third highway through there
It's still officially called I-170.
At least the PA. Turnpike saw actual use before it aged out. I remember going through the tunnels as a kid.
yeah, the tunnels were not large enough to support modern trucking and usage. It had to be moved.
There’s also the Richmond Parkway/Korean War Veterans Memorial Parkway in Staten Island NY. The southern part was built along with a full interchange at what would have been the northern end at the Staten Island expressway, but the part that actually would have connected to the Expressway was cancelled because of environmentalist opposition, and the interchange to nowhere was removed when the SIE was widened in the 2010s.
It's also why the Willowbrook Expressway ends suddenly at Victory Boulevard/College of Staten Island (then Willowbrook State School). The expressway was supposed to run down to Hylan Boulevard (and along the west side of that college), ultimately crossing the Richmond Parkway. To fill in the gap, the West Shore Expressway was built in the 1970s; prior to that point, Richmond Avenue carried NY 440.
Another good one is i-180 in Illinois. I believe it's the country's least traveled interstate. Built to connect I-80 to a steel mill that shortly thereafter went out of business.
Hennepin, IL.
The Baltimore US-40 segment was constructed with provision for rail transit in its median. The rail transit provision was originally planed to be used for an east west subway line proposed in the 1970s. An east west light rail line is presently being proposed to make use of it.
390, elgin ohare expressway. Built a bridge abutment and bridge for overpass to what i believe was a parking lot ,field upgraded. Didn't know much about this eway till i worked on it . Legitimately connects two hubs, but never was fully realized. Im from chicago, lifelong resident. The funny thing was asking the engineer about completion and anticipated openings. There answer was in 5-10 years. It felt like the build it ,they will come mindset and of course the build America money was there 😮
The infamous Amztutz at least got used for some movie scenes. Plus they repaved it about 8-10 years ago, so it's much smoother to go like hell on for 2 miles.
Great content! I live 5-min from The Goat Path and travel over the bridges that cross it quite often.
Me too! I've even driven on the new portion there in Greenfield. At the terminus there's a roundabout for parking and a walking/biking path as well as leading to the Greenfield Rd light. In the middle of the roundabout is a piece of art depicting goat silhouettes.
@daffers2345 I have driven the new portion several times. Just last week as I was going into the roundabout I took notice of the goats. It gave me a chuckle.
I just use number 1 last night. it has it's uses but it is what it is. A road to Nowhere !!!
You might also add WI 145, the Fond du Lac Freeway in Milwaukee. Originally part of Milwaukee's grandiose freeway planning in the 1960s, it was built through half of its route, and is now an underused freeway that starts at I-41 and sputters out around Capitol Drive.
Take a look at the Samuel Clements Highway in Elmira, New York. My dad always called it "The Highway to Nowhere." Apparently there was never a successful connection to any other main highway and now it is just a road to cross Elmira from one end to the other.
I definitely will, thanks for the suggestion!
Elgin-O’Hare highway in Chicagoland. They’re currently working on completing the “O’Hare” end from the current end on that side (after at least 25 years) but nothing even planned for the Elgin end. When you get to the end on that side you can see right where it was planned to go as it’s a long path of empty land, but there isn’t any highway there lol.
The goat path in Lancaster Pa. was not abandoned because of a lack of funds. It was halted by politicians who were swayed away from the project to pay favor to the Pennsylvania Dutch tourist industry. You see the extension of 23 to meet route US 30 at Gap Pa. would take traffic off business route 30, the Lincoln Highway the home of 300 motels, all you can eat buffets, and the infamous Dutch Wonderland the castle amusement park in the center of the Amish vacation paradise. (What a castle has to do with the plain farm life of the Amish is a mystery to me). The citizens who live here have to deal with the traffic nightmare of business route 30 because the tourist industry thinks that a bypass would cause them to lose a nickel to the New Yorkers looking for some good old fresh air.
I was expecting Illinois ' I-180
I am from Waukegan, glad to see the Amstutz mentioned. The empty land eat of the baseball field used to be Johnsmanville. Many movies used it as a filming location. It was built starting in 1968. The Blues Brother was filmed there.
So cool to see the Goat Path on here! I live very close by and have driven on the new portion. My grandparents lived next to the graded area on Willow Road (the house is gone now).
Farther east along the Path, there's even an abandoned area where they started to build ramps and had to abandon it, and a bridge with no highway on top, just grass. It's kind if spooky, especially the abandoned ramp area.
A certain Talking Heads song leaps to mind.
This is super interesting to me. I live near Lancaster and visit sometimes and about a year ago I noticed the beginning of the construction of the walnut street extension, but haven’t seen it until now watching this video. It instantly came to mind when I was just watching your other video about highways to nowhere lol
thank you for talking about “the stack”!
There is another one in Boston. North bound rt93, on the upper deck there is a stub that veers off to the left. That was supposed to be the start of a highway that would connect to the rt3/rt95 interchange in Burlington Ma.
One that I see a few times per year on my trips is the Pike Road exit "Route 108" on I-85 east of Montgomery, AL. It took 30 years of planning just to get the first phase which is a 4 mile stretch from I-85 to Vaughn Rd, it opened in 2016 and the rest of the planned bypass has stalled. Instead of a bypass for faster access from I-85 to I-65, bypassing the insanity of Montgomery traffic and the current outdated I-85/I-65 intersection, the remaining 3 phases remain stuck in red tape, the old tiny town of "Pike Road" fighting it, and land owners not willing to give up their land.
During WWII the TVA built Fontana Dam, the tallest in the eastern US, which impounded Fontana Lake, which became the southern boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The lake flooded out numerous communities and the road connecting them, and left family cemeteries (now on National Park land) inaccessible. The government promised to build a new 30-mile road along the north shore of the lake, but for many reasons only six miles were ever built, or ever will be. The controversy over whether to finish the road ran into the 21st century. You can drive those six miles down "Lakeview Drive" from Bryson City, NC, called by locals the "Road to Nowhere." (The Park Service still periodically ferries family members across the lake to visit the cemeteries.)
Hartford county resident here, the I-291 beltway was cancelled because the route that was planned had a lot of environmental concerns. The planned route would disturb local water and gas line infrastructure.
For a while, part of SR-30 (the Foothill Freeway) was a sort of highway to nowhere from I-210 to Foothill Boulevard in the Glendora area. There were proposals to extend the freeway through Upland and Fontana to connect with a freeway loop around San Bernardino, but that was not constructed until the 90s. Of course, today this section of road is anything but a "highway to nowhere", but for decades it certainly was considering its abrupt end.
I wondered what the Stack was when
passing Farmington,CT on I 84. 😊
Quite familiar with #1. Frequently went into Baltimore via this as a kid and later. Down 40 from my grandparents house literally on that highway a couple miles down. First off, it’s odd, but it isn’t really nowhere. Both ends connect to regular city street US 40. It became sort of a quick short bypass so you don’t have to stop at all those intersections you see. And don’t blame the bypass highway for problems. Baltimore became a big problem increasingly after the ‘60s, everywhere just about, not simply in this area.
My family and just I traveled to Houston, which has a lot of the 4-layer "stack" interchanges that take up less land area than a traditional cloverleaf. I was thinking about what my father called "The Crazy Mixed Up Bridge" in Connecticut, not knowing it was nicknamed "The Stack" 3:55. We drove under it every year on our way up to Vermont to go camping. I always thought it was 4 layers tall because it was the hypothetical intersection of 4 highways, not knowing what it looked like from the air, and not knowing about the Stack Interchange. Fascinating! Brings back memories. Thank you.
"I was thinking about what my father called "The Crazy Mixed Up Bridge" in Connecticut, not knowing it was nicknamed "The Stack""
No, you father was thinking of the mix-master over Waterbury, CT which connects I-84 to Route 8. Its quite the spectacle.
@@guytech7310 Hey thanks for the feedback, but "The Stack" in Farmington, CT was what I personally remember, especially since the on-ramps and off-ramps all ended in gravel. The mix-master in Waterbury is fascinating because it's a "normal" interchange, bounded by a river, so all the connecting ramps had to be on one bank. But it's only 3 layers deep (two bridges tall) max.
If you want a wild satellite view of an interchange, check out Plymouth Meeting, PA (476/276) because it joins three toll roads with one free one, back in the days with human toll takers, thus they had to have a toll plaza for all the possibilities.
In Guntersville, Alabama there's Monsanto Rd. A 2.5 mile 4 lane divided highway that connects a 2 lane road to a dead-end.
7:20 The abandoned Laurel Hill tunnel on the PA Turnpike has been used by Chip Ganassi Racing for wind tunnel testing by both IndyCar and NASCAR teams. No wind, no rain, perfectly repeatable real-world conditions, with no worries about the effects of the moving floor in a traditional test facility.
Very cool stuff!
The amstutz highway was used for a movie back in the early 2010s, Now, it is a small highway that will take you between waukegan and some other place. I live in waukegan so i know all about this.
The Amstutz Expressway was also used in the filming of The Blues Brothers and Groundhog Day…
I live in Alaska and have been to Ketchikan.
To go from the airport into Ketchikan (or anywhere) you need to take the ferry between the islands. It takes about 90 seconds to cross, but there's other traffic on the water including fishing boats, pleasure boats, sea planes, and cruise ships.
Also, the runway is significantly higher than the terminal. You taxi on a pretty severe incline and the pilots have to add a bit of throttle to make it up to the runway.
I-390 into O'Hare AKA the Elgin-O'Hare. Even among locals it's a mystery sometimes. Happy digging. A lot to unpack between the railroads, aviation industry, trucking industry, and local residents.Then there are utilities that want access to the stretch underground.
Awesome! I'll definitely dig into it!
I believe now that they're finally constructing I-490 around O'Hare's westside, it will actually be connection to something more than 294. Only problem with it for me is the fact both roads keep getting called western O'Hare access roads yet all they do is connect you around to the eastern access point. If they're going to build these roads they need to have an alternate entry to O'Hare.
The rt40 segment, while not technically a highway to nowhere, as it is still in use and many people use it, is very out of place compared to the rest of 40. Most of the Balto section of 40 is at-grade, slow, filled with stoplights and businesses and housing and it's a regular inter-city road.
But then there's this section of lowered highway-style pavement that just looks off and feels weird and I guess now I know why.
Supposedly there's plans to put the new RedLine in there between the sides of the street but there's enough other things there that it could prove to be too expensive
You also have the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway(the SOB) on Long Island originally intended to cross the Long Island Sound to Port Chester, NY, where it would connect with I-287. The bridge was never built and the 10 mile expressway(NY- 135) ends in Syosset.
When rout 128 was being built it was called a highway from nowhere to nowhere which to be fair is true as it connects no major cities but it still ended up being among the most valuable and used highways in the nation.
There is the original I-40 through Memphis. Also a unused I-755 in St. Louis, the stub ramps are gone now when a soccer stadium was built. Shreveport may end up having a highway to nowhere where ghost ramps are a permanent feature for I-49. It depends if they build that connector or not.
The section of North Second Street between Rockford Illinois and Loves Park Illinois was part of an never finished highway project hence it having ramps and overpasses / underpasses in some sections and some streets connect to it. Also two road bridges over the Rock River via ramps ( Whitman Street and Auburn Street / Spring Creek Road ) Also the former CN&W ( UP) Chicago to Janesville Wisconsin line crosses Auburn Street / Spring Creek Road also the connecting ramps to North Second Street then into Loves Park the tracks make an curve crossing North Second Street.
Wow, the description of #1 could apply equally to I-375 in Detroit.
It'd be nice to highlight the roads on a map as you name them!
Down the road on the lowest bridge level of the stack there, at the northern end of what was built, is a giant stack of wood. You can see it is overgrown with trees now (it also looks like some of it was cleaned up), but 25 years ago it was just a giant pile of logs. On more than one occasion did people try to get it going into a massive bonfire. Though none that I saw lasted very long. Note that by "logs" I really mean "entire trunks of trees" and there were some big trees there.
I-80 runs so close to Sparks NV, you can see Hell.
The baltimore highway to nowhere was a resounding success - it divided a neighborhood, ruined the surrounding property values and drove masses of people to flee to the suburbs exactly as intended.
It's good the one in Baltimore was halted , as the locals would no doubt have been dropping rocks and crap on the cars travelling below !
The Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee, WI is an interesting story. It was paid for using federal funds as part of the Lake Front Freeway project that was eventually cancelled. The bridge was built in 1972 but it stood unconnected to anything until 1977 after the Federal Government threatened to bill the state for it's construction costs unless it was put into use. Simple on and off ramps were constructed to local roads but the bridge still was under utilized until 1998 when it was finally connected to a highway. Despite this connection, the bridge is highly unused and there have been discussions on removing it in favor of a surface road which would be much cheaper to maintain. Fun fact - The Hoan was used in the filming of a major car chase scene in the movie The Blues Brothers.
apparently that car chase scene was filmed two years after the bridge opened and was on another (then) unused stretch of I-794.
You could also do one on unending projects, like the Philadelphia side of the Betsy Ross bridge. I think it was completed in the late 70's or early 80's and they're still working on the ramps to connect it to I-95.
Add NY Rt 219 Expressway, from Buffalo to Pennsylvania...but never made it past Springville NY, and was extended 4 useless miles to absolutely nowhere, putting motorists back onto the original old Rt 219.
I-380 in CA was never completed and has abandoned overpasses that dead end.
I'm not surprised to see CT mentioned twice. My parents moved from CT to upstate NY when I was around 3. We would go back mutiple times a year to visit relatives and we started to notice a something, it would take CT 3-5 years to complete a road project that would take 1 year back in NY. I'm not even talking about big projects either, whatever they were doing as far as road work took forever for them to finish.
Cool video. I live in lancaster pa so the goat path with its ghost bridges and ramps always fascinates me. I also been on the new extention a few times which seems almost pointless. In fact it looks like they use it more as a dragway with all the tire marks. I also been to the abandoned turnpike many times. And also PA 61 in centrailia which was not mentioned before they covered it in dirt piles.
The failure of Baltimore to complete the I-70 to I-95 connector has resulted in exceptionally and legendary high traffic on the Baltimore Beltway. Few people understand why the beltway traffic is so bad, and it is in large part because that connector - which would have taken a lot of pressure off the beltway - was never constructed. You can still see the ramps on I-95 that were created for this stretch of road.
Another "highway to nowhere" is the planned extension of New Jersey 18, which ends at exit 6 in Wall Township. Originally planned to continue south from NJ 138 to Point Pleasant (5 1/2 miles south), political issues - namely its proximity to land owned by an influential politician who didn't want it disturbing his plans for developing his property - caused the cancellation of the remaining distance. And while the highway as it exists is still very useful from 138 all the way to New Brunswick (divided expressway from Wall to exit 30 and then non-expressway north until its termination at I-287 in Piscataway) it would have helped significantly reduce traffic south of Wall headed to the beach south of Belmar, instead of forcing it all onto the badly overcrowded route 35.
Hadn't heard of that one before, appreciate the suggestion!
Just keep practicing! You'll do it!
There are a number around the Sacramento area. One overpass for an unbuilt freeway is now used for a light rail train route, while the one for the opposite side of the freeway is unused. There are also offramps that were supposed to be interchanges but now just dump out onto regular streets.
Lake Ontario State Pkwy in New York should be included in this.
I remember going under a double decker bridge in central Illinois that lead to nowhere. They built the bridges in the early 80s for an expressway that wasn't built until the 90s I believe.
With today's burgeoning traffic and massive congestion on our streets, many of these projects should be revitalized and brought back onto the table, perhaps even at smaller scales than had originally been planned. Population never decreases, and it is kind of myopic to cancel projects when there are great chances that increasing traffic will occur in the near decades. Additionally, it's always better to build incrementally than to start with nothing and then build out a grandiose, multi-billion-dollar public works project. Start with a small, rural highway, and then upgrade it to a Super-Two as necessary. Then later on that Super-Two can be converted to a real 4-lane limited-access highway.
I'm very familiar with that Stack in Connecticut. At least part of it was put to some use. On the abandoned PA Turnpike, Rays Hill tunnel was the shortest of the original seven tunnels at 0.7 miles while Sideling Hill tunnel was the longest at 1.3 miles.
Louisiana Highway 45 on the Westbank in Jefferson Parish south of New Orleans it's a perfect example.
Look at the Route 7 Connector in Connecticut it was supposed to go all the way to Danbury but wealthy people with money stopped it from going through their town
One good example, on Long Island, New York, is Suffolk County Route 46, also known as the William Floyd Parkway. While the road does connect to a park in the south, the north/south highway was originally created as a connection with a proposed bridge to Connecticut which was eventually rejected by Connecticut. It ends abruptly at NY State 25A.
There’s also a part of the PA-23 ghost highway in Norristown, PA. Not much of it built though, just a little stub after an intersection with US-202
Very cool!!!!
Thanks!! Appreciate the positivity!!
The thumbnail is Connecticut about 10 minutes from me
Good stuff well made perfect timing and fits in with my urban interest good stuff my man
Thanks, really appreciate the kind words!
Yay, the stacks! Gotta appreciate Connecticut content.
Great video! Here's another entry: the Tri- Borough Road Cloverleaf Interchange in Florham Park NJ, over Route24; listed as a "historical site" by google maps. It was supposed to connect to the never-completed Eisenhower Pkwy extension.
I think it is Schaumburg, Illinois. What do you think of Elgin-O'Hare Exspressway? In a another video, the person felf an exspessway near Quincy, Illinois is silly. what do you think?
I was just gonna suggest something outside the US, but I see you already thought of that🤙🏼
I've got a few roads to nowhere in mind, but if you have any suggestions, id definitely be happy to hear them!
@@BuildingTalesAnother one: Universitätsstrasse in Dortmund south of the TU Dortmund. Does not look built through. Looks like an Autobahn, but feels oversized just to bring people to the University of Dortmund.
We have a few in my state in Australia, but it was other improvements that caused them to become redundant.
In 2 cases, they reworked the roads into future road planning, and put them to good use.
Go check out the King Cole highway in southern West Virginia. It is WV's highway to nowhere!
Baltimore's I-40 highway was only ever about taking a thriving neighborhood and turn it into blight. Justice is well overdue
Great video, I am glad this showed up in my recommendations
Thanks! Glad you found it interesting!
Personally I would like to know the story behind Hammersley Avenue in the Bronx. It's only about six blocks long, and wider than all of the main thoroughfares around it. It seems almost as wide as the New England Thruway (I-95) at its east end.
Great video. Need more of them!
Thanks, appreciate the kind words! More on the way, every Friday evening
Another good one is the Akron interbelt (OH-59).
The London Ringways Project UK, that would be many videos in itself!
I think the PA Turnpike gets an unfair treatment from these types of videos. It was connected and useful as intended, not partially completed to nowhere.
the concept of connecting a port to the airport at least makes sense (Alaska). Connecting rich suburbs to the beach? Not so much.
While it did eventually get built, I-35 north from Kansas City used to be a "highway to nowhere" in that in the late 1960s and early 1970s the completed section of it ended somewhere near Winston MO (if you've never heard of Winston MO, that's kind of the point). If you wanted to continue north from there, you had to switch to US Route 69.
Love the content! Please keep at it and keep upping your editing game!
Thanks! And it’s definitely a work in progress as you can see, but the last month or so I’ve started to make a real effort to learn the editing side of things … so hopefully it will only get better from here on!
I’ve hiked the top trail it’s really cool
The Gravina Island connection will probably be feasible someday when the community grows larger, especially since the highway section is already there.
The pa turnpike was abandoned mainly because the tunnels were not tall enough for commercial traffic requirements of 14 feet
The tunnels were only 2 lanes (one lane each way.) Traffic congestion could be awful, and head-on crashes were often deadly.
@@francissullivan5900 that had nothing to do with why that section was abandoned. The tunnels were not tall enough for commercial truck traffic. Look it up if you don't believe me. The two way traffic was a common thing before the 1970's
It's an everywhere thing indeed. Close to where I live in the Netherlands is an abandoned stretch of highway, built in the seventies, which ends at the border of the next regional authority. That one did not want that road. In the end a two-lane part was opened with a strange sharp curve at the end to connect it to a regional road.
Route 63 in Philadelphia PA
Thanks for the idea!
City Planner Plays would call a mulligan on those.
For the Baltimore one they already put in the on/off ramps to I-95 for it before it got stopped. After 20 years of a ramp that just went out and stopped 100 feet off the ground the Fed gov passed more funds to tear it all down. You can still see parts of what's left of it between the Washington Blvd and Caton Ave exits on I-95.